Jeremiah

The next prophet we meet is Jeremiah. Where Isaiah is full of soaring rhetoric and great hope Jeremiah has much of a reputation for doom and gloom. In part this is due to the context of Jeremiah’s ministry. He comes a bit further on in Judah’s existence. He is preaching at the time of Josiah, and continues into Zedekiah’s reign.

His ministry contains a lot of judgement, and a lot about the need for Judah to accept that they were living in a time when God was going to judge them. If you read 2 Kings you can see how drastic Josiah’s reforms were, and yet if you read Jeremiah you can see how little impact they actually had.

Josiah cleaned up the temple worship. He got rid of idols. He pulled down the high places where idols were worshipped, and where worship of Yahweh was mixed with idolatry. He did more than any king before him. And yet this was Jeremiah’s verdict as he stood outside the temple

“‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. ³ This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” ⁵ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, ⁶ if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. ⁸ But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

Jeremiah 7:2-8

Imagine Jeremiah today standing outside your church, or perhaps at the Christian convention you enjoy most, and saying “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying we trust in the Word of the Lord, the Word of the Lord, the Word of the Lord.” (or “we are filled with the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord”, or “we engage with God’s world, with God’s world, with God’s world” if your favourite conference has a different feel…)

The people needed to do more than pay lip service to the temple, more than follow the services and sacrifices, more than just know the right words. They needed to change their behaviour – notice how critical doing justice is to true worship. So often today different Christian groups emphasis justice or truth or purity – but we need all of them to be integrated into our walks with God.

Jeremiah also complains bitterly to God about the task he has of preaching judgement – and yet God’s only response is to send him back to repeat his message. There are plenty of false prophets around prophesying hope and immanent revival. Babylon will not judge. And yet this what God’s word to those prophets is (Jeremiah 23):

“Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you;
    they fill you with false hopes.
They speak visions from their own minds,
    not from the mouth of the Lord.
¹⁷ They keep saying to those who despise me,
    ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’
And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts
    they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’
¹⁸ But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord
    to see or to hear his word?
    Who has listened and heard his word?

Jeremiah 23:16-18

²⁵ “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ ²⁶ How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? ²⁷ They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal worship. ²⁸ Let the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the Lord. ²⁹ “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

Jeremiah 23:25-29

The challenge to the true prophet is to stick to what God says. No more, no less. Because it is God’s word that is like fire, like a hammer. It is God’s word that will have a lasting impact when all human schemes have crumbled to dust. And it is God’s word that will bring true and lasting peace – shalom – when all the words that promised peace have faded away.

That is why, when the people are exiled, Jeremiah can write to them in Jeremiah 29:

⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. ⁸ For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,^{[a] 9} for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

¹⁰ “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare^[b] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:7-11

Here it is important to see that the word ‘welfare’ is the same word for ‘peace’ used elsewhere. True welfare, peace – shalom – a wholeness, a flourishing is only possible when we trust in God. His plans for his people are ultimately for wholeness and flourishing even if in the short term it is really difficult to see how that will work.

And so Jeremiah continues in the dark times to speak God’s word. He tells of judgement on the nations around, and of judgement on Judah. He himself is put down a well and his scroll burnt. But he keeps on speaking God’s word. He prophesies too of judgement on Babylon, Judah’s exilers, and promises restoration for the people – buying a field in the land, as a sign that God will bring his people back. There will be shalom once more.

In the midst of all that are these wonderful promises:

³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Jeremiah 31:31-35

I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. ³⁸ And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹ I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. ⁴⁰ I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. ⁴¹ I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Jeremiah 32:27-41

That promises finds its ultimate fulfilment in Jesus. The return from the exile never lived up to these hopes. But Jesus came, to bring nations into God’s people and to bring about the renewal of the whole earth. Our destiny is not disembodied clouds, it is the fulness of all that the promises of the land in the OT pointed to.

We who are Abraham’s children by faith experience a foretaste of this promise now, but there is a day coming when we will know the fulness of the promise. We can know today what it is that God rejoices in doing us good, but one day we will see that fully. We will know what it is to have one heart and one way – no longer divided internally or from each other. We will know perfect peace. That is the promise Jeremiah points us to and that we can hold on to this day.

Resources:

A good short introduction to Jeremiah is “Run with Horses” by Eugene Peterson – and I the BST is by Chris Wright so should be excellent.

Isaiah

With Isaiah we move into the prophetic books.  Prophecy in the bible is often misunderstood. Prophecy is not primarily about telling the future in detail (although it certainly involves telling of God’s purposes and plans for the future), it is much more about giving God’s verdict on what people are doing at that moment.  Israel’s prophets continually assess Israel by God’s standards, and call Israel back to obedience to the covenant.

Isaiah is no exception.  He prophesies at a critical time in Judah’s history.  Chapters 1-39 are addressed to the situation of Israel at the time of some of the Judean Kings when they faced a battle for survival as a small kingdom sandwiched between the great powers of Egypt in the west and Assyria in the east.  

Isaiah 1-2 reveals the problems in the kingdom – there is widespread injustice, and a massive amount of inequality in society.  The wealthy flaunt their wealth while the poor go hungry. They carry on their sacrifices to Yahweh, but Yahweh would rather they didn’t – they should spend their time and effort first of all in repentance and seeking his forgiveness.  Then right worship could resume, once relationships had been restored.

And yet there is a hope held out, there is a day when God’s word will go out from Jerusalem, and the nations will come streaming in, when they will say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

Isaiah 2:3-4

Then the book finishes on this note:

“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.

Isaiah 65:17-19

The rest of Isaiah in between these two sections talks about how all this will happen.  It calls the Judah of Isaiah’s day under King Ahaz (who failed to listen) and Hezekiah (who headed the call) to trust in Yahweh for their deliverance.  Judah were not to trust in Egyptian alliances to defeat Assyria (as Hezekiah was tempted to do), or trust in compromising with Assyria to prevent Assyrian attack (as Ahaz did).  

