Slapping the Gracious Hand

    In my ongoing summer quest to make myself feel better by studying books of the Bible where worse things are happening than in my life, I have finished Ezra and am now in Nehemiah. I felt sorry for Ezra. After all his hard work getting to Jerusalem, Ezra's reward was finding his people singing  the same sinful song, second verse. Ezra felt the gracious hand of the Lord in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple in many ways:

1. God moved a Gentile king, Cyrus, to decree the rebuilding of the temple.
2. For good measure, Cyrus threw in the plunder originally removed from the temple.
3. God moved the Jews who remained in exile to donate to the rebuilding.
4. God gave priests, Levites and temple servants the desire to return to ruined Israel.
5. The altar was rebuilt quickly.
6. Which allowed the Jews to finally be able to worship through sacrifices.
7. When enemies opposed their efforts, Darius not only confirmed Cyrus's decree, but issued his own and made the opposition fund it. That would be like Planned Parenthood forced to pay support to Focus on the Family.
8. Ezra arrives with Artaxerxes letter of authority, making king support 3 out of 3.
9. Made the journey in only 4 months. Not great by today's standards, even airline luggage arrives faster than that.
10. Made the journey with temple treasure through bandit-filled land without military protection.

And after all that:

   Ezra finds out the exiles have not only returned to Israel, but to the sin that got them exiled in the first place--intermarriage with the surrounding idolaters. The rest of the book tells how the whole mess got straightened out, but not before the offenders names got written down--FOR ALL ETERNITY.

     Meanwhile back in Persia, Nehemiah feels God's call to rebuild Jerusalem's walls. God was gracious enough to:

1. Help the king not to misunderstand why his royal food taster looked unhappy.
2. Got king's permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild walls.
3. Found multitaskers skilled in both wall building and swordsmanship,
4. willing to work for free,
5. remain armed even at the water cooler,
6. and pull guard duty after hours.
7. Caused opposition to give up when they see the Jews are armed. Probably with assault swords.

And after all that:

   Nehemiah finds out returned exiles are robbing fellow Jews of the inherited lands they just got back to, and making slaves of their children through usurious lending. Like payday loans only with a "surrender your offspring" clause. The rest of the book explains how Nehemiah, with the help of Ezra and the Law, got the returned exiles back on track.

And after all that. . . I do feel better about my puny problems.