Study the Word

Guest (Male): Who's willing to sacrifice? We'll explore that question next on Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller. Stay with us.

Someone quipped that the only thing we know about sacrifice is how to spell the word. Some wonder if we even know that. Perhaps that's a little harsh and a bit overstated, but the need for those who are willing to sacrifice for the benefit of others is not. Well, it's certainly not a new problem as we'll hear on today's Study the Word with Thom Keller.

We're in Ezra chapter two, and it documents how few of the Levites were willing to make the arduous return to Jerusalem. It's a challenge to our willingness when it comes to sacrifice. To get us started, Pastor Thom gives us some of the background.

Pastor Thom Keller: We are in the book of Ezra. The book of Ezra is kind of in the middle of your Bible and a little forward of that. Just a little bit of background: Abraham was 2000 years BC, Moses was about 1500 years BC, David the second king, first good king, was 1000 BC, roughly. Daniel was about 500 BC, and right now we are in the year 538 BC, 538 BC. And then of course, about 500 years later Jesus shows up on the scene. So that's the background. We're right at that 500 mark.

And again for background, Ezra one, one and two says this: In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, the Lord fulfilled Jeremiah's prophecy by stirring the heart of Cyrus to put this proclamation into writing and to send it throughout the kingdom. He sent this out on posters, as it were, throughout the entire realm of Persia. This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth.

He has appointed me to build him a temple at Jerusalem in the land of Judah. All of you who are his people may return to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild his temple of the Lord, the God of Israel who lives in Jerusalem. So that proclamation goes out. The Jews are captives of the Persian Empire, servants, as it would be. We'll talk about that a bit. So this is incredible, an incredible freedom that the king of Persia is giving to the Jews to return.

Ezra 2:1 says here is a list of the Jewish exiles of the provinces throughout Persia who returned from their captivity to Jerusalem and to the other towns of Judah. They had been deported to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. From the time of Solomon, beyond Solomon, the kingdom was divided: the North and the South. The North was known as Israel, the South was known as Judah. The capital of the North was Samaria, the capital of the South was Jerusalem.

Israel, the North, was carried off first by the Assyrians, and then many, many years later Judah was carried off by the Babylonians. So all of Ezra that we're talking about really deals with the people of Judah primarily going back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. Nehemiah is going to come along, and he's going to go back to rebuild the wall, but Ezra is about rebuilding the temple itself.

Now, in Second Samuel 24, at the end of David's life, David foolishly takes a census. This was before the kingdom was divided. It was 1028 BC, roughly 490 years before this chapter we're studying. It says Joab, this was his commander-in-chief, David's commander-in-chief, reported the number of people to the king. There were 800,000 capable warriors in Israel who could handle a sword and 500,000 in Judah.

Remember, the kingdom isn't divided yet. There's just one kingdom, North and South, no separation. So David takes a census of all 12 tribes. Ten of the tribes in the North come to 800,000, and two tribes alone come to 500,000. So when you think about the North and the South and you think, boy, ten tribes in the North, only two in the South, there must have been six times as many people, maybe more, in the North as in the South, it's not that far off. These were two prosperous, fertile tribes. And remember, Jesus came from the tribe of Judah.

So there were a lot of people in Judah at the time of David. What happened though, 490 years later, the siege of Jerusalem takes place by the king of Babylon. They lay siege to the city and they starve them out to where there's only a very few number of people. As I said, 490 years earlier there're 500,000 men. So what would that be? Six in a family? Eight in a family? 2.4 million? A lot of people.

How many people are left after the siege takes place? Well, the numbers that I've found in the Bible, Jeremiah and Second Kings, if you add them up it comes to roughly 12,000 men. So there're 500,000 men in David's time, add 400 years to that, 490 years, that number would grow up substantially. And now, at the end of the siege, there're 12,000 men that are carried off. The rest we assume died in the siege, and there's an estimate that maybe that same number of men were able to hide out.

