“But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the LORD our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant. He has given us security in this holy place. Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery.”
Ezra 9:8
Ezra’s prayer is so rich. The Hebrew in this verse alone makes me want to…weep.
Our pastor talked on Sunday about how God’s people’s ability to stay in the Promised Land in the Old Testament was closely tied to obedience to the law. It was how He taught them what was best for them and how He showed the nations His ways.
When His people obeyed what God told them would lead to joy, they stayed in the land and prospered. When they disobeyed, God was a good Parent and taught them their consequences had actions – not only in their personal lives, but in protection from their enemies.
The same is still true in our lives. When we obey God, it leads to joy and peace. When in submission to proper authority – not every person out there in some position of authority, but the ones He has placed over us in our lives – we have protection from our enemy.
That’s why Ezra’s prayer is so meaningful. He is recounting to God how grateful he is they were allowed to return to Jerusalem, to the place of Temple and former national security. The blessing of it makes the exiles’ sin even worse in Ezra’s eyes. They didn’t somehow earn this “brief moment of grace” while in exile. They weren’t even able to offer proper sacrifices for sin. It was a gift. The Hebrew for grace here is techinnah – supplication or mercy.
And the exiles had taken this gift, this opportunity to remain in the land, and returned to the same disobedience and idolatry that led them into slavery.
But the good news? Like our pastor said, lasting possession of the land was based on obedience. But lasting relationship with God was based on God’s grace. It always has been. His covenant with Abraham – and later David – was dependent on God’s faithfulness, not man’s.
And are you ready for the best part of the Hebrew?
Ezra prays, “He has given us security in this holy place.” The word security means a peg, a stake, a spade.
A nail.
Oh yes. A nail is what gives us security in the Holy Place. What He bought for us with 3 fearsome Roman nails on an instrument of torture can never be taken away. Our Anchor is secure. He in us is our qodesh. No one can snatch us out of His hand.
And from this place of security, as we learn to embrace His ways as our ways, we are a City on a Hill. Light in darkness. The radiance of His presence illuminating every place we walk with Him.
Eyes bright and relieved from slavery.