Episode 116 – Perfectly Quiet – The Intertestamental Period 2
Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.
Script:
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm … “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord their God be with them.”
2 Chronicles, chapter 36, verses 22 and 23, New International Version
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VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K and today on Anchored by Truth we’re going to continue our look at what is normally referred to as “The Intertestamental Period.” This is the 400 plus year period between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books. RD, how about giving us a brief reminder about why you thought it was important for us to do a series that focuses on a time period in history when books of the Bible weren’t being produced.
RD: As we mentioned last time it’s impossible to understand the relationship between the two testaments without knowing something about the period that elapsed in between them. A lot of people may not realize that there was a period of about 450 years that separated the writing of the last books of the Old Testament and the preparation of the first books of the New Testament. Because our Bibles are complete today, and you can turn one page and go from Malachi to Matthew, a lot of people don’t realize that turning that page spans a gap of over 400 years and perhaps over 450 years. If we don’t know what happened during that gap our understanding of much of the gospels and the New Testament will be incomplete. We’ve named this series Perfectly Quiet – the Intertestamental Period. The period was quiet in the sense that during that period God gave no new special revelations to one of his prophets or messengers. But as we will see as this series progresses that period was also perfect in its duration and perfect in how God was preparing the world for the arrival of Jesus
VK: Thank you. So, what you’re saying is that because there was a gap of 400 to 450 years or so between Malachi and Matthew conditions in and around Israel had changed quite a bit. And if we don’t understand how they had changed it’s a lot harder to make sense of some, or most, of what’s going in the New Testament.
RD: And it’s especially hard to understand the Gospels which, of course, are the books of the Bible that focus on the Jesus’ earthly life.
VK: For instance, when Malachi was written the Jews were back living in their homeland after the period of the Babylonian captivity. But Israel wasn’t independent. It was a vassal state of the Persian Empire at that point in history. It was ruled by the Persians. When the New Testament opens the Jews still lived in their homeland and they still weren’t a truly independent nation. But now rather than being a part of the Persian Empire they were part of the Roman Empire.
RD: Yes. And that change in empires brought important changes throughout the region of the world that is addressed by the Bible texts – which is chiefly the Mideast, parts of northeastern Africa, and the southern and eastern parts of Europe. So, that’s one of the subjects we’ll be addressing during this series. How did the world around Israel change during the intertestamental period?
VK: Ok. That sounds reasonable. What other subjects will we be addressing?
RD: Well, of course, we want to talk about not only changes that were taking place outside of Israel but how those changes affected the Jews themselves. After all, God had promised that His Anointed One – that’s what the word Messiah means - would come to the world from the Jewish people. It would be unwise, if not impossible, to try to separate the Jewish nation from the cultures and governments surrounding it. Also, we want to spend some time discussing the prophecies that were fulfilled during this intertestamental period.
VK: Hmmmm. So, one of the subjects that we need to cover is that, even though prophecies weren’t being recorded at this time prophecies were still being fulfilled. That does sound like a subject worth a bit of attention. So, where do you want to start?
RD: With a quote.
VK: Who are we quoting?
RD: I want to read a quote that comes from the study notes on the intertestamental period of The New Geneva Study Bible because I think it’s a great summary of the situation facing the Jews at the start of that period.
VK: All right. Let’s get to it. You’re quoting now from The New Geneva Study Bible.
RD: Right. “As the history of the Old Testament drew to a close, the Hebrew community was chastened, divided, and expectant.” In order to understand the events of the intertestamental period and how those events pertain to the history of redemption we need to understand how those adjectives applied to the Hebrew community.
VK: Ok. Why was the Hebrew community “chastened” at the start of the intertestamental period?
RD: Well, as we’ve mentioned a couple of times, the Jews had been allowed to return to Palestine after the end of what’s often called “the Babylonian captivity.”
