I. THE AUTHENTICATION.

1. The author's signature. "Cyrus the king."

(1) This name calls to mind the remarkable prophecies of Isaiah, in which, a century before his time, he was surnamed (see Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1, 13).

(2) The same God that inspired the prophecy found means to bring it under the notice of the king. Cyrus accordingly accepted the Divine commission (2 Chronicles 36:23; Ezra 1:2, 3). Lesson - We should trust that providence which rules all rulers.

2. The date of the document. "In the first year of Cyrus."

(1) This date, B.C. 536, recalls the prophecy of Jeremiah, which assigned seventy years for the duration of the captivity. These were now completed.

(2) This prophecy also seems to have been brought under the notice of Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1). Lesson

(a) Let us see the hand of God in everything.

(b) Nothing is too trivial to be mentioned in prayer.

3. The place of its custody

(1) Tatnai specified "the king's treasure house at Babylon"(Ezra 5:17). Probably because the decree may have been signed there. Search was made accordingly at that treasure house in the royal library, but the document was not found. The malignity of the Apharsachites would now be gratified.

(2) Further search was made at Achmetha, "in the palace that is in the province of the Medes." Here the roll was recovered. Note -

(a) God watches over the true.

(b) The triumphing of the wicked is transient.

II. THE MATTER "CONCERNING THE HOUSE OF GOD AT JERUSALEM."

1. "Let the house be builded.

(1) At Jerusalem. The place which God chose to put his name there (see 1 Kings 8:29; 2 Chronicles 7:12; Psalm 78:67, 68; Psalm 87:1, 2). God favoured particular places for his worship.

1. To serve typical purposes.

2. To keep his people from mingling with idolaters. Note - In this spiritual dispensation these reasons no longer obtain (see John 4:20-24).

(2) Where they offered sacrifices." Levitical sacrifices were restricted to the temple because the Shechinah and sacred fire were there; and this ordinance kept the people from sacrificing on high places with idolaters. For this latter reason, though the Shechinah and fire were absent from the second temple, still the ancient place of sacrificing is respected. Lesson - Every species of idolatry should be scrupulously avoided.

2. The manner in which it was to be done.

(1) "Let the foundations be strongly laid." These typified Christ, upon whom the fabric of his Church is built (see Matthew 16:16-18; 1 Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:20-22). Note - We may confidently rest on him the whole weight of our eternal interests.

(2) "The height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits." This differed from Solomon's temple, first, in that it was larger; and secondly, in that it was square. Solomon's temple was thirty cubits high and sixty broad. The New Jerusalem also is foursquare (see Revelation 21:16). The cube was by the ancients regarded as a figure of perfection and universality, and, in the typical temple, may anticipate these qualities of the heavenly state of the Church.

(3) "Three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber" (see Ezra 5:8). The timber seems to have been laid upon every third course of stones. Note - This timber built in amongst the stones would facilitate that destruction of the temple by fire described by Josephus.

3. How the cost was to be defrayed.

(1) "Let the expenses be given out of the king's house" (see Ezra 3:7). Note - The hearts of princes are in God's hands. Prayer should be made to him rather than recourse be had to precarious expedients for raising funds for his work.

(2) The royal bounty was not such as to preclude the necessity for contributions from the people of God (see Ezra 1:3, 4; Ezra 2:68, 69). Note - There is valuable moral education in liberality.

III. THE MATTER CONCERNING THE SACRED VESSELS.

1. Vessels of the metals.

(1) These were taken as figures of the servants of God (see Romans 9:21-23; 2 Timothy 2:20, 21).

(2) "Of gold and silver." Showing the preciousness of the saints (see Psalm 49:7, 8; Matthew 16:26; 1 Peter 1:18, 19).

2. Removed by Nebuchadnezzar.

(1) Taken from the temple. The sin of the people was the cause. The removal of the vessels was therefore a sign to them of their apostasy.

(2) Taken to Babylon. Type of the confusion of the world. Placed there in the temple of his god (see Ezra 1:7, 8; Ezra 5:14). Thence taken out only to make sport for the licentious (see Daniel 5:2-4). What a graphic figure of the condition of the backslider!

3. Now to be restored.

(1) "Brought back again to the temple." Sign of the hope a backslider may cherish in the mercy of God.

(2) Restored "every one to his place," i.e. every one that was restored. Many things were wanting in the second temple, and some of the vessels may have been lost. Backsliders must not presume upon an infallible final perseverance of the saints. - J.A.M.

1. The object of much that God does is simply the blessedness of human hearts. The poorest creature that lives has a right to ask of God the satisfaction of its instincts, and every man has a claim on God to make him glad. God pays all cheques legitimately drawn on Him, and regards Himself as occupied in a manner entirely congruous with His magnificence and infinitude, when He stoops to put some kind of vibrating gladnesses into the wings of a gnat that dances for an hour in the sunshine, and into the heart of a man that lives his time for only a very little longer.

2. God's method of making us glad is by putting Himself into us. The secret of all true human well-being is close communion with God.

3. By His providences He gives the secondary and lower gifts which men according to their circumstances need. He gives whatever is contributory to any kind of gladness; and if we are wise we shall trace all to Him. Our common mercies are His love-tokens and they all come to us just as the gifts of parents to their children do, with this on the fly-leaf, "With a father's love."

II. THE OBLIGATION AND WISDOM OF TAKING OUR GOD-GIVEN JOYS.

1. Be sure you take Him. When He is waiting to pour all His love into your heart, and all His sweetness into your spirit, to calm your anxieties, to deepen your blessedness; to strengthen everything that is good in you; to be to you a stay in the midst of crumbling prosperity and a light in the midst of the gathering darkness, be sure that you take the joy that waits your acceptance.

2. Recognise Him in all common mercies, because He is at the back of them all. Everything ought to be vocal to us of the loving-kindness of our Father in heaven. Link Him with everything that makes your heart glad. God does not desire to be put away high up on a pedestal above our lives, as if He regulated the great things and the trifles regulated themselves; but He seeks to come as air into the lungs, into every particle of the mass of life, and to fill it all with His purifying presence.

3. Recognise Him in common joys.

4. Be sure that you use the joys which He gives. There are two ways in which you can look at the world and at everything that befalls you. There is enough in everybody's life to make him sad if he selects these things to dwell upon. There is enough in everybody's life to make him continually glad if he wisely picks out these things to think about. It depends altogether on the angle at which you look at your life what you see about it. For instance, you know how children do when they get a bit of a willow wand into their possession. They cut off rings of bark and get the switch alternately white and black, white and black, and so on right to the tip. Whether will you look at the white rings or the black ones? They are both there, but if you rightly look at the black you will find out that there is white below it, and it only needs a very little stripping off of a film to make it into white too. No Christian man has a right to regard anything that God's providence brings to him as such unmingled evil that it ought to make him sad. We are bound to "rejoice in the Lord alway."

5. Be sure that you limit your delights by God-made joys. There is nothing sadder than the joys that come into a life and do not come from God. Let us see to it that we do not fill our cisterns with poisonous sewage, when. God is waiting to fill them with the pure river of the water of life. Does my joy help me to come near to God? Does it interfere with my communion with Him? Does it aid me in the consecration of myself? Does my conscience go with it when my conscience is most awake? The alternative presented to each of us is whether we will have surface joy and a centre of dark discontent, or surface sorrow and a centre of calm blessedness. The film of stagnant water on a pond of rottenness simulates the glories of the rainbow, in which pure sunshine falls upon the pure drops, "but it is only painted corruption after all, and if a man put his lips to it, it will kill him. Such is the joy which is apart from God."

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)