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Day 271 Israel's Foreign Wife's
Ezra 9 - 10
Chapter 9: Ezra's Denunciation of Mixed Marriages
Ezra 9:1-4 ~ The Elders Reveal the Marriages of Some Jews to Pagans
In Chapter 9, the book returns to Ezra's first-person narrative. 1 Once this was done, or "after these things," either refers to an account of the reading of the Law in Nehemiah Chapter 8 or the penitential service in Nehemiah 9 that came between Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem and the events of Ezra Chapters 9-10. As you will recall, the letter to King Artaxerxes in Ezra Chapter 4 and his response happened after the royal governor's letter to King Darius and the king's letter in Chapter 5. The collection of the events in Ezra and Nehemiah are not always in historical order.
The despised mixed marriages the officials complained about to Ezra cannot be referring to Gentile converts to the faith since the complaint is that the Gentiles who married "the people of Israel" did not renounce their "disgusting practices," a reference to pagan worship and immoral practices associated with their pagan rituals (verse 1). This unclean behavior has contaminated the covenant people, leaving them ritually "unclean" and unfit for worship. The complaint may refer to the problem the prophet Haggai identified when he told the Jews they could not offer "clean" sacrifices if they were themselves "unclean" (Hag 2:14).
The eight pagan groups mentioned in verse 1 were the inhabitants of Canaan before the Israelite conquest. The same pagan peoples are mentioned to invoke the memory of the ancient law as relevant to the current situation in the Jews' return to the Promised Land.
Ezra 9:5-15 ~ Ezra's Prayer and Confession of His People's Sin to Yahweh
Question: In what two ways does Ezra respond to the news of the Jews' infidelity to the Law? See 9:3-15.
Answer: He responds with mourning (9:3-5) and by offering a prayer of repentance on behalf of his people (9:5-15).
Chapter 10: The People's Response
Ezra 10:1-6 ~ The People Respond to Ezra's Grief
Chapter 10 returns to a third-person narrative. In 10:1-5, a group of elders propose the action Ezra should take to resolve the problem of intermarriage with foreigners. The people who have not engaged in marriage with pagans identify with Ezra's grief.
Ezra 10:7-17 ~ The Proclamation and the Commission
Ezra calls for a Sacred Assembly that every exile throughout Judah and Jerusalem must attend. Anyone who refused to appear in Jerusalem within three days was to forfeit all his property and suffer the penalty of being excommunicated from the community.
Ezra 10:18-44 ~ The List of the Guilty
Ezra 10:18-44 is a list of the 113 men who married pagan women but submitted to Ezra's ruling and sent their wives and children away, probably back to their communities in Babylon. That is 113 men out of c. 29,000 families of returned exiles. Notice that the problem even existed in the family of the High Priest Jeshua (verse 18). The four priestly families are the same as the families listed in Ezra 2:36-39, and seven of the lay families listed in 2:3-35 and 8:3-14.
Zechariah 9 - 11
The focus of Chapters 9-11:
Chapter 9 is a poetic prophecy that promises Yahweh the Divine Warrior's judgment on Israel/Judah's enemies and describes the arrival of a humble royal Savior to Jerusalem, riding a donkey, and inaugurating an era of peace.
- Chapter 10 is a poetic prophecy that describes Yahweh the Divine Shepherd coming to visit His "flock" and bringing the blessings of restoration to His people.
- Chapter 11 begins as a poetic prophecy and condemnation against Judah's Gentile neighbors and then continues in a prose condemnation against the failed shepherds of the covenant people in Zechariah's times in a poetic prophecy of disaster for those leaders who abuse God's people.
Historical dates relevant to this lesson:
Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered the Greek Ionian cities of Asia Minor in 547 BC
Zechariah's last dated vision and series of oracles was in 518 BC
Ionian Revolt against Persia in 499-493 BC
Greco-Persian Wars from 499 to 449 BC
Conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great began in 334 BC
Death of Alexander the Great and division of his kingdom in 323 BC
Maccabean Revolt against Greek Seleucid Kingdom in 167-160 BC
Judah's independence and rule by Hasmonean priest-kings 160-63 BC
Zechariah 9:1-8 ~ Yahweh the Divine Warrior Brings Judgment on Judah's Enemies
The oracles of Zechariah Part II in 9:1 and 12:1 and Malachi 1:1 begin with the Hebrew word massa, derived from the Hebrew root ns' meaning "to bear," "to carry," or "lift up," suggesting a "burden" but which can also be translated as "proclamation" or "oracle" as the New Jerusalem Bible translates the word in 9:1 and 12:1 but as "message" in Malachi 1:1. These three examples are the only places where this word appears in Scripture associated with the word of Yahweh. The use of massa in these three places causes some Biblical scholars to view the Book of Malachi as an appendix to the Book of Zechariah Part II.
The oracle in 9:1-11:3 is in poetic form and describes Yahweh the Divine Warrior King coming to bring judgment against Israel's enemies and to restore His covenant people. The oracle concerns Aramaean, Phoenician, and Philistine cities and alludes to a future conquest interpreted as an act of Yahweh's judgment in advance of the Messianic Age.
Zechariah 9:9-10 ~ The Arrival of the Messianic Royal Savior
This part of the oracle describes Yahweh as the Divine Messiah, entering Jerusalem as a humble king who will banish war and establish peace for not only His people but "peace to the nations" in an "empire" that will stretch from sea to sea," from the River Euphrates "to the limits of the earth." In verse 9, the Hebrew has "upright" or "just" [tzaddyik] in the sense that the Messianic king is the receiver of God's saving justice in his vindication of his people and his protection of them.
