Damien F. Mackey
“And the LORD said unto Satan The LORD rebuke thee O Satan even the LORD
that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
What
could this text possibly mean?
Well, for me it means that the high priest, Joshua (Jesus), was the same
as the priest, Ezra, the Azariah of Daniel 3 who was in the Burning Fiery
Furnace. That Ezra was, therefore, the high priest. That Jesus-Ezra-Azariah was
in the fire, and, yet, was saved – he was literally “plucked out of the fire”.
This
is not an allegory, then, but hard reality!
Moreover,
this Jesus was the very author of the Book of Sirach.
He
was Jesus, son of Eleazer, son of Sira[ch].
“The Wisdom of Ben Sira derives its title from the
author, “Yeshua [Jesus], son of Eleazar, son of Sira” (50:27). This seems to be the earliest title of the book”.
Bible Gateway
Compare the genealogy of the high priest, Jesus, son
of Jehozadak, son of Seraiah:
“[Jehozadak] is primarily recognized as the father
of Jeshua (Joshua) the high priest, who played a crucial role in the rebuilding
of the Temple after the Babylonian exile. Jehozadak was the son of Seraiah …”.
Jehozadak, generally thought to have been Ezra’s
brother, is actually omitted in Ezra’s impressive genealogy in Ezra 7:1-5:
Ezra son of
Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum,
the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the son of
Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the
son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of
Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest ….
But the genealogy is widely regarded as being not a
fully comprehensive one:
Ezra (Azariah) was son of Jehozadak, son of Seraiah.
The high priest, Jesus, was son of Jehozadak, son of Seraiah.
Jesus (author of Sirach), was son of
Eleazer, son of Sira[ch].
As Azariah, Ezra was in the Burning Fiery Furnace.
As the high priest, Jesus, he was “plucked out of the fire”.
And so, apparently, as Jesus ben Sirach, was he “in
the heart of a fire” (Sirach 51:1, 2, 4):
‘I
will give thanks to you, Lord and King … for you have been protector and
support
to me, and redeemed my body from destruction … from the stifling heat which
hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled’.
Sirach 51:1, 2, 4
Saved ‘from the heart of a fire’, ‘hemmed in’ by its
‘stifling heat’.
Could Jesus ben
Sirach’s account here be a graphic description by one who had actually stood in
the heart of the raging fire? - had stood inside “the burning fiery furnace” of
King Nebuchednezzar? (Daniel 3:20).
Another
translation (GNT) renders the vivid account of the Lord’s saving of
Sirach as follows (Sirach 51:3-5): “… from the glaring
hatred of my enemies, who wanted to put an end to my life; from suffocation in
oppressive smoke rising from fires that I did not light; from death itself;
from vicious slander reported to the king”.
According to the
far more dispassionate account of the same (so I think) incident as narrated in
Daniel 3:49-50:
… the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace beside
Azariah and his companions; he drove the flames of the fire outwards, and
fanned into them, in the heart of the furnace, a coolness such as wind and dew
will bring, so that the fire did not even touch them or cause them any pain or
distress.
Note that both texts refer almost identically to “the
heart of the fire [the furnace]”.
Well, if Sirach
(Ecclesiasticus) chapter 51 has any relevance to the fiery furnace situation,
if Jesus ben Sirach were Azariah-Ezra, then he himself appears to have been the
one who had decided to appeal prayerfully to the Divine mercy for help and
protection (vv. 6-12):
I was once brought
face-to-face with death; enemies surrounded me everywhere. I looked for someone
to help me, but there was no one there. But then, O Lord, I remembered how
merciful you are and what you had done in times past. I remembered that you
rescue those who rely on you, that you save them from their enemies. Then from
here on earth I prayed to you to rescue me from death. I
prayed, O Lord, you are my Father; do not abandon me to my troubles when I am
helpless against arrogant enemies. I will always praise you and sing hymns of
thanksgiving. You answered my prayer, and saved me from the threat of
destruction. And so I thank you and praise you.
O Lord, I praise you!
The three young
Jewish men, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, had had no hope whatsoever of obtaining any human
deliverance.