VK: Right. The Babylonians had conquered the Jews around 598 B.C. And the Babylonians began deporting Jews from Palestine to Babylon and the surrounding region. But it wasn’t a single deportation. At first they deported the wealthy and professional class. Later after an unsuccessful attempt at resistance the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and deported all but the very poorest people around 586 B.C.
RD: Yes. But the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians and, as we heard in our opening scripture, the Persian king Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their homeland around 536 B.C. Well, one of the changes we notice in the books of the Bible that were written after the Babylonian captivity, as opposed to those written before, is that there is not mention of the problem of idolatry among the Jews who returned. Whereas, prior to the captivity just about every prophetic or historical book contained some kind of a rebuke to the Jews for falling into idolatry, after the return there is no mention of it whatsoever. There’s mention of other problems such as marriages between Jewish men and women from pagan nations, not tithing faithfully, not being diligent in rebuilding the temple. But there’s no rebuke in the post-captivity books of idolatry.
VK: So, the Jews were chastened in that they realized God had permitted them to be conquered and go into captivity because the pre-captivity nation had been plagued by persistent idolatry. The Jews could be certain of this because of warnings God had given them repeatedly. For example in Deuteronomy chapter 28, Moses warns the Hebrews, who were about to enter the Promised Land, they will be cursed if they don’t obey God’s commandments. Of course, the first of the Ten Commandments was “you shall have no other gods before me.” One of the curses Moses warned the Israelites about was in Deuteronomy 28:25 where he warns “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.” Another was Deuteronomy 28:36 where he warned “Thee Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.”
RD: Yes. The pre-captivity Israelites had been plagued by idolatry. The chastened, post-captivity Israelites were not. That remained true. Even Jesus didn’t condemn the Jews of His time for being idolaters. He criticized them for their weak faith. He criticized them for not believing His message or His works. He criticized them for their lack of genuine devotion to God and for revering their traditions more than revering the scripture. Jesus criticized the Jews of His generation for hypocrisy and many other things. But he did not have to criticize them for worshipping the gods of the nations surrounding them. I’m not saying that idolatry had disappeared entirely from Israel. I’m only observing that it was no longer the dominant, besetting sin that it had been before the captivity.
VK: In what way was the Hebrew community divided then? If they had given up idolatry it sounds like they were unified around the God to be worshipped.
RD: And for the most part they were unified around the God they worshipped. But their worship of God was often insincere, shallow, and self-centered. One of the primary ways the Jews were divided was geographically. Remember that at the time Cyrus issued the decree allowing the Jews to return to Palestine they had been in and around Babylon for decades. Some, or the families, had been there over 50 years. They had made new lives in Babylon. Many had obtained high positions in government. Esther’s uncle Mordecai was likely a fairly important Persian official. He lived in the citadel, the central hub of the Persian capital city. Nehemiah was cupbearer to the Persian king before he returned to Jerusalem to supervise the rebuilding of the wall. Some of the Jews had built businesses and were enjoying comfortable lives in their new home. Some Jews had moved and resettled in other areas. In particular, Egypt had a large and prosperous Jewish population.
VK: So, when the opportunity under Cyrus came to return to Palestine some Jews took advantage of it but others didn’t?
RD: Right. Largely, the priestly and religious class formed the nucleus of those who returned. Ezra, chapter 2 records that just a little over 40,000 Jews returned home. So, while this was a very faithful remnant, it was just a remnant. The scattering of the Jewish population is often referred to as the “Diaspora.”
VK: Well, was this scattering relevant to the overall history of salvation? After all, we know that the Jews who did go back to Palestine from Babylon preserved their nation, language, religion, and culture for the next 450 years.
RD: This scattering was actually very relevant to the history of salvation. I can give you a couple of very clear examples of how.
VK: Sounds intriguing.
