Today's Scripture Reading (August 19, 2020): Ezra 6
King Augeas was
said to be a man of wealth and prestige. His wealth was partially represented
by his herd of cattle, which according to the legend, was over 3000 head. The cows
were likely divine, as they had been given to the King by the sun god Helios.
Augeas had housed the cattle in his stable. According to the legend, King
Augeas had kept the animals in his barn for thirty years. And for thirty years,
the stable had never been cleaned.
The Augean
Stables came to represent a job that could never be completed. The task of
cleaning the stables had been put off for too long; it would be impossible to
clean them now. And so, because it was impossible, the task of cleaning the
stables was given to Hercules as his Fifth Labor. Unlike the preceding Labors,
this one was not intended to kill the hero. It was just meant to humiliate him.
The situation
that the exiles returned to in Jerusalem could be compared to the King Augeas's
stables. The reality is that the Temple had been destroyed, and the best and
the brightest had been removed from the territory. Among those who were left
behind, many of the more capable people, such as the prophet Jeremiah, had left
for Egypt and had never returned. Jerusalem and the area that surrounded it had
been l given over to a few Judeans, and other foreigners who were trying to make
a life for themselves in and around the area. For seventy years, the people had
worshipped without guidance. What developed out of that practice of worship was
a hybrid belief that had its origins in many faiths, both from the Judean
worship of Yahweh as well as from the rituals dedicated to the Canaanite gods. Religiously,
Judah had become a stable that had never been cleaned. It really wasn't the fault
of the people any more than the condition of the Augean Stables was the fault
of the cows. But the question that remained was what could be done to correct
the problem. Or was cleaning up the situation impossible.
And it is easy to
get the impression that the exiles, much like the observers of the Augean
Stables, had decided that the situation could not be cleaned up. The only thing
that could be done was to isolate the two groups of people, maintaining two systems
of worship, one for the exiles who were returning and another for the ones who
had remained in the land. Ezra reveals this idea earlier in his writing.
When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that
the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to
the heads of the families and said, "Let us help you build because, like
you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of
Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here."
But Zerubbabel, Joshua and the rest of the heads of
the families of Israel answered, "You have no part with us in building a
temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the King of Persia,
commanded us" (Ezra 4:1-3).
Ezra's
comment in Ezra 4 makes it sound like the strategy of the returning exiles was
to isolate. But the importance of Ezra's commentary here is that cleaning up
the religious situation in Judah was not an impossible task. Some people had
stayed in Judah throughout the era of the exile, and they were able to separate
themselves from the hybrid beliefs that had grown in the period. These
worshippers were willing to leave what they had grown to know and return to a
more pure faith that was being promoted by the returning exiles.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Haggai
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