Road Trippin With Rachael

An Introduction To Ezra

Welcome to the beginning of our study on the book of Ezra! I’m so excited to be working through this lovely book with you.

I wanted to begin this study with some historical background, so we can all be on the same page as we are going through the book. To begin, Ezra was a contemporary of Nehemiah – hence the reason we are going through both books this year – and references other prophets from during the same time period, Haggai and Zechariah. In the first 5 chapters of Ezra, we get an overview of what happened from the time of the Hebrew people being allowed to return to Israel, the arguments over being allowed to build the temple made by the surrounding peoples, and how the documents were later discovered and permissions regranted. As we move to chapter 7 and following, we will be focusing on Ezra’s ministry, which takes place during the reign of King Artaxerxes (the same king Nehemiah served).

And please remember that I also post teaching videos on my YouTube Channel: Road Trippin With Rachael. These blog posts will coincide with the channel. I also teach and write these blog posts with the mindset that you are reading along in your bible.

Now, let’s begin as we look at how God works through the heart of people to bring about his will.

Heart Of Those In Authority

God doesn’t need you or I. He is perfectly perfect without any sort of outside interference. He doesn’t need us to do things for him; he doesn’t need to use us in any way, shape, or form – in fact, we probably just make things worse. But, God chooses to work through his creation (ie. us) to bring about his will. Part of that is him moving in the hearts of people who are placed in authority to bring about what he intends to happen. In Ezra 1:1 we read this first hand –

“This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The LORD, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed to build him a house in Jerusalem in Judah.” (CSB)

King Cyrus was first introduced in the Old Testament, not in Daniel where he plays a prominent role, but in Isaiah 45:1 and 13. Before the Hebrew people entered Babylon, God announced that he was going to be at work in the heart of Cyrus to eventually bring the people back to the land that had been promised to them.

Lest we think that this was a one time event, we can go through both scripture and history to see other examples of God working through the hearts of leaders to influence their decisions. One example would be Pharaoh (Exodus 7:22). God was going to use the plagues that struck Egypt as a way to showcase his glory and dominion. God both hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and fulfilled the desire of Pharaoh to harden his own heart (Exodus 8:15). The back and forth of Pharaoh hardening his own heart and God hardening his heart, together allowed for God to display his power through the plagues, and later it was this hardening that humbled the Egyptian army. But Pharaoh wasn’t the only leader who was humbled and and used by God. King Nebuchadnezzar, the one who decimated Israel, took the people captive, removed them from their homes, razed the temple, and tossed people into a burning furnace, was humbled to the point that he recognized who God is (Daniel 4). The Lord works in mysterious ways, and one of the ways that he has done that has been not only through what we would consider to be obvious ways, but through the hearts of those who you would think opposed him.

Heart Of His People

Based on the title I gave this section, it should be self explanatory: God works in the hearts of his people. It sounds like it should be something so simple, but it is this beautiful work that changes people’s hearts, and brings them to a place where they are willing and eager to do his work. This includes both changing the heart of the person, calling the individual, and spurring them on to do his work. Let’s look at a few of these.

When we talk about changing the heart of the person, what I am actually referencing is soteriology – to the study of salvation. God can do great work in and through the lives of people whether they ever confess him as Lord or not (as we see with the example of Pharaoh in the earlier section), but to be “His People” would imply that there is a deeper relationship there, and that will be my starting point.

To begin, we can look to Ezra 1:2 (CSB) – “Any of his people among you, may his God be with him, and may he go to Jerusalem in Judah and build the house of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.” Cyrus may have made this a blanket statement to include all the Israelites among them, but it eludes to there being those who aren’t his people, even if they were descended from Abraham. Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:24 – these two scriptures are typically referred to as the New Covenant texts. God, through the mouths of the prophets, tells the people that out of the whole of Israel, there will be those called to be his; they will receive new hearts , and there will be a genuine love for him, and a desire to share him with others. A work in done in them that goes beyond mere actions. The Apostle Paul will later refer to this as being a new creation in Christ Jesus (II Corinthians 5:17). This heart change leads to a desire to do his will, and we will later see the prophet Haggai calling the people to task for not getting to work on the temple as they were supposed to, but also how the hearts of the people were ready for it, and they begin to build in earnest (Haggai 1). They were spurred on to do God’s will, to honor him, and to see that he received his proper place.

But, since we as a whole are accustomed to thinking in terms of where we attend, or what group we are associated with as being indicative of our assurance of salvation, I feel compelled to point out that Ezra 1:4, speaks of the spirits of the people whom God roused. This would indicate that there were those who didn’t respond, who were not roused (or called) to return to Israel. This can be taken in many different ways. One view is that they were not a part of that remnant that is spoken of in Ezekiel 36. These are those who chose to remain in the exile, and embraced the life amongst those who were pagan. But another view, which I would argue is possible, is that God didn’t rouse the spirits of all his people to return, because they were called to live a life that was different from their neighbors and share God with them. Personally, I think both options happened. There were those who liked the life they created for themselves, embraced where they were at, and didn’t feel a need to worship God the way they had pre-Babylon. But there are also those, who like the Church today, live and work amongst those who don’t share the same beliefs, lifestyle choices, or moral compasses because that is where God has called them to minister and be a light in a very dark world. Either and both are potential possibilities.

Final Thoughts

God will always bring about his will. He has regularly worked in the hearts of those in the seats of power to bring his will to fruition. He used Cyrus to open the proverbial prison walls the Israelite people had been in for seventy years, and allowed for them to return to the land God gave to Abraham, as he used a negativity of Pharaoh in Egypt to release the people from slavery. It is not only the hearts of the those in power that God uses, but he also uses the everyday people – working in their lives to bring about new hearts and minds that cause them to ambitiously tackle the things that God has called to do. In my personal opinion, just because one group is called to one thing doesn’t meant that those who aren’t to that one thing aren’t believers; practically speaking, that may and often is the answer, but it also means that God is calling them to something different.