Post Exile Jerusalem: Not a happy place

When we read scripture, apart from relying on the Holy Spirit for insight, it is important that we use our imaginations and empathy to do full justice to the historical and situational context of the stories we read.  When you read about the plight of post exilic Judah, you are tempted to gloss over the details and miss the near hopelessness which befell the mission.

Not everyone likes war movies as much as I do.  I am particularly fanatical about Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”: a lurid re-telling of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness within the gloomy and often hopeless theatre of the Vietnam War.  The extended version of the film contains a number of deleted sequences which never made it into the theatrical edition.  At one point of Willard’s search for Kurtz, he comes across a seemingly forgotten US Army outpost on the banks of the Nung River.  The place is a forlorn mess - under siege, not by the enemy but by the elements. The few soldiers who remain are leaderless and have long forgotten the war.  What meagre shelter they have is slowly rotting in the incessant rain and slow creep of mud.  The men are only there so that someone back at high command can claim that the line – such as it is in a guerrilla war – is being held.  But out in the festering jungle, it’s every man for himself.

I find this a useful picture when I try to imagine the hopelessness of circumstances in Jerusalem; first after the temple re-building faltered and later when it becomes apparent that unless the walls are rebuilt, the settlement is little more than a large, directionless encampment.

In Ezra and Haggai we read of severe discouragement and, in turn, dissipation.  We learn of drought and crop failure.  In all 4 books (Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah) – we read of corruption, exploitation, usury, fear, class divisions and deviations from the Mosaic Law (intermarriage).  The report sent to Nehemiah alludes to the returnees being “in great trouble and disgrace” – later, as he inspects the damage himself, he finds that some of the City’s gates are in such disrepair that he cannot even pass through them.  And as if those things weren’t enough – the surrounding non Jews have a score to settle – not only this, they are fully armed and ready to choke the re-settlement at birth.

In “Apocalypse Now”, Willard senses that the longer he stays in that ram-shackle, malarial hovel, the more his mission is likely to be compromised.  After securing a meagre helping of fuel, he continues up river and puts it out of his mind.

Mercifully for Jerusalem and the returnees, help is at hand.  Often in painful ways, restoration will touch every aspect of their existence.  From the physical – (rebuilding of the walls) to the societal (re-settling the city) to the economic (ensuring no-one get’s left in need) to the spiritual (restoration of the Law and a system of worship)