RD: It is. But primarily because it is just another illustration of how God always ensures that His plans come to fruition regardless of whether men always understand that they are furthering them. For instance, I mentioned that the Jews had built a thriving community in Egypt. Part of this community was in Alexandria, a portion of which has since disappeared beneath the waves of the Mediterranean. One of the ultimate effects of the dispersion was the production of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Many scholars believe that the translation began when the Egyptian Pharaoh of the time, Philadelphus, wanted to include a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures in the world-famous Library of Alexandria. Whether Philadelphus commissioned the translation or not we do know that in the 2nd century B.C. Greek translations of the Old Testament were circulating in and around Alexandria. This ultimately led to them circulating throughout the broader Greek, and ultimately Roman world. This wide distribution wouldn’t have occurred if the Jews had not been widely dispersed.
VK: That’s an interesting point. And ultimately these widely dispersed Jewish communities with their copies of the Greek translation became the places where the gospel initially spread, right? In Acts, chapter 17, verses 10 through 12, the Bible says, “As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” Paul’s ministry was mostly outside Palestine – in Asia, Greece, and ultimately Rome. Paul’s standard pattern was to go to the Jewish community first – the synagogue. The synagogues wouldn’t have been there if the Jews had not been widely dispersed after the Babylonian captivity.
RD: Right. There were Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Paul would visit these communities first and if his message wasn’t received favorably he would move on to the Gentiles. But the Jewish communities were important starting points. So, the dispersion of the Jews was another way that God used to carry forward His plan to bring the Gospel to the entire world. But the dispersion was also evidence of the truth of God’s word.
VK: You’re thinking of passages such as 2 Chronicles, chapter 7, verses 19 and 20 where God said to Solomon, “But if you a turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them …” So, it’s fair to say that the Jewish dispersion not only helped fulfill God’s plan of redemption. It also was evidence of the truth found in Scripture.
RD: Yes. The chastisement of God’s people through the Babylonian captivity, the subsequent return of a faithful remnant to Palestine and Jerusalem, and the dispersion all were evidence of the accuracy of God’s word. And the Jews themselves recognized this. For instance, in Daniel, chapter 9, verse 2, Daniel writes “in the first year of [Darius, son of Xerxes] reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.” Daniel had studied the Jewish Scriptures that existed at that point. Those scriptures, as do ours, included the book of Jeremiah. And because Daniel believed in the truth of the scriptures he possessed, late in the Babylonian captivity he began looking for the Jews to be delivered which they ultimately were.
VK: So, the reason the Jews could be expectant at the start of the intertestamental period was because they had had some graphic demonstrations of the accuracy of their scriptures.
RD: Exactly. The exact quote that Daniel was thinking about came from Jeremiah 25:11. But, just to point out the precision of Jeremiah’s prophecies why don’t you go ahead and read from an expanded section from Jeremiah 25 – extracts from verses 7 through 14.
VK: This is from the New Living Translation. “But you would not listen to me,” says the LORD. “You made me furious by worshiping idols you made with your own hands, bringing on yourselves all the disasters you now suffer. And now the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Because you have not listened to me, I will gather together all the armies of the north under King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, whom I have appointed as my deputy. I will bring them all against this land and its people and against the surrounding nations. … This entire land will become a desolate wasteland. Israel and her neighboring lands will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. “Then, after the seventy years of captivity are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his people for their sins,” says the LORD. “I will make the country of the Babylonians a wasteland forever. Many nations and great kings will enslave the Babylonians, just as they enslaved my people.”
RD: And the Jews who were entering the intertestamental period had seen that Jeremiah’s prophecy and many others had unfolded exactly as foretold. The Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Judah. About 70 years after the first deportation under Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon. Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple exactly as Isaiah had prophesied in Isaiah 44:28. So, the Jews at the start of the intertestamental period could rightfully be expectant that other prophecies in their scriptures, at the time unfulfilled, would in time be fulfilled. They had seen plenty of prophecies be fulfilled either in their lifetimes or those of their parents.
