Ezra 6:13
In response, Tattenai the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and their associates diligently carried out what King Darius had decreed.
Sermons
The Decree of DariusJ.A. Macdonald Ezra 6:6-13
Overthrow and UpbuildingW. Clarkson Ezra 6:12-15
The Successful IssueJ.A. Macdonald Ezra 6:13-15














The vicissitudes through which the building of the temple was carried to its completion figure forth those of the spiritual temple of the Church. This eventful history teaches -

I. THAT GOD'S PURPOSES WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED.

1. This truth is exemplified in. the creation.

(1) A universe sprang into being in obedience to his voice (Psalm 33:9).

(2) It serves his purposes in all its complicated movement (Psalm 147:7-9, 15-18; Psalm 148.; Colossians 1:17).

2. This truth is also exemplified in prophecy.

(1) The temple was finished in accordance with prophecy (Isaiah 44:27, 28). The events which prepared the way were also pre-indicated (see also Jeremiah 50. and 51.). These are samples. The whole subject of prophecy proves that God governs the moral world by a plan.

(2) This plan must comprehend all possible contingencies that may arise from the action of free beings. There is a limit to all freedom except that of God. His absolute freedom ultimately limits all that is relative. Lesson - To attempt to resist the will of God is indeed madness.

II. THAT GOD HONOURS HIS WILLING SERVANTS.

1. He gives them an interest in his work. "They prospered," viz., in the success of God's work.

(1) They obeyed his commandment because it was his. Love to God animated their zeal.

(2) Thereby their own moral nature became ennobled.

2. He encourages them by his approving voice. "They prospered through the prophesying of Haggai," etc.

(1) His word supplies the noblest motives. To the true servant of God nothing is trifling; he does all to the glory of God. This stamps the most ordinary things with sublimity.

(2) His word gives wisdom, viz., to sustain them in his work against the prudence of the world (see Ezra 5:5). Also to answer prudently in the face of the enemy (see Ezra 5:11-15). Prophecy in Christian sanctuaries is a grand thing for business men.

3. He crowns their labours with success.

(1) There may be, there will be, vicissitudes in the way. Even in these there is real success when the signs of it are not visible.

(2) But the issue is sure. The sequel will be glorious. Lesson - Trust God when you cannot trace him.

III. GOD MAKES UNLIKELY PERSONS HIS WILLING SERVANTS.

1. Several Medo-Persian kings were such.

(1) These were worshippers of the elements. Why should they favour the worship of Jehovah, who had humiliated their idolatry by defeating their gods? The miracles of the Old Testament in general were levelled against Sabianism.

(2) Political as well as religious reasons would render it unlikely that they should favour the return of the Jews. They succeeded to the place of the Babylonish kings, and might be presumed to follow up the policy of Nebuchadnezzar.

(3) But God found means to move the heart of Cyrus. Darius also was moved by him to follow his great predecessor. This he was the more disposed to by nature of the laws of the Medes and Persians, which alter not. Artaxerxes Longimanus, in after years, rendered his service to the people of God.

2. Perhaps Tatnai was another example.

(1) He was unlikely inasmuch as he had been moved by the enemies of Israel. But he seems to have had little sympathy with their malice.

(2) The "speedy" obedience which he rendered to the decree of Darius may have been cheerful. Lesson - Let no one despair of the power of the gospel to convert unlikely sinners.

IV. THAT GOD MAKES UNWILLING PERSONS SERVE HIS PURPOSES. The "people of the land were in this category.

(1) Their opposition was undoubted. Their conduct hitherto proved this. Their enmity was transmitted to their posterity (see Nehemiah 2:9, 10, 19; Nehemiah 4:1-3; Nehemiah 6:16; John 4:9).

(2) But their opposition was overruled for good. It brought the necessities of Israel, occasioned by the neglect of the decree of Cyrus, under the notice of Darius. The enemies now had to pay and collect taxes to supply those necessities. They do this too speedily," not because they love God, but because they fear the king (see vers. 11, 12). So God "makes the wrath of man to praise him." Better we should praise him with a loyal heart. "When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." - J.A.M.

And search was made in the house of the rolls.
Learn —

1. Honest and thorough investigation promotes the interests of religion and of the Church of God.

2. The advantage of written history.

3. How great should be our gratitude for the sacred writings.

(William Jones.)

One of Mr. Layard's most valuable discoveries was that of a set of chambers in a palace at Koyunjik, the whole of the floor of which was covered more than a foot deep with terra-cotta tablets inscribed with public records. A similar collection has been recently found in the neighbourhood of Babylon. In some such record-house the search for the edict of Cyrus was made.

(W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

A record thus written
The record here referred to was of what had been done for the house and service of God. It was a religious record such as I propose we should now read of the past year. Records are made of changes of what is altering from day to day in that great empire of change of which we are all subjects. This law of change is often spoken of as a melancholy law. It is better to regard it as the decree of growth and progress. It is the ordinance of escape from old limitations, and the impulse of rising to new stages of life to gain fresh energy of thought and will. A state of sameness or immobility would be in truth a wretched doom. The record of any year is not a record of sadness or decay alone, even as respects this world, but very much of delight and advancement.

