Background

Background to the Post-Exilic Books

I. 1 Chronicles 9

Tonight we look at the section called Return and Rebuilding. I will start with just a comment about, and a very brief reading from, 1 Chronicles 9 and then we will go in alphabetical order, which really means going Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, then Ezra and Nehemiah. 1 Chronicles 9 is the end of the genealogy section of 1 Chronicles and its value for us is where it brings us in terms of the whole Bible story. If you look at the first word in 1 Chronicles 1, it is Adam. You have a chronicler starting the story right back with Adam. Then, you come to 1 Chronicles 9, at the end of the genealogies, and you are told the people of Judah were taken captive at Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. Then, immediately, the first to resettle on their own property in their own towns were some Israelites, priests, Levites, and temple servants. Names are mentioned of various people who had come back. Some of these people, especially, are priests, gatekeepers, Levites. Why such an emphasis on musicians and people who were involved with the religious activities? The answer is that the chronicler is deeply concerned, writing sometime around 530 BC, to help people appreciate the importance of getting the temple rebuilt. We have talked about this before; I just make this reference back again to what the chronicler is doing.

A. The Genealogies

If you would look at the genealogies in Chronicles very carefully, it does require some time, you will see that none of them goes down further than about the time 530, 520 BC, right around that time. That is when all the genealogies leave off. Actually, at the end of chapter 9, you see a new genealogy start, the genealogy of Saul, that is where the chronicler goes back to Saul’s day and then starts over again.

The chronicler gives you a genealogy from Adam to 530 BC, then goes back and starts around 1050 BC with Saul, very quickly, and then a lot on David and Solomon, lots and lots and lots on David and Solomon.

B. Importance of Rebuilding the Temple

David and Solomon had, as one of their primary interests, the building of the original temple. David wanted to do it; God would not let him. Solomon did do it and the chronicler tells you everything you want to know about that temple and more. The temple is a very, very big concern. I think we all understand that, at 530 BC, the temple had lain in ruins for fifty-six years. It was 586, that great turning point year that Lamentations talks about, that Jeremiah talks about, that Ezekiel talks about, when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and took Judah captive and exiled tens of thousands of people abroad and so on, that great year the temple was destroyed.

C. Major Problems Because Temple Was Destroyed

When the temple is destroyed a lot of things are problematic. For example, suppose now, in New Testament times, the times we are living in, the New Covenant era, somebody said, “God is going to destroy the temple.” What would that mean? Now, you see, God still has a temple; it is us. People are His temple. That is the way it works; that is what the New Testament teaches us. It is no longer a building; it is people. What is the purpose of a temple? The answer is it--is a place for God to inhabit, to dwell in. In the Old Testament it is a building. It is very important. They have got to have a building, otherwise God is not dwelling there in their midst. In the New Covenant, it is people; God has to have people. Now, He does not have to have anything but, if He is going to have a temple, He certainly has to have people. We are His temple, as Paul explains. As His temple, we have God dwelling in us. We could not possibly be His temple without God dwelling in us; you would not really have a temple. It is not a temple unless God dwells in it.

So, we are the containers for God to work. It goes right back to the image of God concept in the beginning of Genesis; let’s make people in our own image. The idea there is not that we look like God or resemble Him in some ontological way, but that we are His representatives; we do His will. If we are His temple, He is in us and we accomplish His purposes and we take Him with us wherever we go. The theory is that we have always got God with us and, as we do our things, we accomplish His purposes as well, fulfilling Jesus’ teaching of the prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The temple is important and it will be a big issue, not only for the chronicler, but also for Haggai and for Zechariah and, in another kind of way, for Malachi, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Getting the temple built is the big issue for the chronicler, and for Haggai and for Zechariah, because they all write before it is rebuilt. It still remains in ruins, totally destroyed as the Babylonians did it, when they all are dealing with this issue.