VK: We can tend to forget that other generations long before ours have looked to the Bible, the Scriptures, for hope. Even though the Jews of Malachi’s day did not possess all of the scriptures that we do, they could place confidence in the ones they did possess. They could also have a sense of expectancy that their unfulfilled prophecies would be fulfilled – such as the prophecies that pertained to the coming Messiah. We now know that the prophecies about the coming Messiah have been fulfilled in the life of Jesus. So, we have a larger body of fulfilled prophecy than the intertestamental Jews did. But they had an abundant body of fulfilled prophecy. This gave them a reason for hopeful expectancy about their future.
RD: Yes. And, as we going to cover as we continue our study of the intertestamental period, additional prophecies contained in the scriptures would come true as the intertestamental period unfolded. New books of the Bible weren’t being added during the intertestamental period but that does not mean that prophecies weren’t going to be fulfilled. They were and the precision of the prophecies and the nature of the fulfillment should be astounding – and encouraging – to anyone who takes the time to examine them. The prophetic fulfillment that would occur during and after the intertestamental period should definitely be a source of encouragement to those of us who now possess the entirety of God’s complete revelation in the Old and New Testaments.
VK: I think I see where you were going with all this. I know why you opened the show with that quote from The New Geneva Study Bible.
RD: And why is that?
VK: Because there may be some people in the Anchored by Truth audience today who also feeling chastened and scattered. But even if they are, there are still reasons they can look to their own future with hopeful expectancy. The same God who preserved the Jewish people and provided for their needs is still on the throne today. And we now know that many of the promises God made to them belong to us as well.
RD: Very well said. All of us are going to go through periods in our lives when we feel like we’re not measuring up and even times when we know we have messed up. All of us are going to have seasons we will think of how much better we could and should have done with choices in our lives. All of us are going to have seasons when we feel chastened and scattered. That’s the reality of living in a fallen creation and being human – even those of us who have trusted Jesus for salvation. But none of that means that God can’t or won’t continue to help us and that He has given up on us.
VK: God can use the disappointing seasons in our lives just as He used the Babylonian chastening in the life of the Hebrew nation. The faithful remnant that returned to Jerusalem and the faithful who found themselves far away from Jerusalem were still under the providential care of a Father who would bring them blessings out of disappointment and victory out of defeat.
RD: Right. The book of Hebrews tells us that God allowed many of things that happened to the Jewish people were designed to help us understand how much God cares for us and wants to help us.
VK: Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 16 through 18 tell us, “We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. … Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.”
RD: Exactly. God has promised us that He will never leave us or forsake us and that we can be strong and courageous because He will be with us wherever we go. But the only way we can look to the future with hope and courage is if we know the promises the Bible contains for us and we have confidence in the truth of the Bible.
VK: That’s a great lesson isn’t it? When Malachi put his pen down at that start of the intertestamental period there was a pause in God’s special revelation but there was never a pause in the plans that He was making for our salvation and blessing. And even as we look back 2,000 years to the time when the final book of the New Testament was completed we can still be assured that Jesus continues to be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God.
RD: Yes. God is continuing with the plan of redemption today in the lives of everyone who listens to this program. And there are still glorious promises contained in the Bible yet to be fulfilled – but we can be confident that they will be fulfilled. The Jews experienced a 450 year period between the end of the Old Testament and the opening of the New. There’s a sense in which our world has experienced a 2,000 plus year lapse in God’s special revelation. But just as God continued to work on behalf of His people even while He paused in His special revelation He continues to work on our behalf today. God has a plan and a purpose for everyone listening. He is our High Priest collectively but He is also our High Priest individually.
VK: This sounds like a great time for a prayer. Today's prayer comes from another one of Crystal Seas’ offerings, the book Purposeful Prayers. It is a prayer of adoration for the Holy Spirit who lives within every person who trusts in Jesus and continuously makes intercessions for us with the Father:
---- PRAYER FOR ADORATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (MARCUS).
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(Bible Quote from the New International Version)
Malachi, chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, New International Version
