An Essential Banquet Series

Jexit: Judah Comes Home

An Essential Banquet

A sermon on Esther

As we work our way through the Jexit series we have been focussing on the returned exiles

… we have been looking at some aspects of their responses and actions.

… we have specifically been focussing on the group of people who returned.

… the group of people who were given freedom by the Persian King Cyrus to return to Judah and rebuild the temple.

Approximately 60,000 people took the opportunity to return.

But not everyone returned.

5 So the family leaders of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone God had motivated—prepared to go up and rebuild the Lord’s house in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbours supported them with silver articles, gold, goods, livestock, and valuables, in addition to all that was given as a freewill offering.

Ezra 1:5-6

The neighbours are not neighbouring Babylonians. The neighbours here are fellow Jews.

In 538BC when Cyrus gave the people freedom there was a group of Jews who said, “Yep, we are heading home.”

But there is another group of Jews who say, “Well actually we are staying here.”

Why didn’t everyone return?

We are not specifically told, but we can deduce from the Scripture a number of reasons.

Firstly it was a long way from Babylon to Jerusalem

8 Ezra (talking about their journey of another group of Jews later) .. began his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, for the gracious hand of his God was on him.

Ezra 7:8-9

Ezra was thankful for a quick trip of four months!

It could take four months.

It could take six months.

In either case it is a long way. It is a long and difficult trip to make with 60,000 people, and cattle, and all the supplies.

You don’t make a trip like that on a whim. So this could explain why some of the Jews didn’t return - it is a long way.

Another reason why some people didn’t return is because they are actually quite settled. They have been in Babylon for over 50 years.

Families settle in.

Families build a business.

Families make roots.

In fact this is what Jeremiah told them to do at the beginning of the exile.

When the Jews first went to Babylon they hated it. And prophets rose up among the exiles in Babylon and they were saying that God was going to bring them exiles home soon – which was a lie. So the true prophet, Jeremiah, wrote to the exiles to tell them the truth.

4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’

Jeremiah 29:4-7

Obviously this prayer works!

People settle.

One of those was the King of Judah.

27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. He did this on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. 28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honour higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. 30 Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.

2 Kings 25:27-30

That is not such a bad outcome. And the treatment received by the King of Judah from the king of Babylon is a reflection of a general approach. When the Persian King Cyrus, who is also known as Darius the Mede, overthrew Babylon and came to power this what he decided.

3 Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the chief ministers and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Daniel 6:3-4

This took place just before the first set of exiles were planning to go home. Daniel has been rising through the ranks the whole time he is in Babylon.

From Daniel chapter 3 we learn that Nebuchadnezzar had set up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego set over the affairs of the province of Babylon.