Ezra 3:8-13
Joy and weeping together
Trumpets, cymbals and the song of the courses. The old men who had seen the first house weep with a loud voice, and the people cannot discern the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping.
People of the Bible
Zerubbabel
Grandson of a deported king, governor of a province, and the man who laid a foundation that made half the crowd weep.
Zerubbabel leads the first return under Cyrus and is governor of Judah, and he is in the line of David, which makes him the legitimate heir of a throne that no longer exists. In the second year he lays the foundation of the house with trumpets and cymbals, and the shout of joy is mixed with the weeping of old men who had seen the first house, so loudly that nobody could tell the two apart. Then the work is stopped by force and stays stopped for about fifteen years.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Zerubbabel
- 01
- 02
Ezra 4:1-5, 24
Let us build with you
An offer of help is refused because the decree was given to them, and the offer turns into obstruction: hired counsellors, weakened hands, and a work that ceases until the second year of Darius.
- 03
Haggai 1:12-15
He obeyed the voice
Governor, high priest and the remnant all obey and fear before the LORD. Twenty-three days after the sermon they come and work on the house of the LORD of hosts.
- 04
Zechariah 4:6-10
Not by might, nor by power
Who are you, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. His hands laid the foundation and his hands shall finish it, and who has despised the day of small things.
Why it matters
Zerubbabel is what the promise to David looks like reduced to a building permit and a provincial budget. He restarts the work under Haggai and Zechariah and finishes it, and the word given to him is the one the whole situation needed: not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. The same chapter asks who has despised the day of small things, and says they shall rejoice when they see the plummet in his hand. Both genealogies of Jesus pass through him.
12 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
