Return from Exile: Ezra 1-3 (6)

Pray Psalm 92.1-4.
It is good to give thanks to the LORD,
And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,
And Your faithfulness every night,
On an instrument of ten strings,
On the lute,
And on the harp,
With harmonious sound.
For You, LORD, have made me glad through Your work;
I will triumph in the works of Your hands.

Sing Psalm 92.1-4.
(Sweet Hour: Sweet Hour of Prayer)
How good it is to thank the Lord and praise to God Most High accord;
by day to let His kindness ring, His faithfulness by night to sing.
With ten-stringed lute, resounding lyre, and sweetest harp we’ll lift You higher.
For You have made our souls rejoice; we sing Your praise with blended voice!

Read Ezra 3.1-13; meditate on verses 10-13.

Prepare
1. Why did the people shout with joy?

2. Why did the old men weep?

Meditation
The first phase of the temple rebuild was to lay the foundation. Once this was completed, the people celebrated—priests and trumpets and cymbals and loud praises from the descendants of Asaph, who were appointed to lead the worship in Israel (v. 10; cf. 1 Chron. 25.1-7). The choir sang responsively, possibly a version of Psalm 136 (v. 11). The people joined in with shouting “because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid” (v. 11).

This was indeed a sweet celebration, filled, it seems with praise, gratitude, and hope. But not everyone rejoiced: “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes” (v. 12). They wept because the new temple seemed as nothing to them, compared with the temple they lost (cf. Hag. 2.1-3).

But their weeping did not dampen the overall mood of joy (v. 12). It was a loud and boisterous day, weeping and shouting and singing and trumpets and cymbals all combining to make a loud sound that “was heard afar off” (v. 13). That last phrase points us to a problem on the horizon: pagan nations not at all happy about the goings-on in Jerusalem and Judah.

These days we want only joy and rejoicing and happiness in our faith. We have almost no sense of what we have lost of true Christianity, so busy are we trying to fit our experience into the modes and methods of our modern world. We want a faith that is sweet. Bitterness has little place in today’s captive churches. Although we will not recover the true and lasting sweetness of revival without the bitterness and sorrow of repentance for what we have lost.

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162.
“Yet many people shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off” (Ezra 3.12, 13).

A similar ruckus accosted Moses and Joshua as they descended the mountain after having received the tablets of stone upon which the Law was written. As you remember, Aaron, the priest, was busy celebrating with the children of Israel over the golden calf he had created; so, when they heard the noise from the camp, Joshua said, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But Moses said, “It is not the noise of the shout of victory, nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing I hear” (Ex. 32.17, 18). Turns out, they were both wrong, as it was the sound of unrestrained and sinful revelry in the camp.

Sometimes people simply hear what they hear, from their own perspective, like Moses and Joshua; and the truth of what they hear is something else entirely.

The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin didn’t want to hear anything at all coming from these folks. Silence and inactivity would have pleased them best. Instead, the noises of joy and of weeping combined to make a loud sound of “We are here, and we are doing the work of praising our God and rebuilding our lives in accordance with His plans for us!” Whether it was weeping or rejoicing it was at least a noise of the active Presence of God in His people.

It is true, that we must be careful to obey the mandate to: “aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands…that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing” (1 Thess. 4.11, 12). And “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Tim. 2.2). And of course, that the hidden person of the heart, “with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Pet. 3.4) be the predominant factor of each of our lives.

But we are not called to roll over and play dead when evil rears its ugly head around us. Think of Aaron and that awful golden calf. He should not have participated in that, nor should he have encouraged others to do so. He needed to take a noble stand against the evil of his day. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5.8).
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We must make alive noises in our faith. If we are to be honest, we are not always happy and rejoicing. But we are always God’s people. And we can always make noises of praise to our perfect and ruling Savior Jesus Christ. Our adversaries must be aware of us in their sphere of living. For their sakes, we dare not remain silent. But we must never be known to make the noises of the camp of Aaron. Because no matter who is listening to that raucous hubbub, it is bad, and is never misunderstood once it is known for what it is.

So, even if your day is a bit bittersweet, this noise is always rousing and acceptable, and bespeaks life:
“Praise the LORD!”
“Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
praise Him with the lute and harp!
Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
Praise Him with loud cymbals;
praise Him with clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!” (Ps. 150.1, 3-6)

For reflection
1. Our experience in Jesus ought to include both rejoicing and sorrowing. Explain.

2. Giving thanks is an important way that we grow our relationship with the Lord. Why is this so?

3. Whom will you encourage today to rejoice and give thanks? Who needs you to comfort them in their sorrowing?

They rejoiced greatly because they had been freed from captivity and had received the authority to restore the temple, but they wept loudly because they knew that the first temple, whose size and beauty they could in no way equal, had been destroyed on account of their wickedness. The Venerable Bede (672-735), On Ezra and Nehemiah 1.4

Pray Psalm 92.5-15.
Call on the Lord to let His sweet Word work mightily in your soul, to make you more like Jesus and to equip you for good work in your Personal Mission Field.

Sing Psalm 92.5-15.
(Sweet Hour: Sweet Hour of Prayer)
How sweet Your works, Your thoughts how deep. The fool cannot such knowledge keep.
Like grass the wicked rise each day; in judgment they are swept away.
But You, O Lord, abide on high; Your enemies shall fall and die.
All those who sin shall scattered be, but, Lord, You have exalted me!

My eye my vanquished foe shall see; my ears hear those who threaten me.
Yet in God’s house, where he belongs, the righteous like a tree grows strong.
Then let us green and fruitful be and flourish like a mighty tree,
To tell God’s righteousness abroad: He is our Rock, our sovereign God!

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available free by clicking here.