I. THE FIRST CHAPTER IS THAT OF NEW BEING, BIRTH AND GROWTH. Many houses have been made the scenes of holy gladness by the gifts of God's creative and inspiring power. What trust so great as that of a living spirit, with its own individual nature and with capacities for a peculiar development of intellectual and moral strength? With what reverent, trembling sense of responsibility it should be received! What office so high in rank, so great in opportunity, so large in patronage or susceptible of good, with such hope and fear wrapped up in it, as the parental once? What expanding of outward nature or unfolding of earthly ambition is really so grand and affecting as that of an undying soul? No changes of material growth, of splendid seasons and solemn spectacles can equal this. It makes the purest inspiration of love, it turns self-sacrifice into a pleasure; it plies the inventive faculties with all knowledge and wisdom to provide for the beloved object; it draws the mind into long foresight of its benefit and improvement; and by the force of mingling filial and parental communications exalts the soul to a perception of the relation of all to Him who is the common Father. Life's record, then, is not all of gloomy change and irreparable privation, but of strength enhancing, existence renovating, and of new possession.

II. BUT I MUST TURN THIS ILLUMINATED LEAF OF THE RECORD TO A PACE VEILED IN SHADES. It is the record of sickness and decline. And what shall we say of this change? We cannot make our record all pleasant and cheerful if we would. The skeleton that the Egyptians carried to their banquets will intrude upon every feast of our earthly joy and fling its ghastly shadow both across the avenues of our immediate thought and along the vistas of our farthest recollection. But although sickness comes with very sharp instrumentalities, yet she comes with a bright retinue. Patience, resignation, spiritual thoughts of God and of futurity come with her. As the most blazing effulgence of heaven sleeps within the black cloud, so in the lowering darkness and eclipse of bodily suffering often lies the very brilliance of a spiritual and Divine glory.

III. WE NOW TURN THE LAST LEAF OF OUR RECORD. It ends, like all earthly records, with death. God by His Son Jesus Christ lifts up the burden of sadness that settles down on a record like this. Being dead in the body, our departed friends yet speak for truth and goodness more loudly and more persuasively than when their words fell on our outward hearing. They have gone that they might awaken our virtue, and that they might chill and discourage our worldly lusts. Like the stars, though with a warmer attraction, they lift and beckon us up. The light burns on, the fountain flows, the music sounds for us. Neither is this final change and record in the providence of God a ground for lamentation. It is rather a declaration of our native dignity as His children. It is the announcement of our glorious destiny. It is a summons to us to gird up our loins, trim our lamps, watch and be ready.

(C. A. Bartol.)

People
Apharesachites, Apharsachites, Artaxerxes, Cyrus, Darius, Haggai, Iddo, Levites, Nebuchadnezzar, Shethar, Shetharboznai, Tatnai, Zechariah
Places
Assyria, Babylon, Babylonia, Beyond the River, Ecbatana, Jerusalem, Media, Persia
Topics
Accordingly, Across, Acted, Associates, Beyond, Care, Carried, Colleagues, Companions, Darius, Decree, Diligence, Diligently, Governor, Order, Ordered, Province, River, Ruler, Shetharbozenai, Shethar-bozenai, She'thar-boz'enai, Shetharboznai, Shethar-boznai, Speedily, Tatnai, Tattenai, Tat'tenai, Thus, Trans-euphrates
Outline
1. Darius, finding the decree of Cyrus, makes a new decree for building
13. By the help of Tattenai and Shethar-Bozenai the temple is finished
16. The feast of the dedication is kept
19. and the Passover

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezra 6:13

     5327   governors

Library
God the Joy-Bringer
'They kept the feast ... seven days with joy; for the Lord had made them joyful.'--EZRA vi. 22. Twenty years of hard work and many disappointments and dangers had at last, for the Israelites returning from the captivity, been crowned by the completion of the Temple. It was a poor affair as compared with the magnificent house that had stood upon Zion; and so some of them 'despised the day of small things.' They were ringed about by enemies; they were feeble in themselves; there was a great deal to
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The New Temple and Its Worship
'And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo: and they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. 16. And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The "Fraternity" of Pharisees
To realise the state of religious society at the time of our Lord, the fact that the Pharisees were a regular "order," and that there were many such "fraternities," in great measure the outcome of the original Pharisees, must always be kept in view. For the New Testament simply transports us among contemporary scenes and actors, taking the then existent state of things, so to speak, for granted. But the fact referred to explains many seemingly strange circumstances, and casts fresh light upon all.
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Johannine Writings
BY the Johannine writings are meant the Apocalypse and the fourth gospel, as well as the three catholic epistles to which the name of John is traditionally attached. It is not possible to enter here into a review of the critical questions connected with them, and especially into the question of their authorship. The most recent criticism, while it seems to bring the traditional authorship into greater uncertainty, approaches more nearly than was once common to the position of tradition in another
James Denney—The Death of Christ

Brave Encouragements
'In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 3. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua,
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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