Latest / Reformed Thinking / Rebuilding the City and Renewing the Covenant (Ezra–Nehemiah) | Thomas R. Schreiner

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Rebuilding the City and Renewing the Covenant (Ezra–Nehemiah) | Thomas R. Schreiner · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking, the segment where we slice
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  through historical narratives to get right to the theological
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  core. OK, let's unpack this.
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  Today we are doing a deep dive into two, well, really critical
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  books in biblical history, Ezra and Nehemiah.
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  And for our framework, we're drawing on the analysis from
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  Shriners, The King in His Beauty, which I think does a
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  fantastic job clarifying these books about the return from
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  exile. Our mission for you today is
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  pretty straightforward. We want you to be able to
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  quickly grasp the big picture here, the main historical and
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  theological threads connecting everything.
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  This isn't just a story about, you know, hammers and walls and
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  Persian politics. It's really about the central
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  question facing this post exilic community.
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  Will they finally show true fidelity to Yahweh's lordship?
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  I mean, they're back in the land, sure, but are they
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  actually living under this rule? That's the real test.
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  That is the essential challenge. It's right at the heart of these
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  books. They chronicle this, this
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  massive undertaking of returning from Babylon to essentially
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  restart a nation. And we see two actions taking
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  place at the same time. First, there's the physical side
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  of things, rebuilding the temple, put them in the altar
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  back and later, of course, the city walls.
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  But the second action, and this is the one that requires so much
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  more, is covenant fidelity, you know, actually living by the law
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  given through Moses. These records are an
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  encouragement to Israel to focus on the Lord's priorities and to
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  avoid aligning with those who are not faithful to him.
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  That idea of separation is just central.
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  Right. So let's start with the context.
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  The first thing you notice is how these books were originally
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  put together. In the Hebrew Canon, Ezra and
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  Nehemiah are a single work, a continuous story, and that tells
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  you right away that we're supposed to see these events and
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  these two men as having a unified purpose.
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  And you see it in the story itself.
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  Ezra's work on spiritual reform is woven together with
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  Nehemiah's work on, say, civil governance and physical
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  building. You know, Nehemiah joins Ezra to
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  teach the law. Ezra's there for the dedication
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  of Nehemiah's wall. The author clearly wants us to
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  get that the political and the religious efforts weren't
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  separate things. They had to function together to
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  rebuild the community, all under God's law.
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  And that story connects directly to what came before it.
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  I mean, Ezra literally picks up with the exact same words that
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  end the book of Chronicles. If you read two Chronicles 36
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  and then Ezra 1, you see the decree of Cyrus is the
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  connecting point. That's not an accident.
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  It's showing that the story of the Covenant people is
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  continuing even after the catastrophe of the exile.
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  So Ezra Nehemiah is the sequel really detailing what happens
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  right after the Lord stirs the heart of this Persian king.
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  And it seems like that unity is critical because it shows the
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  nation's survival depends on both things, the physical
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  structure, you know, the temple and walls, but also the
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  spiritual integrity. The obedient.
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  You can't have one without the other, not if you're truly going
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  to live under the lordship of God.
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  And the story kicks off not with an Israelite hero, but with the
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  Pagan King Cyrus of Persia. It's 538 BC and he issues this,
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  this just incredible decree letting the people go back to
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  Jerusalem and rebuild. For a people who felt completely
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  defeated, this must have been just a stunning sign of God's
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  favor working through the most unlikely place, foreign
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  politics. It's remarkable.
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  And he doesn't just give permission, The text says he
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  actually mandates that the local people have to provide financial
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  and material help. So this isn't a story about
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  human strategy. It's a theme that runs through
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  both books. God is the King of the universe,
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  and His hand directs the hearts of even the most powerful
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  secular rulers. That's the idea of Providence,
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  right? Exactly and you see it shine
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  here. God is sovereignly orchestrating
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  everything through these non covenant kings and officials.
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  Happens with Cyrus and then later with Darius and
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  Artaxerxes. The author is making it crystal
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  clear that God is the ultimate king, and he's using these
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  empires as his tools to carry out his will for his people.
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  So even though Israel doesn't have political independence,
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  they're not without the protection of their sovereign
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  Lord. That's right, and the people's
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  response confirms it. They responded with generosity.
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  And then Cyrus returns the temple vessels, the actual
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  sacred items Nebuchadnezzar had stolen and paraded around his
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  trophies. This wasn't just a nice
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  political gesture. It was a tangible sign that the
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  old order was being reversed. A new, divinely orchestrated
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  chapter was beginning. The return of those vessels
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  meant the partial return of God's glory to his city.
