GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
EZRA 3:7-9
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7 So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon by sea to Joppa, according to the grant which they had from Cyrus king of Persia.
The cedars of Lebanon are tall trees, more than forty and sometimes up to sixty feet tall. Their wood is fragrant and durable, easily cut and shaped, and resistant to decay. The leaders of Israel paid the people of Lebanon (“Sidon and Tyre”) to float batches of cedar logs along the coast south to Joppa. From there, they were hauled by mules or oxen over the mountains to Jerusalem. The most obvious route would be the stream bed known as the Nahal Sorek (known for being the home of Samson’s Delilah, Judges 16:4), since the winding path of the stream would give animals a clear and definite pathway from the sea up the 3,000-foot ascent to Jerusalem. Pulleys, known in Egypt since the time of Moses, would help with the process in many places.
Solomon had traded with Lebanon for cedar trees for the first temple, and Hiram the king of Tyre had “rejoiced greatly” and blessed the Lord to the chance to serve God (1 Kings 5:7).
8 Now in the second year after their arrival at the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, together with the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity, began the work. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to oversee the work of the house of the LORD. 9 And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Judah ) together took the oversight of those working on the House of God. The descendants of Henadad (who were Levites) and their sons and brothers also supervised.
Two matters catch the eye in these verses. The first is the date, the second month. Following the rainy winter season after the Feast of Tabernacles, the building process began. In the second year, the second month (Ziv) began on our April 8.
The second matter is that of the overseers. These men were officially named to their posts so that there would be no question as to their authority. These were men of the tribe of Levi. There was a matter of joint oversight from the high priest Jeshua and also from a man named Kadmiel. This Kadmiel is shown to be a Levite in Nehemiah 7:43 and previously in Ezra 2:40. The names Judah and Hodaviah are similar in Hebrew, and it may be a common matter of the spelling of a proper name (the most common sort of textual variant in the Bible). For comparison, none of the six surviving signatures of William Shakespeare spell his name in the way we usually see it today, and most of those signatures do not agree in spelling with each other. Most of those variations have to do with the vowels.
The word “overseers” here is a verb. Luther correctly associates it with the word we see in Habakkuk 3:19 and in many of the Psalms, where it is “the director of music.” It is in the headings of 55 Psalms in all, from 4:1 to 140:1. Luther speculates, not without considerable insight, that the word means “to be in charge of, to urge on, to press on,” so that the term can mean “he that stirs up” others, “so that they sing either in unison or responsively. So we could apply the term to the cantor in our churches who sings something in choir and to whom the people reply, ‘Amen,’ as it is customary… Thus Paul commands in 1 Corinthians 14:16, that ‘one interpret’ and other ‘others say Amen.’” (LW 12:199-200).
These overseers were to organize, promote, and guide the building of the structure. “This did not exclude God from the work, for it was being built in the honor of God and without God we would accomplish nothing… If a single work of God is to be performed, it must be inspired by God, and so it is truly the work of the Holy Spirit.” So what we find in practice is that when God works through us, through frail and sinful human beings, there is only a shadow, a pale sketch of the great work he planned, but it is marred and damaged and nearly all ruined by the sins of the meager workmen he uses. What wretched creatures we are! But what a great and marvelous God our God is, who chooses to work through us anyway, forgiving our sins and our meager talents. Despite us, be brings about his plan. In this way our God is very much like a patient Father making a meal in his kitchen, with busy, noisy children all around, asking first one and then another to help with this or that. “Come and help me measure the flour,” he says, and a huge puff of airborne flour and a quick scrape of the butter knife later there is a child with white hair and smile, a mess on the floor, but the batter is on the way to being made. “Come and help with this,” our Father says in his kitchen, which is the whole world, and we make a mess of things, but he involves us, works through us and with us, and let us share our ideas and joys with him. So our heavenly Father’s kingdom is gathered in, just as the earthly father’s pancakes get made.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Ezra 3:7-9 Cedar logs and messy pancakes