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Unknown artist

Ancient Greek Coin, Gold Persian Daric, Great King kneeling with bow, c.450 BCE, Gold, Hoberman / UIG / Bridgeman Images

Jacob Lawrence

And the Migrants Kept Coming, 1940–41, Casein tempera on hardboard, 30.5 x 45.7 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy, 28.1942.30, © 2019 Jacob Lawrence / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

Unknown artist

Ezra (or Jeremiah?) reads the Law, wall painting from Dura Europos, 245 CE, Wall painting, National Museum of Damascus, Photo: www.BibleLandPictures.com / Alamy Stock Photo

Exodus Renewed

Comparative Commentary by

After Persia defeated Babylon in 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great permitted the captive Israelites, along with other exiled nations, to return to their homeland. The book of Ezra recounts the influential scribe, Ezra, organizing and leading the second wave of Israelites from Babylon back to the land of their forefathers, the newly constructed district of Judah.

In telling this story, the author recasts events following the pattern of the exodus motif. In the book of Exodus, God delivers the Israelites from their captors, the Egyptians, leads them through the desert, and brings them to the Promised Land. The account of Ezra’s return to Judah undoubtedly parallels these events, with key components reflected in Ezra 7. Each of the three artworks in this exhibition represent key components of the exodus tradition that further unite Ezra 7 to events in the book of Exodus.

The mural from Dura Europos of a figure teaching from what is unmistakably a Torah scroll connects the two influential exodus leaders, Ezra and Moses. After leading the Israelites out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, Moses received God’s Law and was instructed to write it in a book:

And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel’. (Exodus 34:27)

Furthermore, Moses received a divine injunction to teach God’s Law to the Israelites (Deuteronomy 4:14). The function of both scribe (a transcriber of sacred texts) and teacher apply equally to Ezra (Ezra 7:12, 21). The connection between the two biblical figures is visually accentuated by the positioning of Ezra’s image among the numerous wall paintings at Dura: directly below a depiction of Moses standing at the burning bush.

Before Ezra left Babylon, Artaxerxes freely offered him and the returnees gold, including coins such as the daric depicted here, and silver from his own treasury, in addition to whatever else they needed from the province of Babylon. The king sought to bless the Israelites as they returned to their homeland. Persian generosity here parallels the Egyptians’ kindness to Israel as they walked free from captivity. After granting the Israelites’ freedom, God instructs them to ask their neighbours for articles of silver and gold (Exodus 3:21–22). And though the production of Darius’s gold daric came much later, it can symbolize the great riches received by both Moses’s and Ezra’s communities prior to leaving the land of their captors.

Towards the front of Jacob Lawrence’s depiction of an overcrowded train platform are several large suitcases and trunks. Because the migrants from the American South in the 1900s had no intention of returning, they packed all their worldly belongings in preparation for the move. Essentially, they embarked on a risk-filled one-way journey to an uncertain future. The same concept connects the accounts of Exodus and Ezra. The Israelites’ exodus from Egypt represented a one-way journey: they left a land in which they had dwelt for 400 years without any notion of returning. With their worldly possessions, young and old alike embarked on a journey from the known to the unknown. Ezra’s generation similarly embarked on a migration from which they would not return. The returnees were oblivious to what awaited them at the end of their trek. They too packed everything, and travelled into an unknown future, with only the hope of a better life in the district of Judah.

Just before the great Babylonian exile of Israel in 586 BCE, the prophet Jeremiah spoke words of future hope to Israel. The devastation of the exile would one day come to an end, and God would bring them back to the land of their forefathers:

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them’. (Jeremiah 16:14–15)

For Ezra’s generation, chief among the ‘countries where he had driven them’ was Babylon, the land of their exile. Consequently, those returning participated in this new (or renewed) exodus which God had prophesied through Jeremiah. Knowing that they participated in a new act of God’s mercy on the stage of history undoubtedly provided encouragement and hope for both Ezra and those he led.

 

References

Hill, A. and J. Walton. 2009. A Survey of the Old Testament, 3rd edn (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), pp. 335–36

Longman III, T. and R. Dillard. 2006. An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), p. 324

Next exhibition: Nehemiah 7:73