HEBREW WORD STUDY – GIVING UP – MERAPHIM מרפיס
Ezra 4:4: “Then the people of the land weakened the hands of Judah and troubled them in building.”
This story takes place at the time of the return of Israel from captivity. Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon. During their captivity, Babylon fell to the Persian Empire. Because of Daniel and Esther, the Jews found favor with the Persian kings. Daniel was a favorite of the Persian King Cyrus the Great (559-530 BC). Cyrus’s grandson King Xerxes (486-465 BC) thought Daniel, a Jew, was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Esther’s stepson King Artaxerxes I (465-424 B.C.) loved Esther like she was his own mother and thus had a great favor for the Hebrew people such that he granted a decree that allowed Nehemiah and Ezra to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple under the protection and sponsorship of the Persian Empire.
When Nehemiah returned to the land he found the land was occupied by colonist who was sent to occupy the land many years earlier by the Assyrian empire which was now defunct. These colonist who was from the land of the Amorites, Moabites, and other nations were not too thrilled with the returning Jews and in fact, feared them because of their support by the Persian empire. Thus, they were determined to harass them to the point where they would just give up trying to colonize the land and return to Persia. Sound familiar? History does repeat itself.
They could not declare outright war against the Jews as they had the support and backing of the Persian Empire which ruled the known world at that time. So they just started a campaign or war of attrition to wear the Jews down. This incorporated the use of something still in practice in the Middle East, terrorism. In time King Artaxerxes was burdened with domestic problems and the threat of other nations seeking war against the Persians. As a result, King Artaxerxes turned the responsibility of the Jewish nation over to his son Susa who knew not his grandmother Esther and was, for want of a better word, anti-Semitic. Thus, Judah’s support of Persia started to fade away, which was ok with Nehemiah and Ezra as they were of the mind that if God wanted Jerusalem rebuilt He would do it without the help of Persia. Sort of the attitude of Netanyahu today. Indeed God did help but from a practical standpoint, Persia’s waning support did embolden their enemies and their harassment steadily increased. Nehemiah and Ezra were confident that God would protect them, unfortunately, the people refused to trust in God.
According to Ezra 4:4 this war of attrition was working. The people of Judah’s hands were weakened and they were troubled by their enemies in the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The expression of their hands were weakened expresses the idea of becoming discouraged and fearful. The word weakened in Hebrew is meraphim which comes from the root word rapah which means to sink down or to loosen one’s grip. The word is found in a Piel (intensive) form so it really has the idea of just letting go. In other words, just giving up. Do you ever feel that way in your service to God? People just come at you from every end, criticize, condemn, and accuse you of things that you never did or intended. Eventually, you just become bitter and discouraged and you meraphim or give up.
The people of Judah just became weary of the constant harassment by their enemies. Although their enemies initially could not outright harm them physically, they would mock them, make fun of them, rob their homes while they were working on the building project or destroy their crops while they were rebuilding the walls. Nehemiah had returned to Persia for a period of time and when he returned to Jerusalem, he found a people who were in a spiritual funk, they had given up working on the walls to protect their own interests and they had fallen into spiritual paganism and idolatry. They had merephim given up. Does that sound like you?
What did Ezra do to encourage the people? Let me jump ahead a few hundred years to the Apostle Paul who gives us a solution in Ephesians 15:19: “Speak to one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. Nehemiah 8:10: “The Joy of the Lord is our strength.” We will not fulfill God’s work for us if we fall prey to the work of the enemy, to his war of attrition and his terrorist attacks against us like with Judah. Instead, we need to fill our hearts with the Word of God like Ezra did and encourage each other with songs of praise and joy. That alone will stop the enemy cold in his tracks.
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