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  OK, so they've returned. What's the 1st order of
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  business? It's restoring worship before
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  they even start on the temple foundation.
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  They rebuild the altar for sacrifices, and that makes
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  perfect sense because the altar represents atonement, access to
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  God. They had to get covenant life
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  going again right away, making sacrifices, celebrating feasts
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  like the Feast of Booths. They're trying to put the Mosaic
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  Law back into practice immediately, which signals that
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  their fidelity to Yahweh is the number one priority.
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  That focus on the altar is so important.
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  Then they lay the foundation, and the text in Ezra 3 records
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  this incredibly mixed reaction. There were shouts of joy, of
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  course. This was a new start, a physical
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  sign of God's grace. But the older people, the ones
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  who remembered the first temple, they wept loudly.
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  They wept because this new foundation was well, it was
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  nothing compared to the glory of Solomon's temple.
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  Right. It's this contrast between the
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  ideal they remembered and the, well, the diminished reality of
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  their situation. It is, and yet the text make
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  sure we get the theological point.
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  Even this humble foundation was a sign of God's ongoing grace
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  and His covenant love. And that gets to the symbolism
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  of it all. The earthly temple, even a
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  smaller one, represented the heavenly temple.
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  Its presence meant the Lord was reigning over Israel again, that
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  his favor was restored. Just like Solomon's temple
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  dedicated the Kingdom, this new foundation declared that God had
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  not abandoned them. But this brings us to a major
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  historical problem for Israel. Their whole reason for the exile
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  was their failure to worship Yahweh exclusively.
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  It was their constant fall into syncretism, mixing true worship
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  with Pagan ideas. And that history makes the
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  encounter in Ezra 4 so tense. This is the deceptive.
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  Offer the deceptive offer. Yes, the danger shows up
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  immediately, and it sounds like a good thing.
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  Their local adversaries come to the Jews and say, let us build
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  with you, for we worship your God as you do.
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  They even claim they've been sacrificing to Yahweh for
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  generations. It's a tempting offer.
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  More help, less work. Local approval.
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  What could go wrong? Right.
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  But the Jewish leaders give this sharp refusal and the narrator
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  completely approved of it, and you have to ask, why not take
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  the help? Because it would have been
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  contamination. Exactly.
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  Compromise. The temptation to mix the
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  exclusive worship of God with the practices of their neighbors
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  was the very sin that led to their ruin.
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  This restoration project was entirely conditional on their
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  holiness. Accepting help from people whose
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  worship was questionable would have undermined the whole point
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  of returning. So separation was non negotiable
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  for covenant fidelity. Absolutely necessary.
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  And once that offer was rejected, the adversaries turned
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  hostile immediately. They started discouraging the
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  people, frightening them, and it worked.
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  Construction stopped for about 15 years 15.
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  Years. That's a long time.
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  A very long time. The work stalled until the
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  second year of Darius around 520 BC and was finally finished in
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  516. But here's where the author does
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  something really interesting structurally.
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  In Ezra chapter 4, he suddenly jumps forward in time.
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  Yeah, this is a bit confusing if you're just reading it straight
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  through. It is.
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  He's talking about the opposition to the Temple in the
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  five hundreds, and then he leaps forward a century to talk about
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  opposition to the Walls during the reigns of Hussware and
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  Artiserxes. So why do that?
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  It's not just bad editing. No, it's a deliberate
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  theological point. The author is showing us that
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  the struggle against the temple and the later struggle against
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  the walls are not separate problems.
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  They're part of a pattern, a perpetual spiritual opposition
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  that crosses generations. He's connecting it back to the
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  bigger biblical story. Yes, all the way back to
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  Genesis, the offspring of the serpent trying to destroy the
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  people of God. The temple and later the walled
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  city represented God's dwelling place on earth, a kind of
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  restored Eden. So of course, any resistance to
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  those physical structures is really resistance to Yahweh's
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  reign itself. The conflict is spiritual.
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  So Despite that long delay, God makes sure the temple gets
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  finished. You have the prophets Haggai and
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  Zechariah encouraging the people, and you have Joshua the
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  priest and Zerubbabel from the royal line leading the charge.
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  A united front? Yes.
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  Spiritual and civic leadership working together.
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  And when they start again, a Persian official named Tatani
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  objects. He challenges their legal right
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  to build. But they appeal back to Cyrus's
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  original decree. They do, and what happens next
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  is a perfect picture of divine sovereignty.
