Years ago, while on a visit to the Zambezi Valley my older brother and I left the safety of our camp to go on a walk through the bush. Sometime later, a car pulled up alongside us and the occupants, amidst much frenzied pointing, warned of a pride of lions about 200 metres up the road. Much to my relief the driver offered to give us a ride back to camp. Now any normal person would have taken him up on his offer. Not my brother. “We’ll be fine,” was his nonchalant reply.
The car departed. It was just us and the bush. Oh, and the Lions.
It reminds me of a story from the life of Ezra, a priest who returned to Judah in 458 BC to help restore Judah's system of worship.
Receiving similar favour to Zerubbabel 90 years prior, Ezra is dispatched by King Artaxerxes – ostensibly to “inquire about Judah and Jerusalem” – but more specifically, to find out why the Jews have disregarded the Law of their God.
A smart guy this Artaxerxes. He knows that whilst the temple has been erected, Judah remains weak – a function of, amongst other things, drought, intermarriage and famine. Though he worships many Gods, he knows that when the Law of Judah’s god goes unobserved, things fall apart. Very simply, he wants to do his utmost to ensure both a strong Judah and a strong Jerusalem – possibly to act as a buffer to a threat from Egypt and possibly even Syria.
To this end, he lavishes on this small detachment an awesome bounty – pretty much a blank cheque of permission to obtain “all the silver and gold from the province of Babylon” – and a whole lot more besides.
Details of the treasure they carried are recorded in Ezra 7 – about 3400kg of silver with a contemporary market value of over R30m , 2000 litres of wine, 2000 litres of olive oil, not to mention a burden of wheat and salt beneath which their pack donkeys must have groaned.
Yet strangely, even though Ezra is travelling through some of the most hostile territory imaginable, he turns down an offer of an armed escort. In his own words – “I was ashamed to ask the King for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road”
I guess we all have our motives. In my brother’s case all those years ago in the Zambezi Valley, it was to look like Crocodile Dundee. In Ezra’s it was because he was convinced that the gracious hand of God would be on him and his companions – and wanted the King to see behaviour consistent with that belief.
Even so, it must have been a pretty skittish band of pilgrims who settled on the banks of the Ahava Canal, gateway to their homeland. Yet it was here that the people humbled themselves and fasted, holding God to His word that he would protect them. And of course, he did.
“The hand of our God was upon us, and he protected us from enemies and bandits along the way”
By today's standards, this sort of radical obedience is almost insane
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