Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Well, Ezra has no references to 'desert', so that brings us to the book of Nehemiah, which has two. Both references are in chapter 9, verses 19 and 21 (there is one other 'desert' in chapter nine...verse 17...but it's the verb meaning 'abandon', not the noun). Here's the whole paragraph, for context:
Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the desert; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.
This passage is in a long prayer given by the Levites...eight of them are named in verse 5...and I kind of expect that they were taking turns, rehearsing the history of the people; their rebellion in the desert and disobedience as a nation, which lead to them being taken in captivity to Babylon. Now they were returning but they were not their own masters; they were still under the authority of the Persians who had conquered Babylon. Ezra had read the law to the people on the first day of the seventh month, and they were all convicted and began to mourn, but Nehemiah told the people that they needed to celebrate on that day...there would be a day of repentance later. So the people celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles and then, about three weeks later, they had their day of repentance, and the priests prayed the prayer listing the historical errors of their forefathers and God's continual mercy throughout.
As I read through the prayer, I was struck by God's commitment to fulfill his plan and his promises, even when the people seemed determined to reject him. He allowed the people who chose to ignore his commands to suffer the consequences, even when it meant that those who were faithful had to endure the same hardships (Caleb and Joshua had to endure 40 years in the desert along with the folks who rebelled in Kadesh Barnea). But God sustained the faithful through the hardships and brought his promises to pass with a generation that followed him.
Obedience was a simple thing, really. God spelled out clearly what the people were to do, and the blessings they would receive should they do it. But people failed again and again and again to keep the commands that God gave them. Mixing with the unbelieving folks around them, they took on their practices instead of following God's explicit instructions not to do so.
Why? Did they think that following God's instruction was too old-fashioned? Too intolerant? Too exclusive? Too restrictive? Did they think that the Law was corrupted, phony, out of date?
Who knows? But it cost many of them their blessing, their country, even their lives, to balk and rebel and insist on doing it their own way.
I do know that, after the return from the Babylonian captivity, the people as a nation never again fell into worshiping the idols of the nations around them. They did finally learn that lesson.
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