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  Darius looks into it. He finds the original decree
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  from Cyrus in the archives, and not only does he agree that they
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  should keep building, he orders that the project be paid for out
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  of the royal treasury. Which is an incredible reversal.
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  A total reversal. The victory is complete.
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  Tat and I is told to stop his opposition and he's required to
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  pay for their supplies out of his own local budget.
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  The temple is finished in 516 BC.
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  The message is clear. God is king and no political
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  bureaucracy can stop his will. And Israel's response is just an
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  explosion of joy and celebration.
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  They get the Temple functioning according to the law, with
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  priests and Levites in their proper divisions.
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  And purity is key. The author highlights that the
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  Passover was observed by those who had returned and separated
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  themselves from the unclean of the peoples of the land.
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  So that separation theme continues.
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  It's central physical separation enables spiritual purity.
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  And their joy, the text says, came for the Lord, who had
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  worked through the Persian king. This celebration was a kind of
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  anticipation of paradise, showing that when the people
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  aligned with God's demand for holiness, they can experience
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  true joy all. Right, that brings us to Ezra
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  himself. The narrative jumps forward
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  pretty significantly in Chapter 7, from about 515 BC all the way
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  to 458, when Ezra shows up. The temple is built, but the
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  spiritual life of the nation is well, it's in need of serious
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  repair. It is, and throughout the story
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  of Ezra's journey, the narrator just keeps repeating this
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  phrase. The hand of God was on Ezra.
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  His success, his safety. It's all because of divine
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  favor. But there's a condition
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  attached. There is.
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  The text clarifies that this favor is for those who seek Him
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  because God's wrath is against those who forsake Him.
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  So God's sovereignty doesn't cancel out the need for human
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  devotion. And Ezra's qualification for
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  this work is his role as a scribe.
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  He was skilled in the Law of Moses.
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  Yes, and his success is spelled out for us in Ezra's 7.10, which
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  is just a perfect model for Covenant life.
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  For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and
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  to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.
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  The order there is so important. Study, do, then teach.
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  It's critical he wasn't just an academic with an intellectual
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  interest in the Torah. He submitted his own life to it
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  first. This shows that the restoration
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  requires more than just ceremonies.
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  It demands practical, obedient submission to God's will in
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  every part of life. So Ezra's first trip is focused
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  on getting resources for the temple.
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  He brings money offerings, but he also brings people, priests,
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  Levites, singers, the whole support staff.
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  Right, the cult couldn't function properly without the
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  consecrated staff and what's amazing is the support he gets
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  from King Artaxerxes. The king provides huge amounts
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  of resources and gives Ezra authority to draw whatever else
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  he needs from the royal treasury.
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  Again, we see God moving the heart of a Pagan king.
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  And it's more than just money. Artaxerxes gives Ezra a real
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  governmental power, judicial authority.
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  He tells Ezra to teach the law, appoint judges, and enforce it
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  with punishments up to and including execution.
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  Ezra is essentially empowered to make God's law the civil law for
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  the community. And Ezra's responses praise he
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  doesn't take credit. Not at all.
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  He blesses God who put such a thing as this into the heart of
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  the King. He sees the King's mandate as a
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  sovereign act of God for the good of his people.
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  The divine King using the earthly King.
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  But despite all this favor, the same old problem comes up almost
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  as soon as Ezra arrives. Spiritual compromise.
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  Yes, faithlessness through intermarriage.
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  Many in Israel had married foreign women who worshipped
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  other gods, which was explicitly forbidden in the Torah.
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  What's so devastating is that the text says this sin was most
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  common among the officials and chief men, the leadership, the
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  very people who should have been modeling faithfulness.
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  We're leading the rebellion. It showed the internal spiritual
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  state of the nation was already corrupt, even with a new temple
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  standing there. And Ezra's reaction is visceral.
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  He tears his clothes, pulls out his hair.
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  He prays this heartbreaking confession, acknowledging this
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  is the same sin that got them exiled in the first place.
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  He sees the irony. God has given them this little
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  reviving the second chance, and they're throwing it away
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  immediately. He does.
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  He sees their situation as ambiguous.
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  They're back, but they're still slaves and captives because they
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  lack true freedom. So the repentance that follows
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  separating from the foreign wives is framed as absolutely
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  essential. The Temple is worthless if
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  Israel is not a holy people dedicated only to Yahweh.
