Old Testament Restoration- Ezra, Nehemiah

This post discusses restoration of correct worship in the Old Testament.

Right worship of God began with eliminating idol worship.

Old Testament worship restoration was needed because the Israelites forsook the religion that God supplied through revelation to Moses and worshipped idols. Then, God allowed their enemies to remove them from Palestine. So, they lacked a country, self-government, and the blessings God gave them earlier.

Psalm 137 describes how they felt. “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres.”  Firstly, they were sad to be captives.

When Nehemiah heard of the destruction of Jerusalem, he too wept and confessed the nation’s sins, Nehemiah 1:4-7.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe their return to the land and the restoration of worship that once again pleased God. The king, Cyrus, issued a decree freeing the Israelite captives and setting up the rebuilding of a destroyed Jerusalem and the burnt temple. Ezra 1:2.

Cyrus even returned the vessels used formerly to worship God in the temple, Ezra 1:7,

Priests, Levites, and temple servants, identified by their genealogies, returned to carry out the correct physical acts of worship. They excluded those whose genealogy did not show them to be priests.

Secondly, they rebuilt the altar on its original site so that they could worship according to the law of Moses. Ezra 3:2-5. “…they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses… They set the altar in its place… they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening… they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written… offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required,”

 Ezra stressed that true restoration of worship called for following exactly the Law of Moses, given over one thousand years before.

What we learned:

The principle followed to restore correct worship encompassed following what God had written into Moses Law exactly.

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