Read Isaiah 2-5 to see God’s judgement on the proud who exalt themselves over God who is the only one who is high and lifted up (chapter 6).  Isaiah’s vision in chapter 6 is the bedrock of his ministry – once we see that God is on the throne we are freed from trying to trust in people to make our salvation work and instead trust in Him.

These themes are woven into the different sections of these first chapters of Isaiah – both in Isaiah’s addresses to Israel and his words to the foreign nations around.  Judah may perceive herself as a small, isolated kingdom that needs to bow the knee to foreign gods to survive – but they need to see that the political whirlpool all around them is held and overseen by a sovereign God who does not allow the foolish choices and pride of people to thwart his plan, but instead weaves them into his plans and intentions to bless the nations – without for a minute lessing their sin and responsibility for those actions.

Up to chapter 39 there are moments of hope, but also a sense of gathering gloom, with a nation that refuses to listen and the threat of God’s judgment.  In chapter 40 the tone changes abruptly, and the focus of the message changes dramatically. Judah are no longer in the land – instead they are in exile in Babylon, and a message of comfort and hope is addressed to them.  

Was this a vision given in advance to Isaiah in Jerusalem in the dark days of King Manasseh for the benefit of the faithful remnant (see Isaiah 7-8), but only made public (so to speak) when Judah were in exile? Or was it a message given in Babylon to one or more disciples of Isaiah who had preserved Isaiah’s words, and absorbed his message so that the book of Isaiah remains a single volume with a clear coherent message, despite a collective authorship?  I don’t think it matters greatly which view we take as long as we are not trying to rationalise away the idea that God might speak into the future (which he does even if you take the second perspective).

Whichever view you take the message of comfort given in chapters 40-55 is epic in scope, and utterly breathtaking in its vision of the grandeur, majesty, care and compassion of our God. Read these chapters and see for yourselves.  Read of the God who stretched out the heavens like a tent, yet who stoops down to lift his faltering flock as a shepherd carrying the young sheep.

Read of the God who makes a way in the desert for his people – but see the disappointment of the return in Ezra-Nehemiah, and see the longing of the people for a day when this prophecy would really be fulfilled, and listen to the start of Mark’s gospel and the voice in the wilderness crying ‘prepare the way of the LORD’.

Read of the God who appointed his people as his servant to bear his light to the nations, and who when they failed in that task raised up prophets to call them back to that task.  Read of the servant again, and see how that servant can be described in terms reserved for God himself (‘high and exalted’) and yet that servant will also suffer for the people. The servant will bear the sins of the people, the servant will be cursed for the people – and then the servant will be vindicated.

Then move on in Isaiah and read of the God whose ways are so far above our ways in accomplishing his salvation through his promises to David.  Read of the one who comes to proclaim the day of the Lord’s favour – and remember the one who stood and announced the fulfilment of that day.

Isaiah writes Jesus’ job description for him – he is the King who rules as David should have ruled, he is the servant who accomplishes what Israel should have been, and who suffers for the sins of the world.  Jesus is the one who renews God’s people, and who draws the nations in so that the global vision of Isaiah 61-66 can be fulfilled.

Read Isaiah and have your hearts set ablaze by his vision of what God will one day do:

“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach[a] a hundred
will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the work of their hands.
23 They will not labor in vain,
nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord,
they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord.

Isaiah 65

Let this vision set your minds thinking to how life now should be different, and to the worship God requires today:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Isaiah 58

And do all that, knowing that these words are true for all God’s people, and so for all who trust in Jesus they are true for you:

43 But now, this is what the Lord says—
he who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush[a] and Seba in your stead.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life.

Isaiah 43

Read, read and re-read these verses until they penetrate deep into your heart.

Then read Isaiah – read in big chunks, and don’t worry about reading some parts fast, and others much slower. There are some good commentaries that can help: Barry Webb (BST, IVP), Alec Motyer (IVP), and Oswalt (NIVAC) are good places to start.

Song of Songs

Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon.  The title of the book: Song of Songs means something like ‘the greatest song’ or best of songs.  But for most of us reading it today it can be somewhat confusing. It is a book of the bible that barely mentions God, and seems to be a love poem, with several different voices.  

It can be hard to work out who is speaking – most English translations try to help you with the headings, but do remember that these are not part of the original text, and may occasionally get it wrong.  The role of Solomon in the song is also a matter of dispute – the headings in the ESV suggest Solomon is the lover in the story, but it is also possible, perhaps even better to see Solomon as a rival to the true lover in the story – with perhaps true love being contrasted to the ‘love’ of Solomon’s palace.    

The Solomon reference does not necessarily mean Solomon wrote the Song, rather that the Song has some kind of link to Solomon (the Hebrew preposition has a several possible meanings) and places the Song in the category of ‘wisdom’ literature, and reminds us that wisdom is a broad category, even here encompassing and expressing delight in human relationships.  It is this focus exclusively on human physical relationship that has also puzzled commentators throughout the centuries.

For most of the past 2000 years Christian interpreters have tended to view the Song as an allegory regarding the relationship between Christ and the Church, or the individual believer.  It is only in the last 100 years or so that idea of the Song as a celebration of physical intimacy has become more widespread, and the idea of the Song as allegory is often dismissed.

I think it is important to stress that the Song clearly does celebrate the physical relationship between a man and a woman, and so we can see that God, the designed of marriage, and of men and women celebrates love between them.  The Song itself does not tell us specifically about the limits God has set for such expression – but it may well give hints towards such limits – with expressions such as ‘do not stir up or awaken love before it is ready’.

What it does do is show how a God of passionate love for his people allows people in his image to reflect that love in many different ways – one expression of which is the union of man and woman expressing their love in a fully physical way.  So we should read the Song and see God’s approval and delight in such intimacy.

It is particularly interesting to see how the beloved, the woman, in the song has more than half of the words.  She is also very active in the relationship – she isn’t simply responding to her lover, but also initiates. Male-female relationships are mutual, with both parties active in giving and receiving.  Women are not commodities to be bought and sold, not objects to be desired, but men and women are to be in relationship as people made in God’s image, giving and receiving love.

