Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”
This verse closes the letter that the Persian king Artaxerxes hands to Ezra. It puts the king's power behind God's law, and it names four penalties for anyone who refuses to obey: death, banishment, loss of property, or prison. Why did God's law need a foreign king's backing, and what does that say about the state of His people?
The King Joins Two Laws
Through the whole letter the king keeps naming the God of Israel. In this last verse that respect turns into law.
H. L. RossierHistory tells us that Artaxerxes let each people keep their idols, yet he had none himself... but in his decree he goes further: he acknowledges the God of Ezra (v. 14), the God of Israel (v. 15), and the God of Jerusalem (v. 19). He also acknowledges that he is responsible to this God, whose anger is to be feared (v. 23)... Lastly, he orders severe measures against those who break the law of God and of the king, because in his mind these two laws are one and the same (v. 26).
Commentators differ on how the king ranked the two laws. Another writer reads it the other way: the king put his own law second, under God's. That reading also brings out how fast the sentences were to fall.
Leslie M. GrantFinally, he ordered that the law of God should be fully enforced. Anyone who would not keep it, and the law of the king (which he ranked below the law of God), would face judgment without delay. The case might call for death, banishment from Israel, loss of property or prison (v. 26). Where guilt was proved beyond question, this is good government. It is not like so many cases today, dragged out for months without reason.
Judgment Paired With Teaching
The penalties do not stand alone. The verse before it tells Ezra to appoint judges and to teach those who do not know the law. So the threat of punishment comes tied to a duty to teach.
The Bible TreasuryThe king is generous, and not without a certain fear of God... Ezra is given power, "according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand," to appoint magistrates and judges to judge all the people, "all such as know the laws of your God," and to teach the one who did not know them. All this stands under the grave penalties of death, banishment, confiscation, or imprisonment (verses 25, 26).
The Man Trusted With Such Power
Power like this needed a man whose own life matched the law he enforced. Ezra had done that work long before the king's letter arrived.
H. L. RossierHe prepared his heart to seek the law first of all, and then to do it, for in his own case he did not separate practice from knowledge. He was not like those teachers of the law who, in the days of Jesus, loaded people with "burdens hard to bear," while they themselves did not touch "the burdens with one of [their] fingers" (Luke 11:46). The precepts of the Word he fed on soaked right through his daily life. And it was only after this that he set his heart "to teach in Israel statutes and the ordinance" (v. 10). In a word, his life and his conduct were in complete agreement with his teaching.
God Behind the Throne
A foreign emperor enforcing God's law says less about Persia than about the God who chooses His instruments.
Edward DennettThe king provides for the carrying out of Ezra's mission in every possible way, and at the same time he entrusted Ezra with the government of his people "according to the wisdom of God." Finally, he attached penalties to disobedience to the law of God and to the law of the king, rising even to death itself. The lesson lies on the surface: God is sovereign in the choice of His instruments... Our chapter shows it, in that "Artaxerxes, king of kings," and "Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of God," are yoked together to carry out God's thoughts for His people and for His house in Jerusalem.
A Borrowed Sword
Yet a decree like this has a sad side. Israel once had its own king. Now even its freedom to serve its own God came by a foreign ruler's permission.
J. G. BellettThe people were now under the Gentile's power. They owed the Gentile for permission to live in the land of their fathers, and to keep the laws and do the service of their God. They were subjects of the Persian, and their own ruler was only his deputy.
Summary
- Decree — The king puts real force behind God's law: death, banishment, loss of property, prison — and no delay.
- Rank — Writers differ. Did the king make the two laws one, or put his own law second? Either way, he names a God he fears.
- Teaching — The same letter that appoints judges also orders teaching, so those who do not know the law can learn it.
- Character — Ezra sought the law, then did it, then taught it. His life matched his message before any king trusted him.
- Hand — God yokes a foreign emperor to a Jewish scribe to do His will. Yet the borrowed sword shows a people who now live by a foreign king's permission.