00A.08 Ezra 8
Ezra 8:1-36 The men listed in Ezra 8:1-14, together with their families, went with Ezra. It would have been so much easier for them to settle in Mesopotamia where they had grown up but they return to the place of God’s choice (Deuteronomy 12:1-32) and God is with them.
It may seem strange though, at first sight, that Ezra makes them stop at river Ahava (Ezra 8:15). But before proceeding to Jerusalem, important preparation had to be made, in at least two ways:
- First, there was a lack of Levites and Ezra sends 11 men to find Levites to come with them. Only 38 are found, and 220 servants (Nethinim), but at lease this small number join Ezra and those with him. There seems to be a chronic shortage of ’Levites’, people who take care of the house and people of God (Numbers 3:7) - may many hear the call today!
- Second, Ezra called for fasting, humiliation and prayer (Ezra 8:21). Instead of relying on the armed escort offered by the heathen king, Ezra wanted to rely on God and to depend on Him.
You see that we do not have a scribe here (in Ezra) who ’knows it all’ and goes to ’sort them out’ in Jerusalem. His frame of mind is quite different. The time in prayer at the river Ahava was well spent (Ezra 8:23).
Finally, Ezra entrusts the silver and gold, the vessels for the house of God, to 12 of the chief priests and gives them instruction to look after these treasures. They do so faithfully. Everything is weighed and numbered and, good to see, when they arrive everything is accounted for, nothing has gone missing. May it be so with the things the Lord entrusted to us, whether material or otherwise (1 Timothy 6:20). The Lord protected them from enemies and robbers (Ezra 8:31). Arrived in Jerusalem, they offer a sacrifice. Again (compare Ezra 6:1-22), it is striking that they offered ’12 bullocks for all Israel’. Only a minority of only two tribes were present. But they were in the right place and they realised that they were not the people of God but only formed part of it. In their burnt offering as well as in their sin offering (12 he goats) they took account of the whole people of God, 12 tribes.