A remnant has returned to Jerusalem and are rebuilding the Temple by decree of Cyrus, King of Persia. It is not long until they are confronted with opposition. (It never takes long when you are doing God’s work!) A decree is handed down from the new Persian king, Artaxerxes, to cease working on the Temple. However, when Darius acquires the throne, he issues yet another decree, and the work continues and is finished!
Now that’s a lot of decrees! However, those are not the only decrees in play in this narrative. Those three decrees are human decrees given by kings. There was a decree issued hundreds of years earlier by The King! Isaiah 44:28 says, “who [God] says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose’; saying of Jerusalem, ‘She shall be built,’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’” Through the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years beforehand, God names the Persian king, by name, and decrees exactly what shall happen!
The lesson here is plain and clear. Human decrees result from divine decrees! God works through his creation in such a way that his glorious purposes are accomplished! “They finished their building by decree of the God of Israel and by decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (6:14).
The divine decree is underneath these human decrees, and God ensures that the human decrees will work in accordance with his will. “For the Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel” (6:22). Divine decrees determine human decrees!
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