We're going to see that. Ezekiel the prophet, while he was exiled in Babylon, he divided those left that were still left back in Judah. In other words, before the exiles went back, before Cyrus let them go back, Ezekiel said this about those that are still back in Judah: On January 8th during the 12th year of the captivity, a survivor came to Jerusalem to me and said the city has fallen. Then verse 27: Say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those living in the ruins will die by the sword.

I will send animals to eat those living in the open fields, and those hiding in the forts and caves will die of disease. So we hear from Ezekiel here that even though many were carried off in the captivity, there were still some that were left back in the land of Judah. Three categories: those that are living in the ruins, those that are living in open fields, and those that are in strongholds and caves. What God says is you also are going to be destroyed.

So a question that is asked is do we know how many Jews were alive in Babylon? That's a great question. I did a lot of research to find this out, and I couldn't find anything that would give us an idea of how many Jews were living in Babylon because we're going to get to the point where 42,000 come back. But how many didn't come back? That's what I was really curious about. How many chose to stay in Babylon?

Well, we don't know that, but we do get a clue possibly from the book of Esther. In 474 BC, only six years before Cyrus's decree, only six years before the Jews returned, or said another way, 64 years into the exile, 64 years into the exile, this is where this next story is going to take place. You remember Haman wanted to kill the Jews, and Queen Esther intercedes on the behalf of the Jews, which she was a Jew herself. And this was in March of 474 BC, 64 years into the exile. Only six years left till the 70 are complete.

And Esther 9:16 says this: Meanwhile, and the king made a decree that the Jews could be killed. Then in reversing it because he can't really reverse the decree of the Medes and Persians, you can't take back a decree that a king made as a law of the Medes and the Persians. You can't undo a decree that was made, but he passed another decree instead. And the king said that the Jews can defend themselves against those who try to kill them.

It says meanwhile, the other Jews throughout the king's provinces had gathered together to defend their lives. They gained relief from all their enemies, killing 75,000 of those who hated them, but they did not take any plunder. So although we don't know how many Jews were in Babylon in total, we do know that only six years to go until the 70 were complete, the Jews killed 75,000 of their enemies. So how many does it take to kill 75,000? I imagine it was a formidable number of Jews.

Records show that these Jewish exiles in Babylon, if you've ever wondered what was life like for the Jews in Babylon, records show that these Jewish exiles in Babylon, they were not slaves or prisoners in Babylon. They were free tenant farmers working state-owned lands. They were, as it were, tied to their individual plot of land, the government-assigned land, that's what they had. But history records that they were involved in farming, raising livestock, and fishing.

So they were doing business in Babylon, which plays a part as we get deeper into this account. We go on now to Ezra chapter 2 verses 2 to 4. It says their leaders were Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. This is the number of the men from Israel who returned from the exile, and then it lists all these numbers of people. But in verse two it says their leaders were Zerubbabel. Now as you read this in the future, remember this about Zerubbabel.

Zerubbabel was the grandson of Jehoiachin the king of the Southern Kingdoms of Judah. Zerubbabel would have been the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Jesus. He would have been the grandson of David, the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Jesus. If you go to Matthew 1 verse 12, we see this: It says after the Babylonian exile, Jehoiachin, he was the king, but this is in Matthew one, it gives the lineage of Jesus.

After the Babylonian exile, Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel, this same Zerubbabel. This same thing is listed in Luke, by the way. Zerubbabel is listed in Luke. And then in verse two of Ezra, it says Jeshua. Jeshua is the Greek word for Jesus. Jeshua is the Greek for Jesus, and he was the high priest. This is the famous high priest we see in Zechariah 3.

I could read the whole story, but I'm not. Oh, there's Matthew 1:16: Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, Mary gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah. That's verse 16, and verse 12 was Zerubbabel, and it goes all the way through to that. In Zechariah 3, this is the famous story many of you are going to know this. This is the same Jeshua that we're studying here right now in verse two. That's found in Zechariah.

