Trusting the Words of the Scriptures Like Daniel and Ezra
Jeremiah 29:10-11
10″For thus says the Lord, ’When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
11 ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ’plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
Daniel 9:1-2
1In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—
2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years.
Ezra 1:1-3
1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying:
2 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ’The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3 ’Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem.
One of the best things I’ve ever heard about reading the Bible is understanding that the Bible interprets itself. Here is a prophecy from Jeremiah, the re-telling of what happened when Daniel read that prophecy at the 69 year mark in Babylon, and Ezra watching it come true in his lifetime. The Bible is a number of books all written over the course of over 1,000 years. We have ancient manuscripts of the oldest parts and newer manuscripts of the newer parts. One person didn’t write this all after the fact to tie it together.
The fact that people in the Bible believe and live according to older books in the Bible should be a signal to us. Not that we need to count days and do Revelation math to make the end of the world OBVIOUSLY happen on 2/19 of 2019. Not like that. But just as people from Ancient history, Babylonian history, greek history, etc all believed the words written in these scriptures to be accurate about God, we can too.
We can be skeptical of using the Bible as a scientific book because that’s not the way it was written or the mindset of the people at the time. We can also be skeptical of reading the Bible as an Ouija board that has a message for us whenever we open it to a random page and start reading. That’s not how Jeremiah wrote it, how Daniel read it, or how Ezra lived it out.
It’s a true history book and a living way to interact with the Living God. We can trust it and look for practical applications of its words in our life every day.