"Daughter of Zion" refers to the faithful of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant Church (also see Zec 2:10; Is 12:6; 52:2; 62:4; Mic 4:8; Zeph 3:14-15). The triumphant Savior King arrives "humble and riding on a donkey," an entry demonstrating his peaceful intentions. On Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem in the 1st century AD, the crowds would have recalled three passages in Sacred Scripture: Jacob-Israel's blessing for this son, Judah, Solomon riding into Jerusalem as his father, David's, successor, and Zechariah's prophecy of the humble royal Savior.
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Zechariah 9:11-17 ~ The Restoration of Israel
The "blood of your covenant" refers to the sacrificial seal of God's covenant relationships that began with the animals God sacrificed to cloth Adam and Eve after they fell from grace in the Garden Sanctuary of Eden. It was a covenant ritual that continued in every covenant God formed with individuals and in the corporate covenant with Israel at Sinai and into the New Covenant in Christ Jesus (see the connections between blood and covenant in Ex 24:4-8; Mt 26:28; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 9:17-22; 10:29; 13:20).
Question: How does the New Covenant in Christ Jesus continue under the "sign of the blood of the covenant"? See Mt 26:28; Lk 22:20; and 1 Cor 11:25.
Answer: The New Covenant is sealed in the blood of Jesus on the altar of the Cross and in the Cup of His Blood in the Eucharist.
Zechariah 10:1-2 ~ An Invitation to Ask for Yahweh's Blessings
When the covenant people return to Him in obedience, and He gives them victory over their enemies, then they can ask Him to reinstate the covenant blessings stated in Leviticus 26:3-13 and Deuteronomy 11:13-14 and 28:1-14.
Zechariah 10:3-12 ~ The Divine Shepherd's Visitation to Bring About Judah's Deliverance
In the Bible and the writings of other cultures in the ancient Near East, "shepherds" are the civil rather than religious leaders (2 Sam 5:2; Is 44:28). However, after the Jews returned from exile, there was no Davidic king to govern them, and the role of the high priest and the senior chief priests was expanded to fulfill religious as well as civil judgments. For example, instead of a king, the reigning high priest became the presiding judge over the highest court in the land, as High Priest Joseph Caiaphas was at Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin (Mt 26:57-66).
In Scripture, Yahweh is the "Divine Shepherd" (Ps 22:1; 80:1), Jesus the "Good Shepherd" (Jn 10:11-16), and the Resurrected Christ the "Divine" and "Chief Shepherd" (1 Pt 2:25; 5:4). The "shepherds" and "he-goats" abusing His people are the foreign kings and their governors (see Is 44:28; Jer 25:34ff; Nah 3:18; see Dan 8:5-8 where a prophecy that refers to Alexander the Great calls him a "he-goat" and his four generals who divide his empire the "four little horns" of the he-goat (Dan 8:8b-12). A he-goat is also the sin sacrifice for a ruler, and Jesus will judge between the sheep and the goats in the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46.
Zechariah 11:4-16 ~ The Wicked Shepherds
This section on the shepherds ends with a Messianic prophecy in Zechariah 13:7-9 in the second oracle of Zechariah Part II. In verses 4-14, events are reviewed allegorically, and God's providence is vindicated. Returning to events in Zechariah's present, God gives him pastoral charge over a people who have not appreciated the covenant blessings Yahweh wanted to confer on them and have not practiced the good behavior He instructed them to observe.
Since they have failed in the call to live in righteousness, God will, therefore, impose a wicked shepherd over them in punishment for the people's return to their former injustices.
DAY 271 Jesus the Rock
CHALLENGE: “Peter can’t be the rock in Matthew 16:18 because Scripture says God is the rock (Isa. 51:1). Further, Peter describes Jesus as a stone (1 Pet. 2:4–8). Therefore, Jesus must be the rock.”
DEFENSE: This challenge does not understand the way metaphors work.
Although Isaiah does refer to God as “the rock from which you were hewn,” there is nothing about this passage indicating that only God can be described as a rock.
If only God could be described as a rock then Jesus could not have given Simon bar-Jonah the nickname Cephas/Peter/Rock (John 1:42; Matt. 16:18). The fact that Jesus bestows this nickname means that the metaphor of a rock can be used to refer to non-divine individuals, so we must ask what metaphor is being used in any given passage.
When Peter refers to Jesus as a living stone, he uses the normal Greek word for stone: lithos. The fact that he uses this rather than petra or petros (see Day 282) indicates a different metaphor is being used than when he gave Peter his nickname.
Metaphors are not just used in a single way. Protestant scholar D.A. Carson notes: The objection that Peter considers Jesus the rock is insubstantial because metaphors are commonly used variously, till they become stereotyped, and sometimes even then.
Here [in Matt. 16:18] Jesus builds his church; in 1 Corinthians 3:10, Paul is “an expert builder.” In 1 Corinthians 3:11, Jesus is the church’s foundation; in Ephesians 2:19–20, the apostles and prophets are the foundation (cf. also Rev 21:14), and Jesus is the “cornerstone.” Here Peter has the keys; in Revelation 1:18; 3:7, Jesus has the keys. In John 9:5, Jesus is “the light of the world”; in Matthew 5:14, his disciples are. None of these pairs threatens Jesus’ uniqueness. They simply show how metaphors must be interpreted primarily with reference to their immediate contexts (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary on Matt. 16:18).
Carson also notes: “In this passage Jesus is the builder of the church and it would be a strange mixture of metaphors that also sees him within the same clauses as its foundation” (ibid.).
The challenge thus uses a simplistic understanding of how metaphors work and forces metaphors used elsewhere in Scripture into the text of Matthew 16:18.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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