Then the angel showed me Jeshua the high priest standing before the Lord. The accuser, Satan, was there at the angel's right hand making accusations against Jeshua. And the Lord said to Satan: I, the Lord, reject your accusations, Satan. Yes, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebukes you. This man is like a burning stick that has been snatched from the fire. And what's cool about this is as you see this Jeshua, you know that he really had favor in God's heart, in God's eyes.

This is the same in this chapter. It goes on and he puts brand new clothing on him. Remember that's what happens in the rest of this chapter. And Jeshua says: Hey, could I please have a clean turban too? And they put a clean turban on him as well, signifying the white robes that we're going to get in heaven. He held him in high regard. Also interesting in verse two, it talks about Nehemiah and Mordecai. And Mordecai shows up in the book of Esther, Nehemiah shows up in the next book of the Bible.

Most scholars believe these are different Nehemiahs and Mordecais. They were common names, and they're saying because of the time difference, most don't believe it's the same two, although there is a small minority of scholars that think that it could be the same, but most do not. Mordecai is the servant of the king in the book of Esther who Haman wanted to kill because he hated him. And then note in verse three, moving on, it says the family of - I'm not going to read all these names. Aren't you glad?

In verse three, it says the family of Parosh, and it goes on, the family of, the family of, the family of, the family of, and in verse 21, it changes and says the people of, the people of, the people of, the people of. And then in verse 29, it changes to the citizens of, the citizens of, the citizens of. And what this implies is that these people had established their clan boundaries by these divisions.

We're going to see a little bit later how important a genealogy was to the Jews. And so they were able to identify that they were Jewish on the basis of these identifications by clan, family, even the city that they came from. Going on then, skipping those names, we're going to go to verse 36. It says these are the priests who returned from the exile. And then it gives the name of the priests, and you'll see there that there are 4,289 priests if you add those numbers up in verse 36 to 39.

4,289. Out of verse 64 says there was a grand total of 42,360 people that returned. So out of 42,000 people, 4,300 were priests. Now, 10% of all those returning were priests. Now, that may not stand out to you, but it is really significant. In Numbers one, during the second year of Moses's wandering through the wilderness, in the second year, Moses took a census. Year two of the 40 years. And Moses found that there were 600,000 men. 600,000 men.

But it says all the men between 30 and 50 years of age who were eligible for service in the Tabernacle numbered 8,580. Now, if you divide that out, it's 1.5% of the nation would have been priests. And again, you had the tribe of Levi, and all Levites were set aside for temple service, but only the descendants of Aaron within the tribe of Levi were priests. So when we're talking here, there's a division between Levites and priests.

All priests were Levites, but there were a lot more Levites than there were priests because only those that descended from Aaron were allowed to be priests. And so this is seven to eight times the number that would have been natural for just a normal group of people. It's disproportionate. And the question is why did so many priests come back? And the reason is, and this is very significant as we look at the New Testament too, the reason so many priests returned was because they had the most to gain by returning.

Remember under the monarchy, which is a kingdom where there was a king that ruled, under the monarchy when David was there, when Saul was there, when Solomon and all the kings after, when the kings were in place under the monarchy, the priests were royal subjects of the king. They were subservient to the king. But now there's no king. The kings are gone. And so these priests now move to the top of the food chain.

They are the top dogs in the kingdom because there is no longer a king that is recognized as a king. And remember also why did they return? Remember that in Babylon, the priests had to provide for their own families. They had to get a job, they had to work, they had to buy food, they had to maintain a house and housing. That's not how it was in Israel. In Israel, the priests were to be cared for by the tithes of the other 11 tribes.

They didn't provide for their families; the rest of the nation did. Hebrews 7:5 says this even in the New Testament: Most think Paul wrote Hebrews. Now the law of Moses required that the priests who are descendants of Levi must collect a tithe from the rest of the people of Israel who are also descendants of Abraham. So there it is. So back in Israel, their needs were to be cared for by the people. In Babylon, different picture.