It does get built and Ezra and Nehemiah come afterwards, along with Malachi, when there is a temple. So their concern is not getting one built; that is not their concern at all. Their concern is properly taking care of it, properly worshipping within it, properly doing the things that ought to be done. And again, there is a nice, New Testament, New Covenant analogy. If anybody is in Christ, if anybody said, “Yes, I believe Christ died for me on the cross, I accept Him as my Savior,” that person has got the Holy Spirit. God does not say, “I don’t know if I will or not with that person.” No, God gives the Holy Spirit. But the question is--what will you do about it? Will you nourish the work of the Spirit in you? Where will you quench the Spirit? That was the question for Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi. Will we do right by God? Will we honor Him in His temple or will it be desecrated; will it be defiled? Will things that take place there be selfish things done for the benefit of people rather than for the proper worship of God? So, if you want a single theme to kind of hang things on during this time of restoration, the temple certainly has a lot of interconnections. It is a big, big topic. As we start tonight with Haggai, we will certainly be talking a lot about the temple.

II. The Persian Empire

Before we get precisely to Haggai, let me project here a map of the extent of the Persian Empire. When the Persians, in 540 BC, took over the Babylonian Empire, they already had a big empire of their own, the Medeo-Persian Empire. The Medeo-Persian Empire was over here and it was massive. They did extend it; there is a part of India. So they have got the empire going to India and you can see going up into what we would call Northern India and parts of Afghanistan and so on and all the way up to the Aral Sea and then through the Caspian and so on; they have got a massive empire there. Then, as well, they took over the Babylonian Empire, which was roughly where I am outlining it now with my finger, and then extended even further, to Egypt, Libya, and much of Europe; they went all the way to Greece. The only people who were successful in resisting them, in terms of serious opposition, were the Greeks. The Greeks did resist, but only partly successfully. Ever after 540 BC, the Greeks kept fighting back and kept pushing and kept trying to beat back the Persians. There were some periods of time when the Greeks were, in fact, very successful. You really would have to draw the empire going just to the edge of modern day Turkey because the Greeks had beaten them back. Then, there would be lots and lots of wars as Persian emperors kept trying to suppress the Greek territories that they had conquered and as the Greeks kept trying to push back and so on. It is a vast empire; the size of that empire is just enormous. The only thing that eclipses it, and even then rather slightly, it eclipses it in terms of numbers of people but otherwise does not go as far in some directions, is, of course, the Roman Empire. We are at the stage, now, where the Persian Empire is enormous.

A. Attitude Toward Conquered Territory

Remember, the Persians had a different attitude toward conquered territory. That is the big change. God brought the Persians on the scene. The Assyrians always practiced a vicious control over the territories they conquered, brutal control, exile the population, replace them with others, the Babylonians the same thing. But the Persians said, “No, no, this exile business we don’t do.” The Persian King Cyrus the Great said, “I don’t do exiles.” He just would not do it; it was not their style; it was not anything that they wanted to do. It probably occurred to them, because they knew how the system worked, but they just did not do it. This meant, suddenly, that the world, the known world, was under the control of an entirely new kind of regime. This Persian Empire system said we do not like exiles, and therefore, in God’s providence, they were also open to the idea that people who had been exiled would not need to remain exiled.

B. The Decree of Cyrus

So, as a matter of general policy, it was the concept of Cyrus the Great to be open to the very thing that, in all probability, Daniel got accomplished and that was this thing that we call the Decree of Cyrus. It was a decree that is printed at the end of 2 Chronicles and at the beginning of Ezra. A decree that says, "Any Jew anywhere can go back home. In fact, if they will do so, I will help fund it because they should go back for a certain purpose that I think is just peachy," (that is my little quick summary of what the king says). If you read what he, in fact, says in the decree, as it is spelled out for us, he says, they go back not just for any purpose at all but, he says, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you—may the Lord his God be with him, let him go up.” It further says, “The people in any place where survivors may now be living are to provide him with silver and gold, goods, livestock, and freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.” That is the big focus, even of the decree of Cyrus; not just these Jews can return, we do not do exiles but let them go back and their purpose, as a group of people, their national purpose, should be to build the temple for the God who is the God of Israel. Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God of Jerusalem.