So we should read it and see how love is celebrated, and use it to encourage us to express love and delight verbally.  I doubt we’ll use the same terminology (likening ones lover to the tower of Lebanon etc doesn’t quite translate), but we can allow it to spur us on to creativity and imagination in love – a spur that I think we need in our world today when physical intimacy is cheapened and debased.  

As Christians especially we need to see that the way to respond to a world where physical intimacy is treated as a right, and where most constraints on its expression are seen as limiting and unloving, is not to say that all desire and physical expression of intimacy is wrong.  Instead it is to pick up this Song and allow it to capture our imaginations so that we offer a better vision of God’s joy and delight in the right expression of such intimacy.

Such a vision corrects our culture – it refuses to allow expression of sexual intimacy to become the key definer of identity or purpose in life.  But such a vision does not correct our culture by rejecting all delight in sexual intimacy, instead such a vision guides us to a way of life that aims to woo our culture away from the idolatry of having sexual intimacy in too high a place, by seeing that it is a gift, given by a good giver, to reflect his goodness – and that the boundaries he sets for its expression are like the boundaries we set for our children so that they can enjoy and flourish in the homes we make for them.  

When we have read it in this way we can also see from it pointers to the love God has for people – the love that is willing to leave everything to bring back his people to himself.  When we do that some of the older allegorical readings may well be useful to us. Not so that we can force every detail to speak of some aspect of Jesus, but so that we can use the principles to remind us of God’s passionate love for his people that cannot be quenched.  

When we do that it once again acts as a spur to creatively express our worship to, and delight in, the God who has given so much for and to us.  

So pick up and read the Song, be guided by, but not enslaved to, the headings in your bible and read of the love that God designed and celebrates that reflects his heart of love and passion for his people.  

Resources:

NIVAC series (a great series) – Iain Provan on Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs (so this works for both of them)

Ecclesiastes

If Proverbs is about the benefits of wisdom, Ecclesiastes is about the limits of wisdom, and the meaninglessness, or ‘emptiness’ of life ‘under the sun’.  The word translated ‘meaningless’ (hebel) is literally ‘breath’ or ‘vapour’ – something so light and insubstantial as to be almost intangible. It is a word used dismissively of something that has no substance or weight.  Most strikingly it is often used of idols – the people are said to worship the ‘hebel’.  

Ecclesiastes is presented to us as ‘the words of the teacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem’, and describes a search for meaning and purpose in life ‘under the sun’.  The teacher tells us that everything is ‘empty’ – nothing has weight or substance. Life keeps on much as it always has done, and nothing really changes.

As he speaks some of what he says does not surprise us – we expect pleasure and riches to be described as empty.  But then he says the same about wisdom and hard work (toil), before deciding that ‘a man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work’.  If the work is meaningless, how can satisfaction be found?

It is this paradox that it is at the heart of Ecclesiastes.  Life is in one sense meaningless – and yet in hard work, and enjoyment of God’s good gifts happiness can be found – and should be enjoyed while you have the chance, because ‘time and chance happen to them all’ and you may lose these gifts at any moment.

Some Christian readings of Ecclesiastes give the impression that if only the writer had known about Jesus he would have said it differently.  They seem to suggest that the book of Ecclesiastes is the experience of someone leaving God out of the picture. But reading closely shows that just isn’t the case.  

The writer of Ecclesiastes knows God, and he knows that God is the ultimate judge of all.  But sometimes that knowledge just doesn’t help.

When the gunman mows down innocent people at prayer, or sitting in their lessons learning.  

When the boss walks in to the room of people and says “I’ve got bad news: we’re going to have to let you all go” despite the hard work they have all put in.

When the doctor says to the young mum “I’m really sorry: it is cancer and it is too far gone for treatment.  

When the child dies

When the leader you’d really believed in fails

When the opportunity you’d prayed for and longed for doesn’t shape up to be what you thought.

When the depression you’ve fought so hard and thought was gone creeps back over you.

When the child or parent you’ve prayed for still doesn’t want anything to do with you or God.

We hate that sense of being out of control, and we try to come up with meaning.  We make up answers to make ourselves feel better. We say that it happened to teach us, or as a punishment and we have a God who is not very loving, but is at least in charge, or perhaps we say that God couldn’t do anything about it – so we have a loving, but ineffective God.

But I think what Ecclesiastes is all about is telling us that it is OK not to have the answers. We have a God who is both loving and effective – and yet we have a world where really awful terrible things happen that we cannot make sense of, that we cannot explain.  

Ecclesiastes tells us that it is OK to say this is meaningless. This is empty. This is futile. This makes no sense. From our view ‘under the sun’ we cannot see why such things happen, and it is better to be realistic about that than not.  After all, we know from Romans 8 that we live in a world in bondage to frustration (and I’m guessing Paul had something like the ‘meaningless’ word in his head when he wrote that passage)

I think this is summed up really well by Larry Crabb in his introduction to his book Inside Out.

Beneath the surface of everyone’s life, especially the more mature, is an ache that will not go away. It can be ignored, disguised, mislabeled, or submerged by a torrent of activity, but it will not disappear. And for good reason. We were designed to enjoy a better world than this. And until that better world comes along, we will groan for what we do not have. An aching soul is evidence not of neurosis or spiritual immaturity, but of realism.

The experience of groaning, however, is precisely what modern Christianity so often tries to help us escape. The gospel of health and wealth appeals to our legitimate longing for relief by skipping over the call to endure suffering. Faith becomes the means not to learning contentment regardless of circumstances, but rather to rearranging one’s circumstances to provide more comfort.

Orthodox Bible preachers are rarely lured into proclaiming a prosperity gospel, but still they appeal to that same desire for relief from groaning. They tell us more knowledge, more commitment, more giving, more prayer — some combination of Christian disciplines — will eliminate our need to struggle with deeply felt realities. Yet there is no escape from an aching soul, only denial of it. The promise of one day being with Jesus in a perfect world is the Christians only hope for complete relief. Until then we either groan or pretend we don’t.

Yet in the groaning we still have hope.  We still have a God who gives good gifts, and we are still to work hard and find satisfaction in working hard with our abilities.  We are still to enjoy the good gifts he gives us. But we are also to hold them loosely, knowing that in this life there are no guarantees, but also knowing that there is a God who will bring everything into judgement.