So why did so many priests come back? They wanted to get back into that good thing. So in Israel, their needs would be provided, and it's something worth noting in verse 40 to 42. It says these are the Levites then who returned from the exile. And it gives a number of Levites, but they're only 341 Levites. Now, put this into perspective. There are over 4,000 priests that returned. They're a small group of the Levites.

I mean, there are a lot of descendants of Levi beyond the priests. And yet only 341 Levites returned beyond the priest. Said another way, the total tribe of Levi that would have returned would have been about 4,500. 4,200 of those were priests, only 341 were from all the other families besides the family of Aaron. Why were there so few Levites that returned? Because there would have been so many more than just the priestly line.

And the reason is because it would appear that during the exile, the descendants of Aaron, the priests, were able to gain control of the priesthood, and they made the Levites their servants. And this is very significant as we look at the New Testament in Jesus's day. This is what Rawlinson, a commentator, said. He said: Jealousy of the priests must have grown up during the captivity. The priestly conclave had also succeeded in reducing the importance and significance of the Levites and their office.

And by the time of Christ, the high priest and his hierarchy, remember Caiaphas in the New Testament, by the time of Christ, the high priest and his hierarchy had seized complete control over the whole nation. And shortly after the crucifixion of Christ, these would rebel against Rome in their vain attempt to make their control total once again. And he says right here in Ezra, we detect the very root of the priestly conspiracy that led to the final ruin of Israel.

Isn't that interesting? It's this return where they're going to seize their power, where they're going to take their role. They see this as an opportune moment to take control of the nation of Israel. That's one of the reasons so many returned. The idea is that even in the exile it began, and when Cyrus said you can return, this is our chance. No king, there will be no one over us. And that went on for 400 years, and by the time Christ came along, those men in those positions were of incredible power, incredible, as we see in the Gospel accounts.

Now the role of the Levites, these smaller servants they've been reduced to, they're musicians. First Chronicles 25 we have some verses here. First Chronicles 25 says David and the army commanders then appointed men from the family of Asaph to proclaim God's messages to the accompaniment of lyres, harps, and cymbals. And then it gives the name of their names. So they're to do that. So we have the musicians.

The second one says these are the divisions of the gatekeepers. These are all tribes of Levi. So the first category of Levites were singers and musicians, the second group were gatekeepers. Now keep this in mind: musicians, gatekeepers. And the third they worked in First Chronicles 26:20. It says this: Other Levites were in charge of the treasuries of the house of God and the treasuries of the gifts dedicated to the Lord. So take that entire tribe of Levi, back out those descendants of Aaron, all those remaining were musicians, gatekeepers, and in charge of the treasury.

Guest (Male): Pastor Thom Keller documenting for us from the power shift that took place after the return from captivity, unmasking the motivation behind their return that appeared to be related to the control of the treasury. But our hearts no doubt are to serve the Lord because we love him and his people. You're listening to Study the Word. We're studying the book of Ezra right now. To hear this message again simply go to ccleb.com and look under resources.

We're at ccleb.com. If you'd rather have a CD copy call 717-507-7862. That's 717-507-7862. And for those that give to the ministry this month, we'll say thanks by sending you a book by Andrew Murray called The Blessings of Obedience. Maybe your view of obedience is more along the lines of an inconvenience, something you have to do but don't want to do, and it takes all the fun out of life.

But the truth is God has our best interest at heart. He loves us, and it's truly a blessing to get in line with his will for our lives. Again we'll send this your way for a gift of any amount to Study the Word. Call 717-507-7862 or write Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania 17046. And if you live close by or will be visiting the area soon, we hope you'll join us for worship.

For our service times and more information about Calvary Chapel Lebanon, turn to ccleb.com and download our free Android app, search Calvary Chapel Lebanon in the Google Play Store. We'll get back into Ezra next time on Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller, and may God richly bless you as you study the Word and discover the blessings of obedience as you apply it to your life.