| Church School Lesson: Mourning the Past or Celebrating the Future |
"Mourning the Past or Celebrating the Future"
May 18, 2025
Background: Ezra 3; Print: Ezra 3:1-6, 10-13;
Key Verse: Ezra 3:11; Devotional: Colossians 3:12-17
Ezra 3:1-6 (ESV)
1 When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.
2 Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.
3 They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening.
4 And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required,
5 and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the LORD, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the LORD.
6 From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.
Ezra 3:10-13 (ESV)
10 And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel.
11 And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.
12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy,
13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.
Ezra Chapter 3 (Commentary)
3:1-2 The priest Jeshua and Zerubbabel the civil leader led the way (3:2). Jeshua was a descendant of Aaron, and Zerubbabel was in David’s line; thus, the people were guided by authorized leaders.
Interestingly, the first thing the returning exiles began building was not the temple, but the altar, so that they might restore the true worship of God. The altar was necessary to offer burnt offerings . . . as it is written in the law of Moses (3:2). Because it was the Jews’ failure to worship the Lord and serve him only that had led to the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian exile, the returnees knew that the temple had to have priority. And, even before it was rebuilt, the altar itself was. These returnees wanted to make sure they were faithful to the Mosaic covenant and its requirements so that they might worship God rightly—unlike their ancestors.
3:3 Here, the reader is reminded that the Israelites were in hostile surroundings: they feared the surrounding peoples. Thus, they could expect opposition, which would come soon enough. Nevertheless, they offered burnt offerings to the Lord in spite of their fear. They had come to embrace an important lesson: we are to fear God more than man.
3:4-5 The people celebrated the Festival of Shelters, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths (3:4). During it, they were to erect temporary shelters to remind them of how their ancestors had lived during their forty-year trek through the wilderness after leaving Egypt. For these Israelites who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem in a second exodus, this celebration was a reminder of God’s provision.
3:6-9 With the sacrifices restored, the former exiles gave money . . . food, drink, and oil to those who supplied the materials and those who would perform the work on the temple (3:7).
The temple’s foundation was begun seventy years after Nebuchadnezzar’s first deportation of Jews to Babylon in 605 BC. Some Bible scholars count the beginning of work on the temple as the end of the seventy-year Babylonian exile, while others begin the count with the destruction of Jerusalem and the final deportation to Babylon in 586 BC, ending with the completion of the temple in 515.
3:10-13 When the foundation of the temple was laid, the people had a worship party. But, the singing and shouting with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord (3:11) was mixed with equally loud weeping from the older priests, Levites, and family leaders, who had seen the first temple (3:12)—Solomon’s temple that the Babylonians had destroyed. So, while it was a joy to be building God’s temple again, those who remembered what once had been knew it would not achieve its former glory.