It is here that we do have more clarity than the writer of Ecclesiastes did – we have the hope of a new creation spelt out much more clearly.  We know that in this life everything is tainted by emptiness and futility – but we also know that the toil we put in now will find its ultimate reward in the life to come, when the final curse of death will be removed.  Until then we groan, or pretend. Better to join the ‘teacher’ of Ecclesiastes in realistic living than pretend it is all OK.

Proverbs

This is one of the harder introductions for me to write.  I’ve often struggled to really get into the book of Proverbs.  Somehow it feels so disjointed, even contradictory and it is hard sometimes to understand how best to read it.  Many books on Proverbs tend to approach it thematically, gathering together the different proverbs on a given theme, which can be very helpful, but slightly begs the question of why it was written down in what feels to us like a rather scattergun approach.

It helps to take a step back and ask what the purpose of the book is.  The first chapter is key here:

1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

² for gaining wisdom and instruction;

   for understanding words of insight;

Proverbs 1:1-2

The proverbs of Solomon.  It is important to note here the connection between Solomon and wisdom.  The book of Kings describes Solomon’s wisdom:

²⁹ God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. ³⁰ Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. ³¹ He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Kalkol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. ³² He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. ³³ He spoke about plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also spoke about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. ³⁴ From all nations people came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom.

1 Kings 4:29-34

Notice here that ‘wisdom’ includes a whole range of different knowledge.  It includes careful observation of the natural world. It is about the whole range of human knowledge and understanding.  Other nations around Israel had ‘wise men’ and collections of proverbs. Solomon’s wisdom is in this kind of category.

It is knowledge that helps the reader and hearer live in a better, more insightful way, both in terms of knowledge and relationships. It is also a knowledge and wisdom that can be found in the world. It is this kind of wisdom and insight we need in our daily lives on a personal scale, and on a wider scale that governments need to navigate political turmoil, and it is a wisdom that is accessible to all who will seek it.

But there is another dimension also:

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,

   but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7

In the Bible this wisdom begins with fear of Yahweh.  With a right respect and reverence for the creator of this world.  This sets wisdom in its right context. Set adrift from the context of fear of Yahweh, wisdom all too easily becomes a way to make life work better for me, and my people, even at cost to others.  Held firmly in the framework of knowing and fearing God it becomes a way to live effectively for God in a difficult, complex and confusing world.

The truly wise believer is informed by works like Proverbs in how to apply fear of Yahweh to everyday life.  And we need that wisdom today. We need that wisdom to seek how to apply God’s standards to everyday life.

The accountant needs wisdom to apply God’s standards of ethics and financial dealing in the workplace. The doctor needs wisdom to see the real needs of the patient in front of him. The teacher needs wisdom to treat each child in the way that will help them and the class, The parent needs wisdom in training and discipling each of their children.  The investment banker needs wisdom to balance the requirements of client for a profit with support for companies that operate in ethical ways, and to discern what ‘operating in ethical ways’ looks like in our worlds of ever increasing financial complexity.

There is no manual that can be given to learn in each and every situation how to behave or act.  What we need is minds and hearts trained to think through each situation according to wisdom. Proverbs helps to give that framework.  Proverbs 1-9 reinforces the vital importance of wisdom in our lives, the need to get wisdom and to live by wisdom – and the need to humbly submit to God’s wisdom when we do not understand how it can be wisdom – think of Proverbs 3:5-6:

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart

   and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶ in all your ways submit to him,

   and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

From Proverbs 10 onwards we are in the realm of individual proverbs.  These are not rules. Sometimes they are even contradictory, and if we look for rules we will be sorely disappointed:

⁴ Do not answer a fool according to his folly,

   or you yourself will be just like him.

⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly,

   or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Proverbs 26:4-5

So which is it?  Do we answer a fool according to his folly so that he doesn’t get above himself, or do we keep silent to avoid becoming a fool.  The answer (of course) is that it all depends. It might depend on what is at stake – is anyone else going to be impacted? It might depend on how personal the dispute has become.  

The point is that Proverbs is not written to tell you when to do which of these things, instead it is written to help you become the sort of person who can tell better and better which of these things to do in any given situation.  

The way in which you do that is by careful meditation on these proverbs, and applying that mindset to other things.  That is why they can be disjointed, because we are meant to pause and ponder them, to puzzle over them.

One striking feature of Proverbs which you can see by comparing different translations is how individual proverbs vary between translations.  This is because in the original Hebrew they are terse lines of poetry – very often with connecting words missed out, and without the context of a story to show us for definite how to complete the connection.  That is part of how they work though, teaching us to think as we ponder how to make sense of the connections between the words and thoughts.

The invitation to read Proverbs is an invitation to read and ponder God’s ways. To have a mind and heart eager to look for connections to God’s wisdom in our workplaces and in the natural world – alert to learning from all sorts of different sources, in the conviction that ‘all truth is God’s truth’, all the while guided in applying that truth by God’s wisdom and ways.

Psalms

The next book we turn to is Psalms.  Psalms is a collection of songs, hymns and prayers to God.  It has been called the prayer book of Israel. But it has its own challenges to us as we read it.  It often seems slightly random in its order. We wonder how we can sing or pray some of these prayers, and whether the coming of Jesus has changed anything for us.  We know that some of them are deeply comforting and reassuring, but wonder perhaps about the rest.

And yet these prayers of Israel are frequently quoted in the New Testament, and directly applied to Jesus (Psalm 2, 16, 22, 110 amongst several) – but sometimes in surprising or confusing ways that can leave us more puzzled than before.  

In the light of all that I want to give some pointers to reading and praying the Psalms – it is my fundamental conviction that these words can very often be our words too, and can help us express our deepest longings, groanings and frustrations to the God who hears our cry.

Psalms begins with a Psalm of commitment to God’s word – a prayer that sets out two ways to live – the way of obedience leading to rootedness and flourishing, and the way of disobedience, leading to being blown away.  Psalm 2 continues the theme of two ways, but this time rather than obedience to God’s Word, it is obedience to God’s King that is stressed, and it is rulers of the earth in view.