C. Syncretism of Cyrus

You might say, how would that fit with the theology of a guy like Cyrus the Great? The answer is--it fits with his syncretism, a term we have used a couple of times before. Syncretism is the way of looking at religion that says, we are going to blend together beliefs. Usually, Syncretists are people who feel that all religions have some value. I will bet you have met plenty of people who have said, “Oh yeah, I think all paths lead to God.” You have talked to a Syncretist. It might not have been a full-blown Syncretist in every way but that is syncretistic thinking. Anybody who is a pluralist in general, who says, “Well, I think Jews are saved on their terms, Christians on theirs, Buddhists on theirs, whatever, that is a Syncretist, that is essentially syncretistic thinking.

The full-blown Syncretism that people like Cyrus, that Persians, in general, practiced was actually not just saying all religions have some validity. They certainly said that but, in addition, they said, I will worship any god I can. So, instead of saying, “You can be a Buddhist, that is fine for you and you will go to heaven because you are sincere, and I will be a Christian and I will go to heaven because I am sincere.” They said, “Well, why don’t you worship my god and I’ll worship yours and we will both get more benefits that way.” Full Syncretism really tries to add everybody else’s religion to one's own. A king like Cyrus would have had no trouble thinking that there really was a Yahweh, this God of the Jews in Jerusalem. That would not be in any way difficult for him because he would think there are hundreds or thousands of gods and goddesses. He might also think that that God was pretty impressive because of what Daniel had been able to do. Daniel had a lot of influence in the Babylonian and Persian court and that was effective, as well, on his thinking, perhaps.

And, it is, also, just simply not impossible that he said, “I can’t evaluate just how powerful this God is but why offend Him. If we can have Him re-inhabit His temple, and thus be properly worshipped, His power may grow, and He will be good to me.” There was a natural interest in having the temple built so that the people there could worship and at the same time pray for the royal family back in Persia. That was the idea. At a later point, in the Book of Ezra, the people are reminded that one of the things that is supposed to happen is that the temple should be rebuilt in order to provide a place where prayers will be given for “the king and his sons.” That way of thinking, about what the temple is supposed to be, is very, very natural to the Babylonian way of thinking, in a small way, but the Persian, now, way of thinking in a very, very big way. Instructions are given that the temple can finally be rebuilt and so on and then, if you look at a place like Ezra 6:10, there is added in the statement, “So that they may offer sacrifices pleasing to the God of heaven and pray for the wellbeing of the king and his sons.” The temple, again, a big idea, even in the official mentality of the Persians. They would not, of course, have all the right motives. They are syncretistic, polytheistic, largely pantheistic, as well as idolatrous and so on, but God gets His purposes even out of these pagan idolaters, the Persians. That is the picture that presents itself to us.

III. Chronological Order

Let me just be sure that you have a sense of the chronological order of things. Here is a quick look at the Post-Exilic Books in order.

1. Chronicles around 530.

2. Haggai around 520.

3. Zechariah, 520-500 or so.

4. Then, we are going to see a jump in time down to Malachi at about 460.

5. Then, look how close after him comes Ezra; 458 he arrives on the scene.

6. Then, 444, Nehemiah arrives on the scene.

7. There is also Esther, about whom we have talked, but Esther is more exilic. The date 440 would not necessarily apply to when Esther was queen because that would be a little bit earlier but just a question mark about when it might have been written, whereas, this is a chronological order of when these books were probably composed. That is the reason for listing Esther in there. Thus, Esther could be the last book in chronological order in composition but you cannot tell for sure; it is not certain.

That is just an overview just to give you a feel for how we are proceeding chronologically tonight. We did Chronicles, briefly, all we need to do. We are now going to look at Haggai, and then Zechariah, Malachi, Ezra and Nehemiah.