Ezra · chapter 6 of 10
Updated on
Ezra 6 tells how King Darius orders a search of the archives and finds Cyrus's decree in Ecbatana, then commands that the temple be finished with royal funds and threatens anyone who interferes. The temple is completed in the sixth year of Darius, dedicated with great joy, and the people keep the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
This chapter closes the first part of Ezra, the rebuilding of the temple. After the opposition of chapter 4 and the letter of Tattenai in chapter 5, the story shows that God directs even the archives of an empire and moves them on behalf of his house. A gap of almost sixty years follows before Ezra 7.
King Darius orders a search of the archives in Babylon, and in the fortress of Ecbatana, in the province of Media, a scroll with a memorandum is found. It says that in the first year of Cyrus an order was given to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem, with precise measurements, three courses of great stones and one of timber, and that the cost would be paid from the royal treasury. It also commands the return of the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off.
Darius orders Tattenai and his associates to stay away and let the Jewish governor and elders work. He orders the expenses to be paid in full from the king's revenue, along with whatever is needed daily for the sacrifices: bulls, rams, lambs, wheat, salt, wine and oil, so that they may offer sacrifices pleasing to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. Anyone who alters the decree will have his house made a dunghill, and the God who has caused his name to dwell there will overthrow any king or people who tries to change it.
Tattenai carries it out diligently. The elders of the Jews build and prosper through the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah. They finish the temple on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of Darius. They dedicate it with joy, offering a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs and twelve male goats, one for each tribe of Israel. The priests and Levites are set in their divisions, and on the fourteenth day of the first month they keep the Passover. Those who returned from exile eat it together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the peoples to seek the Lord, and they keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with joy, because the Lord had made them glad.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Cyrus's memorandum orders the house of God rebuilt, with precise measurements, and the cost paid from the royal treasury. What seemed a burden to the Jews had been backed by the authority of the empire from the start.
Darius asks God to overthrow any king or people who tries to change the decree or destroy his house in Jerusalem. A foreign king acknowledges that God makes his name dwell there and puts the full weight of the empire at the temple's service.
The elders build and prosper through the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, and finish the house by the command of God and of the kings of Persia. Prophetic word, human labor and civil authority come together under the Lord's hand.
They keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread with joy because the Lord made them glad and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them. The text gives God the credit for changing a ruler's attitude.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: In the fortress of Ecbatana, in the province of Media. — Ezra 6:2
Answer: From the royal treasury, out of the tribute of the province Beyond the River. — Ezra 6:4, 8
Answer: To keep away and let the governor and elders of the Jews work. — Ezra 6:6-7
Answer: On the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of Darius. — Ezra 6:15
Answer: Twelve, one for each tribe of Israel, as a sin offering. — Ezra 6:17
Answer: The Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. — Ezra 6:19-22
Ezra 6 encourages us to believe that God can move resources and authorities on behalf of his work, even when it seems impossible. In a small group you can share a time a door opened unexpectedly, and remember that in the meantime the people kept working in faith.
The chapter also ends in celebration. The people did not stop at finishing the building: they dedicated the temple, returned to the Passover and rejoiced in the Lord. Ask how you celebrate what God does in the church, and whether you make time to give thanks before moving on to the next task.
Ezra 6 closes the story of the temple with the house dedicated and the people in festival. From chapter 7 there is a gap of about sixty years: Ezra the scribe appears, arriving in Jerusalem to teach the law of the Lord.
This is the second temple, built on the same site as Solomon's, which Babylon destroyed. It was more modest, and Haggai spoke of its future glory being greater. It was later enlarged under Herod, and Jesus taught in that building. Ezra 6 describes its first completion and dedication.
Because the Persian empire had inherited the territory of Assyria and Babylon, and the author calls the Persian king Darius king of Assyria by that continuity. What matters is that God changed the king's heart so that he helped in the work of his house.