Today’s Scripture Reading (July 13,
2014): Ezra 8
On September
2, 31 B.C.E. the final battle between Octavian and Mark Antony was fought in
the Ionian Sea near the Greek city of Actium. The battle was fought at sea.
Octavian had already begun to stylize himself as the Son of God. Octavian’s
uncle and adopted father was Julius Caesar. Caesar’s hope was that one day the
monarchy would be re-established in Rome and that he would be installed as king.
It is thought that on the day that he was murdered that Julius Caesar believed
that the senate was going to make him king, and he held onto that belief up
until the first knife blade was hesitantly poked into his flesh. Julius Caesar
was never named king, but soon after his death he was declared to be a god –
and Octavian as his living heir believed himself to be the living Son of God.
Mark Antony
had fought at Octavian’s side for most of the Roman Civil war. But after all
other contenders for the leadership of Rome had been defeated, Octavian and
Mark Antony fought against each other for the prize. By the time of the Battle
of Actium, it seemed that the war was already lost for Antony and the Egyptian
Queen Cleopatra. Some have argued that the Battle of Actium was nothing more
than a battle that was intended to cover the escape of Antony and Cleopatra –
over 5,000 soldiers dead and more than 200 ships either sunk or captured, and
the purpose of all of that loss was to provide Antony and Cleopatra a safe way
home – the battle was designed to provide a safe escape from the armies of
Octavian, who would soon be renamed as Caesar Augustus, supreme ruler of the
Roman Empire.
The exiled
returnees pause as their trip home begins. It is essentially the prayer of
travellers before they hit the road on a long trip. But the concern of Ezra and
those returning with him is not that they would find either the quickest or the
shortest way home. What they wanted was to find the safest way. With all of the
dangers, and with the enemies that the returnees were bound to come up against,
Ezra was going to need to find the safest way possible if they were ever going
to get to Jerusalem. This was not an army on the move, this was a group of
people just trying to go home.
Escape from
Babylon, even with the help of the Persian emperor was not going to be easy. So
before the trip began, the returnees stopped, publicly prayed, made a fast and
humbled themselves before their God. They realized that had sinned and had
failed God, but now was the time to put all of that behind them. Now was the
time to go home.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezra 9
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