Dr Paul Allen

Winged sphinx from Darius' palace at Susa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Cyrus's tomb lies in Pasargadae, Iran, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (2006). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Cyrus' cylinder (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The exile was a major turning point in the history of Israel. Judah and Jerusalem had fallen to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Many of the people of the land had been taken captive to Babylon , while others had fled to Egypt and parts unknown. A small number of the poor had remained behind in Judah. The ultimate curse of the covenant had been realized. After centuries of prophetic warnings, the death penalty had been carried out on Israel.  The land was in ruins, and the people were in exile. In 539 B.C., however, Babylon fell to the Persians, and in 538, Cyrus issued a decree permitting the exiled Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the temple. Were the prophecies of restoration now to be fulfilled? Would the messianic kingdom of God now be established? These

Image via Wikipedia "And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the top of the sceptre." ( Esther 5:2 )   Queen Esther knew she was risking her life when she came unbidden into the presence of the mighty king of Persia in his throne room . Even though she was his favorite wife, he did not know she was a Jew nor that she was hoping to get Haman's terrible order for genocide of the Jews reversed. She knew that it was a capital offense for even a queen to go into the throne room without authorization, and that only the king--by holding out to her his golden scepter--could save her life. But she also knew that she had "come to the kingdom for such a time as this," and so she said: "If I perish, I perish" ( 4:14, 16 ). The king, however, did extend his golden sceptre to her, and e

Image via Wikipedia “ Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God , to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods” (v. 21). -  Ezra 8:21–23 Scripture often links the spiritual discipline of prayer to fasting ( Dan. 9:3 ;  Luke 2:37 ). Since we just finished a brief look at old covenant prayer and its new covenant fulfillment, it is now proper to look at the spiritual discipline of fasting. Our passage today records a fast Ezra the scribe once mandated. The setting is the Persian Empire , which in Ezra’s day had recently overthrown Babylon , the kingdom that destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC  and took captive the people of God ( 2 Kings 25).  As it did with other people groups, Persia allowed the Israelites to go back to their homeland, and Ezra went back to enact various religious reforms ( Ezra 7:1–8:20 ).  Traveling on the roads was not very safe back then. Thieves and bandits often waited to am