Ezra 10:1-6, There is Hope

The context of today’s reading is, of course, after the Babylonian captivity.  The people have returned.  Instead of living holy lives fitting to their calling as God’s people, they have again joined with the pagan world around them, taking foreign/ pagan wives.  The good news is that they have responded to Ezra’s reading and teaching of the law.  They are weeping over their sin.  And perhaps they have also remembered that God is merciful and faithful in keeping His covenant.  For whatever reason, Shechaniah says some amazing words: We have trespassed against our God … yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this.

Let us take a couple of days to tackle three different words for “hope” in the OT.  They will provide us with some great pictures.

·       Ezra 10:2: the word is mikveh.  It is used twelve times in the OT.  You learn the power of “hope” by the pictures that define it.

o   The first picture is in Gen. 1:10. Pay attention: And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas.  And God saw that it was good.  Just in case you missed the word “hope” I underlined it for you.  The waters existed (v6).  God divided them, putting the firmament in between (air, heaven, or literally, spaces).  But then He gathered the waters together, revealing the dry ground which is essential for Man’s existence, yet with pools in the vicinity which are also essential.

o   Here’s another picture in the second use of the term in Exodus 7:19: all the waters in Egypt, the streams, rivers, ponds, and all their pools of water became blood.  You know how important Egypt’s irrigation system was.  The waters of the Nile essentially produced what was needed for the entire nation to exist.  Thus, there were pools that dotted the landscape, not too much unlike our part of Montana.  We have, truly, the wide open spaces.  Yet, as you drive through miles and miles of just the occasional ranch house, you pass a lot of pools, and you realize too that there are many more pools you can’t see.  Most of these pools are the result of man-made earthen dams, that gather the water from rain and snow-melt.  The livestock depend on this as they graze the afore-mentioned wide open spaces.  Now think of Egypt: it was all turned to blood.  Their “hopes” were dashed.

o   Lev. 11:36 has the same two words together as the previous two passages.  The NKJV translates it: wherein there is plenty of water.  These gatherings of water, whether a spring or a cistern, provide hope for people in the area.  This passage deals with Levitical statutes concerning the cleanliness of the water if a carcass is in it.  That’s important, isn’t it.  A spring or cistern that is infected might kill you if you drink from it. 

Isn’t this a great picture of hope?  Let’s meditate on it more in the next post.