Scribe Who Wrote The Hebrew Bible

Stories From The Hebrew Bible
THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE THE HEBREW BIBLE

From the court of the great king at Shushan we turn once more to the Jews at Jerusalem and in Judea. For a long time after the first company came to the land under Zerubbabel, very few Jews from other countries joined them. The Jews in Judea were poor and discouraged. Many of them had borrowed money which they could not pay. Some had been sold as slaves to richer Jews. Enemies were around them on every side. Enemies like the idol-worshiping people in the land, and the Samaritans on the north. These enemies robbed them of crops in the field and constantly sent evil and false reports about them to the Persian governors. Many of the men of Israel had married women not of the Israelite race. So, their children were growing up half Persian and half Jewish, unable to talk in the language of their fathers – knowing nothing of the true God.

Ninety years after the Jews had come back to the land, Jerusalem was still a small town. Many of its old houses were still in ruins and there was no wall. In those times no city was safe from its enemies without a wall. Therefore, Jerusalem lay helpless against robbers coming up from the desert, carrying away what the people earned.

Just at the time, when the land was in the deepest need, God raised up two men to help His people. These two men were Ezra and Nehemiah. Through Ezra the people of Judah were led back to their God, to worship and serve Him – especially to love God’s book as never before. And about the same time Nehemiah gave new hope, courage and strength to the people by helping them build a wall around Jerusalem. The work of these two men brought peace and plenty to Judea, and led many Jews from other lands back to their own country.

Ezra was a priest, living in the city of Babylon, though he had sprung from the family of Aaron, the first priest. He was also a prophet, through whom God spoke to His people. But above all, Ezra was a lover of God’s book in a time when the book of the Lord was almost forgotten. Nearly all the books of the Hebrew Bible (what we call the Old Testament) had been written for a long time. However, in those days there were no printed books, so, each copy was written separately with a pen. Since the labor was great, there were few copies of the different books of the Bible available. And these few copies were located in different places. One book of the Bible was in one place; another book was in another place. Before Ezra, no one man had ever owned or seen the whole of the Hebrew Bible in one book or one set of books.

Ezra began to seek for copies of these different books among the Jews. When he found one, he wrote it out and kept the copy. He also led other men to copy them as they found the books. At last Ezra had written copies of all the books in the Hebrew Bible, except the very latest books. They were written very much as we have them now, except that Ezra’s copies were in Hebrew, the language spoken by most of the writers of the Hebrew Bible.

Ezra put all these different books together, making one book out of many. This great book was written on parchment, or sheepskin – in long rolls. When the book was finished, it was called “The Book of the Law,” because it contained God’s law for His people, as given through Moses and Samuel; David and Isaiah, and all the other prophets.

When Ezra had finished writing this book of the law, he went on a long journey from Babylon to Judea, taking with him the rolls of the book. A group of men whom Ezra had taught to love the law, went with him. He had taught them to write copies of it, to read it, and teach it to others. These men, who gave their lives to studying, copying and teaching the law, were called “scribes,” a word which means “writers.”

Ezra was the first and the greatest of these scribes, but he wasn’t the only one. From his time on there were many scribes among the Jews, both in Judea and other lands. No matter where the Jews lived, they began to read and love the Bible. Soon after Ezra’s day, the time came that in every place where the Jews met to worship, at least one copy of all the books in the Hebrew Bible was kept. In this way there was no longer a danger that the Bible, or any part of it, would be lost.

You remember that there was only one Temple for all the Jews in the world and only one altar. Upon this one altar, and it alone, was offered the sacrifice every day. But the Jews in distant places needed to meet together for worship, so, there grew up among the Jews everywhere what was called “the synagogue,” a word which means “coming together.” At first they met in a room, but later they built houses for the synagogues much like our churches. In fact, the synagogue was the church of the Jews in every city or town where Jews lived. Some of these synagogues or churches were large and beautiful, and in them the people met every week to worship God. They sing the Psalms, hear the law and the prophets read, and talk together about what they had heard. It was something like a prayer meeting, and any Jew who wished to speak in the meeting could do so. The men sat on mats laid on the floor; the rulers of the synagogue were on seats raised up above the rest. The women were in a gallery on one side, covered with a lattice work. In this way, they could see and hear without being seen. At the end of the room nearest to Jerusalem there was a large box or chest, called “the ark.” Inside this box or chest were kept copies of the Hebrew Bible books. In this way, through the synagogue, Jews in all the world listened to the reading of the Hebrew Bible until many of them knew every word by heart. All this came to pass from Ezra’s work in copying and teaching the Word of the Lord.

And Ezra wrought another work almost as great as that of giving the Hebrew Bible to the world. He taught the Jewish people, first in Israel and then in other lands, that they were the people of God. He taught them that they must live apart from other nations. If they had continued to marry women of other races, who worshiped other gods, then, after a time, there would have been no Jews – no worshipers of God. Ezra made some of them give up their foreign wives, and he taught them to be a people by themselves, to stay away from worshipers of idols, even though they might live among them. In this way, Ezra led the Jews to look upon themselves as a holy people, devoted to the service of God. He taught them to live apart from other nations, with their own customs and ways of living. He taught them to obey the law of God as written in the Hebrew Bible books, even though it might seem small and insignificant. From generation to generation, they were to be trained in the service and worship of God.

Even today, the Jews continue to keep many of the rules that were given to their fathers long ago by Ezra. So, next to Moses, Ezra had greater power over the Jews than any other prophet or teacher. All over the world the Jews look upon Ezra as the greatest man in their history, next to Moses. They call him “the second founder of Israel.”