Today's Scripture Reading (September 25, 2020): Ezra 7
American Author Dave Eggers argues
that “books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and
saying: Let’s not forget this.” They can gather our attention and point them at
things that we might have missed, or maybe even have forgotten that they ever
happened. But, while reading a book can often focus our attention on something,
it can also take our attention away from some events often considered to be
insignificant by the author or not part of the story the writer is trying to tell.
Sometimes the story can leap over years in a single paragraph or even decades
in the space that exists between two sections.
The author of Ezra leaps over sixty
years in the space that exists between Chapter six and chapter seven. It is in
that space that the events of the book of Esther take place. But the Xerxes of
the Esther tale is assassinated in 465 B.C.E., leaving the empire to his son,
Artaxerxes, also known as Artaxerxes Longimanus or Artaxerxes the long-handed
because his right hand was longer than his left. Artaxerxes reigned for forty years,
long enough for Ezra to begin the work in Judah, likely arriving in Palestine
around the year 458 B.C.E. and then continuing to reign throughout the story of
Nehemiah, which follows the tale of Ezra’s beginnings.
So, the chronicler draws our
attention to the beginnings of the return of the exiles under the reign of
Cyrus, and then skips over the largely uneventful rules, at least from the
point of view of the Jews, of Cambyses II (who reigned for eight years),
Bardiya, the brother of Cambyses II (who reigned for a few months), Darius the
Great (who reigned for thirty-six years), Xerxes I (reigned for twenty years
and featured the events recorded in the story of Esther), and then, finally, the
long forty-year reign of Artaxerxes the Long-handed.
But what the story of Ezra does
well is it reminds us that God plays a long game. His presence works over the
decades and through many leaders and events. What we often see as the inactivity
of God is actually the deliberate action of God, but following God’s timetable
and not ours. Moses argued that “a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night” (Psalm
90:4). It is something that we need to remember, as we consider the moves of
God. What might seem to be a long time in our eyes could be insignificant to
our God, who has his focus further down the road, maybe like the work of a
writer, who allows sixty years to pass in the space that exists between the
chapters.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezra
8
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