In the book of Acts the early believers pray these words in the context of the crucifixion, and apply the words to Jesus.  They can do this because of 2 Samuel 7 where God promises to build David a house, and to give David a descendent whose reign will never end.  Some of the Psalms may well have been written about the reigns of David and Solomon as Kings (45 and 72 for example), but the language they use pushes us beyond David to the King God promised who would have a universal and eternal rule.  

Psalms like Psalm 2 remind us that all nations need to bow down and kiss the Son – to pay homage to the King who comes to reign.  We do that by submitting to his words – and so Psalms 1 & 2 give us the basic pattern of life trusting in Jesus – bowing to his authority and seeking to root our life in his words.  The Psalms end with a crescendo of praise – with the final Psalm being one great call to join in praising God with everything that we have and are.

God wants our submission, and our obedience – but more than that he wants the joyful praise in and through all the different changing scenes of life without which our submission and obedience turns all too easily to grudging and resentful gritting of teeth and stoic trudging.  The Psalms in between cover all of life, and all sorts of different reactions to all of life.

There are Psalms of thankfulness to God for deliverance (Psalm 34 and 37), Psalms that express trust in God and joy in Him (Psalm 23).  There are Psalms of praise to God for his character (Psalm 103). These are the Psalms we love to turn to, and where we find some of our most famous hymns drawing their inspiration, along with many of our modern choruses.  

There are Psalms reciting Israel’s history – telling of God’s past actions in history, of Israel’s failure – but of God’s forgiveness and of fresh starts.  There are Psalms that express repentance and celebrate God’s forgiveness (Psalm 30 and 51 for example). Again we can think of many, many songs and hymns that do something similar based on these Psalms (think of Psalm 90 and Isaac Watts great hymn “O God our help in ages past”).

But there are also a large number of Psalms which we don’t find so well represented in our hymn books, and on our song databases.  Lament Psalms. Psalms of individual or corporate sorrow. We have a handful of songs and hymns that express sorrow to God, and fewer still that express questions and anger to God.  Yet the Psalms are full of questions: How long O Lord? Why have you forsaken me? They express doubt, even darkness. They can call down God’s curses on enemies – sometimes in the most horrific of language (Psalm 137).  At their darkest it seems that all hope has gone (Psalm 88).

The lesson of these Psalms is that is OK to say anything to God. The Psalmists had a much more robust understanding of God than we do. They were happy to pour out their hearts to God.  They knew that God knows our thoughts – we can’t surprise or shock him – so we need to pour out our hearts to him.

We can come to Him, we can rant, and we can rave.  We can come as a toddler to their parent, so to speak, pound our tiny fists on him, until we find that our anger is spent and we are clinging on through the tears to the one who loves us more than we can ever know or dream.  Some of the laments express the realisation of that love.

One never gets there – Psalm 88 – and I think it is there for those times when we don’t see the good.  For the times we don’t get any glimpse of what God is doing in that situation. When we know and trust that God is the God of our salvation, but in a particular and specific situation, or with a particular person, we have no idea of how that can possibly work – all we can do is trust that God knows what he is doing.

The Psalms of lament take us through a process of helping to come to terms with that.  We may live ordinarily a happy and contented state. Something happens and moves us out of that state into a much darker place.  We are disorientated and confused.

Psalms of lament express that disorientation for us – but also point to ways in which the pieces can be put back together and we can be re-orientated – not to come to the place we were before, but to a new place, from which we see reality differently.

All these different types of Psalms – thanksgiving, praise, remembrance and lament – come in different varieties – some are spontaneous shouts of joy or pain, others are much more structured.  A good number are acrostics, structured around the Hebrew alphabet – most famously Psalm 119 where each group of 8 verses begins with the same letter.

I think that too has something to say to us.  Sometimes it is worth taking the trouble to write out our prayers and to give them a good clear structure – especially if we are leading others in prayer, or in songs.  Raw honesty is important, but so too is that reality given careful shape. Words matter – and so what we sing matters.

Read the Psalms – but more importantly – pray the Psalms.  Make these words your own – and where the words puzzle or trouble you – bring that to God too.  Use them as the basis of your own wrestlings with God. Find a Psalm or two that you can come back to over and over again.  Think of Jesus praying these Psalms, and realise that you can pray these because Jesus prays them first for you. He intercedes for you and upholds you as you pray.  

Resources:

CS Lewis – Reflections on the Psalms – useful thoughts on the Psalms – Lewis loved literature, so he is good on helping appreciate the language of the Psalms

Bonhoeffer – The Prayer Book of the Bible: particularly helpful on thinking through what it means for us that the Psalms points to, and is prayed by, Christ.  

Eugene Peterson – Answering God – really helpful reflections on the Psalms.

Job

I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that, dry-eyed, I could not see.

Nicholas Wolterstorff – Lament for a Son

I love that quote (although I still need to read the book it comes from) which I learnt from a friend whose PhD is on the book of Job.  The book of Job revolves around the suffering that comes upon Job, seemingly as the result of a kind of bet between God and the mysterious ‘adversary’ (Satan).

Reading the book of Job presents big challenges to us – not least the length, and repetitive speeches of Job and his 3 ‘friends’.  It is hard for us to place. It seems to be situated outside of Israel in both time and space.

We have no idea who wrote it, and no real idea when the story dates to.  It is a ‘wisdom book’, and forms something of a corrective to approaching Proverbs as rules, rather than wise sayings (more about that when we look at Proverbs).

The book’s structure is relatively simple:

Job 1-3 Introduction

Job 4-37 Job’s friends attempt to correct his theology

Job 38:1-42:6 God speaks to Job, Job ‘repents’

Job 42:7-17 Prologue – everything ends happily

The introduction tells us that Job is an upright, prosperous man.  He does what is right and is well rewarded. The Satan argues that he is only righteous because of what he can get out of it, and that if he is allowed to remove first Job’s wealth, then his family, and then his health, that Job will curse God.  God allows Satan to test Job by removing these things.

