Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god. – Ezra 1:7

 

Today's Scripture Reading (August 15, 2020): Ezra 1 & 2

There are many ways to lose something. Sometimes we misplace the item (my keys often find themselves into this category). At other times, we have it stolen away from us. And sometimes, in a moment of insanity, we simply give the item away. But in all of these instances, the truth is that the item is lost to us, it is no longer under our control.

Historically, we know that everything that used to exist inside of the Temple has been lost. But how it was lost differs. Sometimes the items were taken. Sometimes the items were misplaced. And even at other times, important things from within the Temple were given away. If the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba sharing a son is true, then one of the tales of that relationship is that Solomon gave away the Ark of the Covenant to his Southern friend (or was it stolen, the story seems to change). But legend says that Menelik, the son of Solomon and Sheba's queen, brought the Ark to Ethiopia, essentially saving it from all the destruction that would claim the other articles of Jerusalem's Temple. But the truth is that it doesn't matter how something is lost. It is still lost. The Ark of the Covenant might be in Ethiopia (and no, I really don't think that it is there), but only one man is allowed to see it, so it is still lost to the rest of us.

As Ezra begins his tale, there is no doubt that the Temple and everything that was in it was lost. The Temple and some of the items that were traditionally housed inside of the Temple had been destroyed. The author of 2 Kings seems to make this clear: "As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace, and cut up the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the Lord" (2 Kings 24:13). But there is some disagreement over the wording. While it seems that 2 Kings indicates that at least all of the gold items were destroyed, that might not be the case. The word translated as "cut-up" could simply mean "cut off." It wasn't that all of these items were destroyed, but that they had been removed from their former uses and were unavailable to the priests of Israel. Essentially, they were lost.

And as Ezra begins his story, King Cyrus returns these items, stolen from the Temple, that he still had in his possession. Undoubtedly, if we had a list of the items taken by Nebuchadnezzar and those returned by Cyrus, there would be a discrepancy. Maybe, it was more of just the mundane objects that Cyrus still had from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, those that were worth little, and yet still found their origins in the Temple. But Ezra makes it clear that at least some items from Solomon's Temple were returned. And in a way that the writer of 2 Kings probably couldn't imagine, the lost, at least some of it, had been finally found.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezra 3