The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Work” it comes from the Hebrew Word “melakah” which means “work, labor.”
Before rebuilding the temple itself, the returning exiles restore proper worship at the altar. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Ezra 3.
Once the people are settled in their cities, they gather together as one man at Jerusalem, and Jeshua and Zerubbabel rise up to build the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it exactly as written in the law of Moses, despite their fear of the surrounding peoples. They set the altar on its original foundation, and offer burnt offerings morning and evening, keeping the feast of tabernacles as prescribed, along with the appointed daily offerings and freewill offerings.
In the second month of the second year after their return, Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of their brethren begin the actual work, appointing Levites twenty years old and upward to oversee the “work,” “melakah” in Hebrew, of the Lord’s house. When the builders lay the foundation of the temple, the priests stand in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites with cymbals, to praise the Lord after David’s original ordinance, singing together in praise and thanksgiving, “For he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel.”
All the people shout with a great shout when they praise the Lord, because the foundation of the Lord’s house is laid, though many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple weep loudly when they see this new foundation, while many others shout for joy, so that the people cannot distinguish the noise of joyful shouting from the sound of weeping, a moving, bittersweet moment mixing genuine celebration with genuine grief over what had been lost.
The mixture of weeping and rejoicing at the foundation-laying captures something genuinely true about restoration after loss, that celebrating what is being rebuilt doesn’t erase legitimate grief over what was destroyed. This moving scene shows that both emotions can coexist honestly within the same community, even within the very same moment.
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