When we read this it is tempting to either react in horror that God would act in such a way, and write the whole book off, or to take this as a case study of how God always acts, and say that if we find it morally problematic then that is God’s issue not ours.

I’m not convinced by either approach.  The remedy is (as it usually is) to sit with the text and listen to what the text tells us rather than to jump to conclusions too quickly.  

This is one story – whether based around real events, or made up as a kind of parable – designed to tell us about what it means to live in a world where we don’t see the whole picture.

When we read the beginning and end of the book we notice that Job never gets an explanation.  We always think that we want answers. Job never gets answers from God. He gets a lot of answers from his friends who deduce that Job’s suffering must be the result of sin.  

That is a possible (mis)reading of books like Deuteronomy, which talk about blessings and curses for disobedience and obedience on a national scale. It is also a possible misreading of Proverbs which is sometimes read as giving a set of principles that, if followed, will make sure our lives work out happily and successfully.

The tragedy Job’s friends warn us against is that of having a watertight theology with no room for compassion.  They sit with him in silence (which is helpful) and then seek to correct his theology (which is less helpful). We might fall prey to this ourselves.  There are any number of ways that we can crush a suffering person with ideas that may even be very close to the truth, just explained at the wrong time.

Job argues back against them.  He defends himself against the charge of sin, and describes how he wants to appear before God to make his case, and laments the impossibility of doing this.  The debate between Job goes on for a while. If you are reading through Job, skim read these for evidence of what the friends main points are, and how Job is rebutting him.  If anyone ever quotes a verse from Job to you as evidence in a discussion, be sure to check who is speaking and when.

Chapter 37 concludes the debates with an intervention from a younger observer – but it doesn’t really move the debate on very far – there is widespread disagreement amongst commentators over how helpful Eliphaz is in the discussion.

Finally God responds out of the whirlwind to Job – and far from giving Job answers he simply has questions.  Questions that give a lie to the idea that Job can stand before God and demand an accounting. God is above and beyond Job’s understanding.  The first speech of God is a wide-angle tour of creation, the second is a narrow focus on two particular monstrous creatures – a sea-serpent, and a land-monster.  It kind of misses the point to argue about whether these creatures might be dinosaurs, crocodiles or an elephant.

The point is probably closer to the idea that God is ultimately in charge, even as forces of chaos and darkness (represented by these monsters) seek to wreak havoc in his world.  God is the one who can reign in these forces, and the one who will ultimately win the battle against them. It is this that brings Job to the realisation that he cannot answer God, and he cannot force God to justify his ways to people.  

Job is innocent of any wrongdoing that deserves his suffering.  God makes this clear at the end when he rebukes the friends for not speaking truth about God as Job has done.  But Job does not get any answers.

This book then, is about how to live without the answers to so many of the questions we want the answers to.  It is about learning to understand that (as Rich Mullins put it), “it would not hurt any less, even if it could be explained”.  It shows that it is OK to cry out to God, it is OK to pour out our hearts desires to him, knowing that he hears us.

For those of us reading Job now, after the cross and resurrection of Jesus, we live with just as much unexplained and unanswered suffering.  But we do see more clearly than Job that God is not simply the God who answers out of the whirlwind, but the God who steps in and experiences the full force of the whirlwind.  We have a God who knows tears. Who has felt our sorrows, and our pain.

I began with a Wolterstorff quote, and I will finish with one that I found when looking up the first one – I suspect that it is from the same book, but I don’t know, but I feel that it sums up the additional dimension given to us in the knowledge that our God is the God who chose to become one of us, to live and die as one of us, that he might share our griefs and sorrows:

God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. … It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor. … Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Esther

The next book we read contrasts vividly with Ezra-Nehemiah immediately before it.  

Rather than the backbreaking work of the returnees rebuilding temple and city we have Jews in the Persian capital, Susa.  Instead of returning to the land the Jews we read about in Esther have got on with life in Exile and are clearly prospering at the centre of the Persian Empire.

By contrast to the concern for purity and law-keeping that we find in Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther concerns a young lady whose uncle puts her forward for a beauty contest with the prize of becoming part of the King’s harem.  

Instead of a focus on rededication to God, the remembrance of his covenant, and following his ways, the book of Esther does not mention God at all. Indeed it almost seems to go out of its way to avoid mentioning God at times – when Mordecai says ‘who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this’ it seems to be an obvious place to bring God into the picture, and likewise when Esther tells Mordecai to gather the Jewish community together to fast on her behalf.    

What, then, is this book doing in our Bibles?  It reminds us that not everything in the Bible is given as an example to follow, or as a command to obey, but that some of the Bible can do its work by entertaining its reader and reminding them of what is really going on without directly telling.  

Read Esther through, paying close attention to the way the story works, and we begin to see how this might work.  Chapter 1 paints a picture of the Persian King that is distinctly uncomplimentary. He might be master of the known world, but he is not master of his own house – and indeed is rather worried that the patriarchal order might be overthrown if word gets out of his Queen’s understandable defiance.  

Chapter 2 introduces us to Mordecai and Esther.  The important thing to notice at this point is Mordecai’s family heritage from the tribe of Benjamin, and especially that one of his ancestors is Kish (Saul’s father).  In terms of their actions it isn’t clear why Mordecai pushes Esther into this position – perhaps he has ambitions of his own, and it certainly works in his favour when he uncovers a plot against the King’s life.

Chapter 3 introduces Haman – the Agagite, and most recent chief official of the king.  This is a strange term, but likely links back to 1 Samuel, where Saul fails to kill Agag the king of the Amalekites.  This story of the Jews in the Persian Empire echoes back to Saul and Agag by describing the rivalry of their descendents.  The chapter sets up the rivalry between Mordecai, who refuses to bow to Haman, and Haman who cannot tolerate this disrespect.  For Haman it is not good enough to deal with Mordecai, instead all Jews must be wiped out, and the King agrees to his edict.

Chapter 4 describes how Mordecai persuades Esther to intervene on behalf of the Jews.  His words are justly famous, both for the ringing cry of: “who knows but that you have been put in this position for such a time as this?” and for the assurance that if Esther does not try deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.  Esther agrees – resigned to her fate, but willing to try: “If I perish, I perish”.

