Theological Commentary: Click Here
Ezra 1 &
2 is a rollercoaster of emotion.
Honestly. I know it doesn’t read
that way on the surface, but it truly does show us the awesomely humbling power
of God and how it relates to us as human beings. I’m going to take a closer look.
Think back
to the Exodus. There was a pre-iron age
civilization. In Egypt, even the most
conservative estimate of the Hebrew population rose to a half-million. There could have been as many as two million
people. God brought that host out of
Egypt and created the Hebrew nation.
Unfortunately,
they disobeyed. The Hebrew people went
into decline and then went into captivity.
Israel fell into captivity under Assyria. Judah went into captivity under Babylon. That huge host of people was reduced to being
servants of another nation.
Here in Ezra
we hear how God brings the people out once more. This time, there is no great Exodus; God uses
a Persian king to free His own people without any plaguelike depictions of His power. The number of Hebrew people who come back are
less than a half of a hundred thousand – a shy cry of the possible two million
that came out of Egypt. Nothing in this congregation
of the Hebrew nation matches the first one.
Nothing,
that is, except the God who is empowering it to happen. God doesn’t need massive numbers of followers. God doesn’t need great displays of
power. God is enough all by Himself. That’s why this chapter is the gamut of
emotion.
On one hand,
this chapter is incredible humbling. God
doesn’t need us to be great in number or in person. He doesn’t need us to be powerful. He doesn’t accept us because of our power or
prestige or anything else. Yet, this
chapter is exhilarating because we can recognize that God is incredibly
powerful! He can make a nation out of
millions of slaves. He can rebuild the
nation with less than two percent of that with which He originally started. He
is an incredibly awesome God who is able to do anything with big or small
things.
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