Ezr 1:6 | KingComments | STEP | “The heads of fathers’ [households]” ( ) represent believers who are willing to take responsibility. In a revival, it is also necessary that there are people who take on the leadership. They take the lead on the path of faith and others may follow on the path they take. In the local church it is they who show the believers the way to realize that the Lord Jesus is in the midst. They teach about it and they show it in their lives. It is good to seek their company and to go along with them. There are also “the priests and the Levites”. These are the ones who have the service to God in mind. They have not been able to serve in Babylon, because there is no temple there. It stood in Jerusalem and was destroyed and they were deported. Now they are ordered to rebuild the temple. This will make it possible for them to do their service again. With every revival it is necessary that these two elements are present. Priestly service today is the privilege of every child of God and is not limited, as in Israel, to a special class. The same applies to Levite service. Every believer has a task, a function, in the church. Every believer is a priest. There is no distinction in this. Every believer is also Levite. In this there is distinction, because every believer has a different task. Herein not one is above the other, but each believer is a complement to the other. That the heads of fathers’ households and the priests and the Levites go to Jerusalem to build the house of the LORD is not self-determined action. Just as the LORD raised up the spirit of Cyrus to call for a return to Jerusalem for the rebuilding of the temple ( ), so the going up of the three groups mentioned above is also the consequence of His work. A revival is the work of God, not the result of deliberations and agreements of men. Although there have been people from other tribes as well, they are mainly people from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Christ is presented to them at His first coming on earth, with the result that He is rejected by them. The fact that it mainly concerns the two tribes also shows that this is not a national restoration. The restoration of the ten tribes only happens when Christ appears for the second time ( ; ). There is no spirit of judgment or enmity or jealousy between those who go and those who stay ( ). Those who stay behind give everything to those who leave. Although the circumstances are very different, what is happening here is reminiscent of the exodus of the people from the Egyptian slave house. Then the Egyptians also give the departing people all kinds of objects ( ).

‏ Ezra 1:6

Who Want to Go

“The heads of fathers’ [households]” (Ezra 1:5) represent believers who are willing to take responsibility. In a revival, it is also necessary that there are people who take on the leadership. They take the lead on the path of faith and others may follow on the path they take. In the local church it is they who show the believers the way to realize that the Lord Jesus is in the midst. They teach about it and they show it in their lives. It is good to seek their company and to go along with them.

There are also “the priests and the Levites”. These are the ones who have the service to God in mind. They have not been able to serve in Babylon, because there is no temple there. It stood in Jerusalem and was destroyed and they were deported. Now they are ordered to rebuild the temple. This will make it possible for them to do their service again.

With every revival it is necessary that these two elements are present. Priestly service today is the privilege of every child of God and is not limited, as in Israel, to a special class. The same applies to Levite service. Every believer has a task, a function, in the church.

Every believer is a priest. There is no distinction in this. Every believer is also Levite. In this there is distinction, because every believer has a different task. Herein not one is above the other, but each believer is a complement to the other.

That the heads of fathers’ households and the priests and the Levites go to Jerusalem to build the house of the LORD is not self-determined action. Just as the LORD raised up the spirit of Cyrus to call for a return to Jerusalem for the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 1:1), so the going up of the three groups mentioned above is also the consequence of His work. A revival is the work of God, not the result of deliberations and agreements of men.

Although there have been people from other tribes as well, they are mainly people from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Christ is presented to them at His first coming on earth, with the result that He is rejected by them. The fact that it mainly concerns the two tribes also shows that this is not a national restoration. The restoration of the ten tribes only happens when Christ appears for the second time (Eze 20:33-44; Jer 31:6-14).

There is no spirit of judgment or enmity or jealousy between those who go and those who stay (Ezra 1:6). Those who stay behind give everything to those who leave. Although the circumstances are very different, what is happening here is reminiscent of the exodus of the people from the Egyptian slave house. Then the Egyptians also give the departing people all kinds of objects (Exo 12:35-36).