Chapter 5-7 describe how Haman receives his just desserts – as readers we are supposed to laugh at how the rewards he wants for himself are given to Mordecai and the punishment he plans for Mordecai is received by himself.  Esther’s boldness before the King is rewarded, and Mordecai honoured.

Chapter 8-10 then describe how the protection of the Jewish people was accomplished – the king could not revoke the initial edict, but he allowed Mordecai and Esther to issue a companion edict allowing the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies, and to make sure that Haman’s sons were also hanged.  This was accomplished, the festival of Purim inaugurated and Mordecai took Haman’s place as the King’s right hand man. There are echoes here of Joseph and Daniel, other Jews who advised pagan emperors, but without any overt statement of God’s action.

The book of Esther reminds us that God can still be at work, even when he is not named, or recognised.  There are a number of coincidences in the book that point to God’s work behind the scenes to protect his people.  

The book also invites us to think about Mordecai and Esther’s way of relating to the Persian world.  Was Mordecai right to encourage Esther to become part of the King’s harem? God brings good out of his action – but that isn’t in itself sufficient evidence to say that he did the right thing.  

We don’t sit in judgement on Mordecai and Esther as we read, and disapprove based on our own feelings and impressions – but what we must do is read the book of Esther in the light of whole story of scripture in order to judge which parts of Mordecai and Esther’s actions fit with the whole picture of what God is doing in his work of redemption.  That helps us as we work out what it means to follow God in our own complex and confusing worlds – reading Esther will help us to tune our minds and hearts to how God is at work in muddled parts of life.

The purpose of the book of Esther then is not so much a prescription for how to behave in a given situation as it is an invitation to see God’s work behind the scenes.  As we look at the human characters involved we should ask hard questions about the way they behave – learning from Esther’s bravery perhaps, and Mordecai’s opportunism to advance the cause of God’s people, but also we need to think carefully about where they may have not paid full attention to the story before them and therefore fallen short of God’s standards.  

As we do that it drives us back to the God who not only works behind the scenes to advance his purposes but works in and despite his people’s disobedience to protect them and preserve his plans.  

Ezra-Nehemiah

I’ve decided to do these two books together because they are so closely tied together in themes and setting. The book of Ezra continues where Chronicles left off – in fact Ezra ends with the same decree of Cyrus that 2 Chronicles finishes with.

It helps to set some of the historical context. At the end of 2 Kings/2 Chronicles the Babylonians, under Nebuchadnezzar, had captured Jerusalem, stripped the temple of its treasures and destroyed the city. The elite of the city had been carried off into exile, while the ordinary people were left to fend for themselves.

Jeremiah had written to the exiles, telling them to pray for the peace of their new city and to work for its welfare – and we’ll come to the story of one of those exiles when we reach Daniel. Jeremiah had also told them that the exile would only last for 70 years, and then they would return to the land.

70 years later the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persian Empire. The Persian policy was different to the Babylonians – they wanted respect from the different nations that made up the empire, so they allowed the Jews to go back to their land and to rebuild the temple. The Jews didn’t get their king back, and they only had limited self-government. They were an obscure province in a vast empire – and that is essentially how they stayed under the Greeks and Romans also.

Ezra is the story of the rebuilding of the temple – and if you read Haggai and Zechariah you will see what the prophets were saying about this stage of the nations life. The temple was rebuilt – although Ezra records how those who remembered the old temple wept. The temple was rebuilt – although we have no account in the narrative of God’s glory descending as it had on the tabernacle and on the first temple. Ezra is a priest.

Nehemiah is the story of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah is the cupbearer to the King, and prays for the chance to explain his fears for his people. His prayers are answered and he is sent back by the King to rebuild the city walls. He deals with opposition from some of the people left in the land, and local officials and succeeds in rebuilding Jerusalem. Nehemiah is a political leader.

Both Ezra and Nehemiah focus more widely than temple and city fabric though – both also look to the need for a renewal of life in the life of the people. Nehemiah is concerned to help the poor, and prevent the rich charging extortionate interest. Chapter 8 is particularly notable for the rediscovery of the Festival of Booths, after the reading of the Book of the Law.

The people weep when they realise what the law requires and how they have fallen short. But Nehemiah says ‘do not grieve, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength’. The Levites calm the people and the people rejoice because “they now understood the words that had been made known to them”. The people rejoice because they understand the Book of the Law – the Torah. Joy comes from the word of God. Joy comes when we know and understand who God is, what he is like, how he feels for us, and how life looks as a result.

Nehemiah leads them in one of the great prayers of corporate repentance – Nehemiah 9 – in the Bible. Out of that prayer comes a corporate act of commitment to God. Nehemiah 8-9 is a wonderful example of what it looks like when God’s people see afresh the wonder of all that God has done for them.

God’s people listen to God’s Word.

God’s people are convicted of sin.

God’s people rejoice when they see how God forgives sin.

God’s people express their repentance.

God’s people commit to follow him faithfully as best they can.

Let reading Ezra-Nehemiah encourage you to desire those things and ask God for a richer and deeper experience of those things.

I’d quite like to leave on that high note. But I’m not sure I can. You see there is another tone that we read in Ezra-Nehemiah. A tone that raises questions in our hearts and minds. It’s found in Ezra 9-10

9 After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. ² They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”

Ezra 9:1-3

Ezra prays, and then this happens.

10 While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. ² Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. ³ Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. ⁴ Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.”

Ezra 10:1-4

Is this right? Maybe it is, and maybe the problem with it is due to our misplaced priorities. Maybe they cared for those children and women in some way we are not told about, maybe they were all from wealthy families who could afford to take them back in. Maybe.

But maybe also we are allowed to push the question a bit further. Israel were certainly been commanded not to intermarry with the nations in the land – although the exiles in Babylon might be forgiven for thinking that Jeremiah 29 could at least be interpreted in a way that relaxes this somewhat for the exiles in Babylon. But while intermarriage is forbidden, there is no command to divorce once a wrong marriage has been entered. Remember Genesis 2 – ‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’? Or Malachi’s stern words against breaking faith with the wife of your youth.