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  OK, so that sets the stage for Nehemiah, who shows up about 13
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  years later. If Ezra focused on the law and
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  Nehemiah focuses on physical security, he hears the walls of
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  Jerusalem are still rubble, and he sees this not just as a civic
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  problem, but as a spiritual disgrace.
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  A sign of their continued sin. And his response, just like
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  Ezra's, is immediate and spiritual.
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  He weeps, mourns fast, and prays for days.
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  He confesses Israel's failure to obey Moses commands, linking
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  their vulnerability directly to their covenant breaking.
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  And his prayer is so theologically grounded.
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  He remembers the prediction of exile, but he also appeals to
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  God's promise of mercy in return if they repent.
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  He's rooting his entire project in the context of God's covenant
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  faithfulness, and this shows Nehemiah's leadership style.
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  The book highlights his incredible skill.
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  He gets sabbatical. He has a detailed plan for the
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  king. But it also stresses that this
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  was never just a secular building project.
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  It all depended on God's favor. Completely.
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  He prays a quick prayer right before he speaks to the king,
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  and when the king agrees, Nehemiah says it was because the
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  good hand of my God was upon me. Human action is only successful
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  when God's sovereign favor is behind it.
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  And just like with the Temple, as soon as the work on the walls
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  begins, the opposition starts, this time from Sambalot and
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  Tobiah. Right.
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  And the author tells us they were displeased greatly that
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  someone had come to seek the welfare of the people of Israel.
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  It's another round in that ancient spiritual conflict,
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  those aligned against God resisting his people's
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  restoration. Their tactics are pretty nasty.
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  First, it's just ridicule mocking them.
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  What are these feeble Jews doing?
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  If a fox goes up on it, he will break down their Stonewall.
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  It's all designed to crush their morale.
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  And when that doesn't work, they move to intimidation,
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  threatening physical attack. Then they switch to false
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  accusations, telling the king that Nehemiah is planning a
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  rebellion. They even hire false prophets
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  from inside the community to try and scare Nehemiah into hiding.
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  But Nehemiah's strategy is this amazing blend of faith and
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  action. It's a perfect illustration of
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  it. It's not one or the other, it's
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  both. He encourages the people to keep
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  working. He prays constantly for God to
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  frustrate the enemy. But he also sets a guard.
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  He is workers with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the
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  other. He trusts God's sovereignty but
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  recognizes His human responsibility to act.
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  So the wall gets built, a monumental achievement.
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  But Nehemiah's work doesn't stop there.
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  He sets up safety procedures and then focuses on repopulating
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  Jerusalem. Which is critical.
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  He makes sure priests, Levites, and gatekeepers are settled
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  inside the walls, and this shows that the wall was for more than
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  just physical protection. The walls were meant to create a
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  sacred space. Jerusalem was supposed to be a
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  city of praise and celebration. As we see in the dedication
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  ceremony in Chapter 12. Exactly.
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  The text says the whole point was to OfferUp praise and thanks
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  to God. But that celebration required
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  purity. So before the big parade, the
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  priests and Levites purify themselves, the people, the
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  gates and the wall. So the physical boundary
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  required a spiritual cleansing. Yes, the walls were boundaries
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  of holiness, designed not just to keep enemies out, but to
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  contain a people dedicated to Yahweh's standards, making the
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  city a fit place for his presence.
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  And this is where the story takes that really jarring turn.
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  It reveals that the real problem was never the external enemies,
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  it was their own lack of fidelity to God.
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  The internal rot and it shows up as economic injustice.
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  While the poor are breaking their backs to build the wall,
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  the officials and nobles are getting rich by charging them
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  interest on loans, a clear violation of the Torah.
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  The human cost is awful. People are mortgaging their
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  property, even selling their children to slavery to survive.
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  It's a total breakdown of Covenant community.
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  They're treating their own brothers and sisters worse than
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  the pagans that treated them, and Nehemiah is just filled with
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  righteous anger. He rebukes the leaders and
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  demands they stop. But listen to his reason from
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  chapter 5. Ought you not to walk in the
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  fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nation's our
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  enemies? That's the core issue.
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  It's about the fear of God. Their actions show they didn't
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  have it. They feared losing money more
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  than they feared disobeying God. And Nehemiah, by contrast,
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  models true leadership by providing for people at his own
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  expense. And the antidote to this
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  internal decay is a return to God's Word.
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  In chapter 8, Ezra leaves this huge assembly where the Torah is
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  read aloud to everyone. And it's not just read, the text
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  says they made sure the people understood it.
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  Yes, instruction and explanation are critical for obedience.
