Esther - maybe not about Esther? Maybe not such a great morality tale...

The readings - Days 150 and 151 - Esther 1-10

Esther is an interesting story. Weighing in at only 10 chapters, it's a pretty easy story to read in one sitting, which is why I thought I'd combine posts to include both halves of it at once.

However, unlike many of the other short, punchy books bearing a specific name throughout the Bible (Ruth, Job, Philemon, etc) it's actually a bit hard to tell whose story Esther really is.

Neh. 1-6 - From a certain point of view

The readings - Days 144 & 145 - Nehemiah 1-6

This is pretty cool. I knew the basic story/history surrounding Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, but I don't know that I've spent much time actually reading it, as is the case with large swaths of the rest of the OT. I like it.

For starters, despite the fact that the nation of Israel and the People of God could, at this point, as near as makes no difference not possibly get any worse off (they've been divided, then conquered, then exiled, and everything they held most dear - Jerusalem and the Temple of God - have been absolutely laid waste by the invading Babylonian and then Persian hordes), the book strikes a decidedly hopeful, optimistic and - I hesitate to use a word like this when talking about anything other that fruits/veggies - fresh tone.

Ezra 1-10 - Caught up

The readings - Days 141-143 - Ezra 1-10

So I now have an official answer to give people who try to act like never having read the Bible cover-to-cover is somehow anathema to being Christian. (Yes, I have been told that before, by both crazy Christians and crazy Atheists alike)

It was never meant to be read this way.

I'm not saying that I'm regretting doing it, or that I'm planning on stopping, or even that it's not (at times, at least) incredibly rewarding and enlightening to do it this way. What I'm saying is there's no way that this book was intended to be read through like a novel.

The only alternative to that conclusion is that whoever compiled it had absolutely zero concept of how stories work, and how people would like to read things in order to actually comprehend them effectively.

As if the complete discord of reading through the summarized history of Israel (the single and split kingdoms)  - twice - in Samuel, Kings and Chronicles wasn't enough to convince you that this is not a linear collection of episodes/chapters, here we are in Ezra, which opens with a reference to a prophesy that will not actually be made (according to the way the books of the Bible are laid out) for quite some time.

Cyrus lets the Israelites go home and rebuild stuff, and he does so, according to the text, to fulfill the prophetic words of Jeremiah. For those keeping score, we still have to go through Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and Isaiah before we get to Jeremiah. Anyway, rant over.

Anyway, so the exiles are on their way home to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem, but because nothing can ever be straightforward, the neighbours had to go and cause trouble, resulting in a three-king delay before the construction can actually finish. Artaxerxes gets a letter from Judah's enemies, who point to Jerusalem's "rebellious past" and successfully convince him to put a stop to the rebuilding process, and it's not until Darius takes over that Cyrus's original "send them back" decree was dug out of the archives and followed.

And then, as soon as they're back on home soil, what happens? The good ol' intermarriage things starts up again... This time, though, there's a twist. We get a sense of Ezra maybe being a fair shake more attentive to God's wants for His people than previous rulers - and by a remarkable coincidence, he's not actually a king, but instead is acting as Israel's leader from the office of priest. Funny how the whole "king" thing never took off all that well, eh?

Oh well.

This post is another in an alarmingly long list of posts that are shorter than usual for the somewhat counterintuitive reason that it tries to cover too much stuff, but I'm happy to say that we're now completely caught up. Tomorrow should bring another post that's more focused and, therefore, likely a lot longer and more in-depth.

2 Chron 1-36 - yup: one whole book...

The readings - days 130-140 - 2 Chronicles 1-36

So this post, once again, will be far too short, and more than a little meta.

I thought for sure that I was caught up, or at least very far along to road to being caught up, but Chronicles had other plans, so here we are - first post in ten days and a full book behind me.

Chronicles, part deux, was better than the first, but only slightly. It had more ups than the last one did in terms of kings actually behaving themselves, and there were a few points that, while I was reading them, did actually leap out at me as being interesting. However, since I was reading through the entire book in a matter of days, and desperately trying to catch up, they were sacrificed to the god of necessary expediency, and were lost.

Speaking of idolatry, these Israelites sure were good at it. Even kings that were mostly good at not worshipping small wooden statues didn't often go all the way and disassemble other temples, home shrines, and "the high places," like they were supposed to.

Whether it's intentional or not, the Bible sure is setting up a repetitive, cyclical rhythm of Israel screwing up and then waking up, then repeating over and over again.

And then Babylon comes, destroys the Temple, along with Jerusalem, and takes everybody into captivity.

And then Persia destroys Babylon and Cyrus says to the Israelites, "yeah - you guys should probably just go ahead and head home to rebuild your temple and your city. Sorry about Nebuchadnezzar..."

Reading the closing bits of 2 Chronicles is a little like spending an hour looking through a microscope, and then to have the room bulldozed around you. The story is so wrapped up in the goings on of these two comparatively minuscule kingdoms that when a few real local superpowers come barreling through it's a pretty harsh reminder that even at the best of times, the kingdom of Israel was in a pretty precarious spot. Shame they didn't seem to really grasp that either...

And that brings us to Ezra, which will have us caught up on posts and readings by tomorrow.