And what about these new orphans and widows created by the sending away of the orphan? We read about Moabite women, and we think of Ruth. If she had been sent away where would David be? We wonder whether these women are invited to join the nation or not?

(Disclaimer: It didn’t occur to me that Ezra might be wrong until I heard someone else suggest it – but the more I think about it the more I think we need to think if it is possible that he might have done – that was a lot of thinks, but thinking is quite important!)

But if Ezra is wrong then doesn’t that mean his whole book is misplaced in Scripture. Do we need to throw it away? No. Read chapter 9-10 carefully. We never read in these chapters of God commanding the ending of these marriages.

Maybe we are given the clues here, and elsewhere to spot that Ezra, who after all is only a character in the bible narrative, might, like other characters have got something wrong.

Importantly we don’t decide that he got it wrong because we don’t like it, rather it is because what he does doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of scripture, and because we note that in Ezra there is no direct command from God to do it either.

Perhaps after all Ezra and Nehemiah are not the ideal models to follow that we crave, but humans, subject to mistakes like the rest of us – even at moments when they are fully engaged in seeking to do what God wants. Perhaps these chapters function as an example of how even the best moments this side of eternity are mixed with human over-reaching, that can happen at moments of peak religious revival.

Perhaps they are warnings to us never to stop reading our bibles. Never to hand over our brains to someone else, but instead to keep on reading and thinking and working out how things fit together. Perhaps they are warnings also not to write people off when they seem extreme, over zealous in one way or another – because maybe, just maybe that zeal and passion is what we need, even as we make sure that the zeal and passion is really channeled in God’s way.

Perhaps even those mistakes can drive us back to Nehemiah 8 and 9, so that we stand with the hearers listening to the word of God explained, so that we grieve for our sins, so that we rejoice with the passionate rejoicing of those whose sins are forgiven, and so that we come back to God confessing sin, and recommitting ourselves to the covenant God whose love never gives up on us.

The God who is what he always is: the forgiving God, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and rich in love.

Resources

There are several helpful books on Nehemiah – both John White (something to do with leadership) and JI Packer (Passion for faithfulness) have written helpful books.

Also read Haggai, Zechariah and Daniel to understand the context and political scenario of these books.

1 & 2 Chronicles

1 & 2 Chronicles seem very odd at first glance to anyone reading through the Bible. We’ve just had a history of Israel, and now we go back to the beginning, and after a long list of names we get a fair amount of detail – perhaps too much detail for most of us to cope with – on the way in which David and Solomon planned and built the temple.

To read Chronicles you wouldn’t think David and Solomon had really put a foot wrong. Then we read of the Judean Kings, who are the same mixture of good and bad as they are in 2 Kings, but with a heightened emphasis on how each faced the personal consequences of their sin or faithfulness.

To us it seems like the Chronicler is a kind of spin doctor for the Davidic monarchy, presenting us with the successes and leaving the failures to one side. But I think here the order of the Hebrew Bible helps us. In the Hebrew Bible Chronicles does not comes straight after Kings, but right at the end of the Hebrew Bible.

Chronicles is not about presenting a different history to Kings, and it isn’t about airbrushing out David and Solomon’s flaws. The writer of Chronicles expected their readers to already know the history of Israel, to know David’s flaws. The writer knew the story of Bathsheba – but just wasn’t interested in repeating that story.

Instead the Chronicler is writing to give a theological interpretation of Israel’s story, and especially of David’s line for the benefit of those who had returned from exile (the book finishes with the note of return from exile). The Chronicler wants those returnees to see how the promise to bless David’s descendants worked out in Judah’s history, and how disobedience led to disaster.

By starting with the long genealogy of chapters 1-9 the Chronicler shows his readers how David is tied into the history of Israel and of the world. Then by spending so much time unpacking the temple and worship the community of those returning from exile would be encouraged to rebuild the temple and know that the life of the temple was important.

When the reigns of the kings of Judah are described each is evaluated in terms of their loyalty to God and faithfulness to the ways of David. In the midst of this book we get some wonderful examples of how Israel was meant to function and be. Read 2 Chronicles 20 for the story of how Jehosophat led Judah to victory without Judah needing to fight at all – as the army of Judah went out singing praises to God, God sent ambushes and fought for them.

So in reading Chronicles don’t get bogged down in the genealogy – just skim through and make a note of anything that stands out. Then as you read the story of David and Solomon have the story of Samuel and Kings in your mind – but see the focus of the Chronicler in telling their stories. The temple matters because it is the place where God lives among his people.

For the Christian the temple points forward to Jesus coming to live among us, and to give us his Spirit. As individual believers we are temples (1 Cor 6), and as a community of believers (1 Cor 3) we are temples. The attention given to the physical temple in David and Solomon’s story needs to be given to building the church, and our lives of service and response to God.

Our church communities are to be places where worship and service of a holy God is lived out. When we are together our prayer should be that it would be obvious that God is with us. Chronicles can remind us that this should be at the heart of the life of God’s people.

And as we read the story of the kings of Judah we should be challenged afresh to be totally loyal to God, and totally faithful to the example of Jesus, the Son of David who is the perfect King.

There are some great prayers in Chronicles. David, Solomon, Jehosophat and Hezekiah all pray prayers that give us food to pray. One of my favourites is this one from Jehosophat as he faces the enemies of Judah:

¹⁰ “But now here are men from Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt; so they turned away from them and did not destroy them. ¹¹ See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of the possession you gave us as an inheritance. ¹² Our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

2 Chronicles 20

We do not know what to do – but our eyes are on you

And here is God’s answer

“Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s. ¹⁶ Tomorrow march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the Desert of Jeruel. ¹⁷ You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’”

1 Chronicles 20

Take up your positions; stand firm, and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.

Read the rest of the story – it is well worth it.

Resources

The Bible Speaks Today on Chronicles by Michael Wilcox is well worth reading, especially for the way he links Chronicles into the wider story.

Also this website: https://www.bibleforlife.co.uk/book/12-chronicles/