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  Yeah, and the people's first reaction, once they understand
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  the law, is to weep. They're cut to the heart,
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  realizing just how far they've fallen.
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  But the leaders tell them to stop grieving and to turn that
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  sorrow into a day of joy and renewed dedication, reminding
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  them that the joy of the Lord is your strength.
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  And this leads to the celebration of the Feast of
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  Booths. It does.
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  It wasn't a legalistic duty, it was an act of worship showing
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  their desire to live by the covenant again.
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  And after this, in Chapter 9, you have this incredible public
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  prayer. It's just a master class in
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  theology, rehearsing the history of God's faithfulness.
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  It starts by declaring Yahweh as the creator of everything.
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  It's all God centered. They recount the covenant with
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  Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the guidance in the wilderness,
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  the giving of the law. The prayer says that in saving
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  Israel, God made a name for yourself.
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  But right alongside God's faithfulness is the story of
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  Israel's constant failure, refusing to obey, making a
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  golden calf, rejecting the law, even killing the prophets.
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  And the result was exile. But the prayer hangs on to God's
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  mercy. In your great mercies, you did
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  not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a
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  gracious and merciful God. It's that tension between
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  Israel's failure and God's sovereign grace.
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  And it ends with this really sobering admission.
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  Even though they're back in the land, they confess they are
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  still slaves working for foreign kings.
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  Right. The physical return did not
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  equal the glorious fulfillment the prophets had promised.
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  The physical exile was over, but the spiritual and political
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  exile was still very real. So after this prayer, the people
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  make a new solemn pledge to serve the Lord.
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  They list very specific things. Very specific.
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  No intermarriage, no business on the Sabbath, no charging
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  interest and faithfully bringing tithes to support the temple.
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  They're drawing the boundary markers of a holy people.
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  Which makes Chapter 13 just so devastating.
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  It's one. Of the most heartbreaking
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  chapters in the Old Testament because it shows how quickly
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  they broke every single one of those promises.
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  As soon as Nehemiah is gone for a little while, it all falls
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  apart. You see temple defilement.
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  The priest Eliashib gives a room in the temple to their enemy.
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  Tobiah. The adversary is now living
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  inside the sanctuary. An unbelievable act of
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  syncretism. Nehemiah has to come back and
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  physically throw all his stuff out into the street.
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  Then he finds out the Levites aren't being paid their tithes.
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  People are trading on the Sabbath again.
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  And the intermarriage has returned to the point where some
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  of the children can't even speak the language of Judah anymore.
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  The next generations identity is being wiped out.
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  And Nehemiah's response is pure zeal.
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  He curses them, he physically punishes them, and he reminds
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  them that this is exactly how Solomon's sin destroyed the
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  Kingdom. He has to cleanse them from
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  everything foreign all over again.
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  It just proves that an outward oath doesn't change the heart.
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  So Nehemiah himself stands as this model of a zealous leader
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  living for God's honor. He does.
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  He's the one who keeps stepping in to preserve holiness, and the
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  book ends with his repeated prayer, Remember Me, Oh my God,
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  for good. It's not vanity.
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  It's an appeal based on the covenant.
• 20:43
  He's asking the covenant Lord to bless the one who has been loyal
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  to him. So after all that rebuilding and
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  all those reforms, what's the big take away?
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  Where does this leave us in the story of redemption?
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  We're left with a paradox, a stark one.
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  Israel is back. The Temple is rebuilt.
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  The walls are up, but the nation is spiritually weak and
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  politically oppressed. They're still serving foreign
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  kings. So the physical return isn't the
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  final restoration. The exile continues even though
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  they're back in the land. They don't have true freedom
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  because they haven't obeyed Yahweh as their Lord.
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  And this shows the limits of human leadership.
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  Ezra's like a second Moses. He can lead them back, teach the
• 21:20
  law, get them to make an oath, but like Moses, he can't change
• 21:23
  their hearts. The cycle of sin, repentance,
• 21:25
  and immediate sin proves the problem is internal.
• 21:28
  The Lord will fulfill His promises, but only to a people
• 21:31
  who are submissive to Him. And given this constant failure
• 21:34
  we see in Ezra Nehemiah, the books leave you with this huge
• 21:37
  hanging question. What kind of divine
• 21:40
  intervention, what kind of mediator, is going to be
• 21:41
  required to finally provide the heart change needed for Israel
• 21:44
  to truly live under God's lordship and finally escape
• 21:47
  their exile? You're left waiting for a
• 21:49
  fulfillment far greater than anything Ezra or Nehemiah could
• 21:52
  ever accomplish.