Ezra–Nehemiah

You've got plenty of time to do this.

Go back and read Ezra and Nehemiah.

And I'm going to review those books here down below in the historical context.

But it's really cool to see those two historical books, Ezra and Nehemiah, line up so beautifully with Haggai and Zechariah.

They're hand in glove.

It's just such a great interconnection here between the prophetical books and the historical books as to what's going on during this time period of rebuilding the challenges, the obstacles, the oppression, the persecution, you know, the hopes, the dreams, all the stuff that's going on here in that very difficult time.

And the Lord is going to take care of you and all this stuff.

So it's kind of another really cool connection.

I take Leviticus as one of a series of texts that are addressing in exile.

What's the alternative to monarchy? The Ezra Nehemiah people make their bed with the king of Persia, and it's hideous.

And I don't know how much you've done with Ezra Nehemiah and your podcast, Micah, but it's just horrible.

It's just horrible at every level.

The law of Yahweh and the law of the king are equalized, much like today in the Christian right, where you can't distinguish Trump from Jesus in some ways, as if they're equivalent.

That's just a marvel.

But nevertheless, I believe it is built with the hands of men, and Moshiach will guide that process, that effort, just like we see in Ezra and Nehemiah.

And I think the notion that the Beis Hamikdash will come out of heaven is rather not that Rashi is saying— I don't think Rashi is saying this as, this is how it will happen.

Rather, Rashi is addressing a very narrow halakhic problem.

I don't want to get caught in the halakhic narrow area.

The Rashi's not going, this is, we can deduce this from the text.

It's very clear that Ezra and Nehemiah are part of the Ketuvim.

It's one book.

And it does look like God is losing here.

But today, we're going to talk about Ezra and Nehemiah.

So I want to invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Ezra chapter 1.

Ezra chapter 1.

Ezra and Nehemiah are not in the right place in your Bible.

Can I even say that? Ezra and Nehemiah, you read Ezra and Nehemiah.

If you're going through the Bible, you read Ezra and Nehemiah before you read the Psalms.

But in reality, Ezra and Nehemiah take place at the end right before Malachi and the silent period and then the New Testament.

I kept talking to Christians who had one of two experiences: They either did not understand the books and walked away from them feeling biblically illiterate, or they cherry-picked verses that seemed applicable to their lives, but failed to grasp the prophet's broader message.

After I finished the 12 minor prophets, I realized Bible Fiber wasn't just a one-year hobby while my husband was gone, and I started a new series on Ezra and Nehemiah.

Ezra and Nehemiah have a lot of memorable stories.

However, they also include numerous chapters of list and genealogical records that I normally skip in a devotional reading.

But because I was committed to the chapter-by-chapter model, I made myself learn as much from the list, genealogies, and inventories as from the exciting narratives.

And big announcement, I'll publish the second Bible Fiber book soon covering Ezra and Nehemiah.

I'm doing one last round of edits now before handing the draft over for book formatting.

For the next Bible Fiber series, I took a vote to see which Old Testament book proved hardest for Christian readers, and almost everyone said Ezekiel.

[smacks lips] So most people stayed in our, our area of the world, and you can still see traces of that actually today.

Well, s- the ones that do go back, this is where we get to the story of Ezra-Nehemiah.

So Ezra, he be...

Uh, the first person to come back is a guy named Zerubbabel.

And that's why everything fits into place.

Then we have Ezra and Nehemiah.

Ezra and Nehemiah were the ones who rebuilt the second temple.

Ezra was the cupbearer to King Darius II, who was the son of Esther.

He was very close to him, very friendly with him.

And he got the permission to rebuild Israel again.