Even Now There Is Hope

“And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, of the sons of Elam, addressed Ezra: "We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.” Ezra 10:2

We have now finished the times of the kings of Israel and Judah (though we will return to those times when we read the prophets) and have come to the time of the captivity and return of the exiles. Judah was finally taken captive in 608 B.C. and Jerusalem captured and burnt to the ground in 586 B.C., then a small remnant returned by way of a decree of Cyrus in 538 B.C.—this was the seventy years of captivity that Jeremiah promised, the time for the land to “observe its Sabbaths” (Lev. 25:1-7, II Chron. 36:21).

Now the point of God taking Judah captive into Babylon was not an issue of land use primarily, but rather one of obedience. Jeremiah 2:12,13 says “Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” This was the point in God removing the people of Judah to Babylon—they had preferred the wickedness and filth of this world to the cleanness of God and His fellowship and service. They had prostituted themselves out to other nations; i.e. they had sold themselves into vile service (though Ezekiel will tell us that they didn’t even make any money on the deal, unlike a prostitute) and despised the promises of good from God.

But then we see the kindness of God—He does not forget them or abandon them. This is why we read of their return in Ezra and Nehemiah. Now this would be hard enough to forgive for a righteous God, but to add insult to injury the people of Judah intermarry with the Babylonians (which implies they forsook Him even then). Isn’t the saying, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”? How much shame does Israel plan to heap up upon the God of life? More perplexing yet, how much shame will this Creator allow to be taken upon Himself? Now we come to our verse: “even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.” Ezra is testifying to the overwhelming patience and long-suffering of God. Even after all of this shame is heaped on God through Israel’s unfaithfulness He will still remember them and act for their good. Is that a model of humility and love? Enough for you?

One moment though. Israel was unfaithful. Israel was punished, though Ezra acknowledges in 9:13 that it is less than they deserved. And God accepted a nation’s-worth of shame. But He has done more than this. The Son of God stooped down to bear our shame—His name was defiled by association. And on that cross He took the redeemed of Israel’s guilt (for surely it was not paid for in 70 years only) along with mine and yours. That is love and righteousness worth bragging about.

Have we made for ourselves any cisterns, some devices of this world from which we get what we think will satisfy us? Let us forsake it, and look to the Fountain! As John Piper says, “the opposite of going to the fountain is evil; the essence of going to the fountain is drinking and drinking and drinking until it satisfies your soul and you say ‘ahhh.’” Do you have little desire for God? Go to Him for desire; He is a fountain that satisfies and causes thirst too. Why do we spend so much time making the same mistakes Israel did? Let us go to God each day, having humbly learned from the Israelites, for the water which becomes a “spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Say ahhh.