But once again
Azariah alone will be the one to proclaim this (“Then Azariah stood still
and there in the fire he prayed aloud”) (Daniel 3:32-33):
‘You have delivered us into the power of our enemies, of
a lawless people, the worst of the godless, of an unjust king, the worst in the
whole world; today we dare not even open our mouths, shame and dishonour are
the lot of those who serve and worship You’.
Might Sirach 51 be
an echo of this terrifying situation, when Jesus ben Sirach prays to God,
“You have redeemed
me
[v. 3] from the fangs of those who would devour me, from
the hands of those seeking my life
…
[v. 6] From the unclean tongue and the lying word –
The perjured tongue slandering me to the king.
….
[v. 7] They were surrounding me on every side, there was
no one to support me;
I looked for someone to help – in vain”.
This would mean that Ezra had served as High Priest
The question has been greatly debated.
But there is a strong Jewish tradition in its favour:
Microsoft
Word - jbq_413_6_ezracohen.doc
WAS
EZRA A HIGH PRIEST?
REUVEN
CHAIM (RUDOLPH) KLEIN
The
books of Ezra and Nehemiah detail the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon.
These
books feature Ezra the Scribe as a religious leader of the fledging Jewish
community in Jerusalem. He is introduced in the Tanakh with the following
genealogical lineage: Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king
of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the
son of Shallum, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the
son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzzi, the
son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the
son of Aaron the chief priest . . . (Ezra 7:1-5). This passage traces Ezra’s
descent all the way back to Aaron, the first high priest (kohen gadol).
Nonetheless, rabbinic tradition teaches that Ezra himself was not a high
priest. Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 list all those exiles who returned to Jerusalem
with Zerubbabel. Ezra’s name is conspicuously absent from this list because he
only returned to Jerusalem later, in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes (Ezra
7:7-8) … one year after the Holy Temple had been rebuilt.
TB
Megillah 16b notes Ezra’s absence during the early days of the restored Temple
and asks why he did not leave Babylon earlier. The Talmud then explains that
Ezra did not want to leave Babylon while his teacher, Baruch ben Neriah, was
still alive; he therefore had to wait until Baruch’s death before leaving for
Jerusalem. The Midrash adds the following to this talmudic discussion: The
Temple was actually consecrated because Ezra did not arrive at the time, for
had Ezra arrived then, Satan would have filed accusations against the Jews,
arguing that Ezra would better serve as high priest than Jeshua ben Jehozadak.
This is because even though Jeshua ben Jehozadak would have been a high priest
son of a high priest, Ezra was more righteous than he (Song of Songs Rabbah
5:2). ….
This
discussion clearly establishes the classic rabbinic position that it was not
Ezra but his brother’s son Jeshua who served as high priest (see I Chron. 5:40,
which states that Jehozadak was a son of Seraiah, Ezra's father). This is also
implied in the list of high priests in Nehemiah 12:10-11, all of whom were
lineal male descendants of Jeshua ben Jehozadak. However, when tracing the
transmission of the Masorah (chain of tradition), Maimonides (Rambam) mentions
the rabbinical court of Ezra, known as the “Men of the Great Assembly” ... and
notes that the last of these sages was Simeon the Just, whom he describes as
the high priest some time after Ezra. ….
This
seems to imply that Maimonides understood Ezra to have been a high priest. ….
Rabbi
Menahem Meiri (1249-c. 1316) echoes the words of Maimonides and adds that Ezra
was the first high priest of the Second Temple. …. Thus, Maimonides and Meiri
assume that Ezra had indeed served as high priest. In fact, Rabbi Hayyim Yosef
David Azulai (Hida; 1724-1806) relates that he found a manuscript of Maimonides
to that effect. In this manuscript, Maimonides observes that he compared his
Torah text with an ancient Torah scroll in France written by Ezra the high
priest. ….
Azulai
infers that Maimonides believed that Ezra was indeed a high priest, in
consonance with his opinion above. Elsewhere, Azulai questions the position of
Maimonides in light of the aforementioned midrash which states that Jeshua, not
Ezra, was the high priest. ….
Rabbi
Ya’akov Emden (Yavetz; 1697-1776) writes that Maimonides’ source is Tractate
Parah (3:5) of the Mishnah … which records all historical instances of
preparing a red heifer (parah adumah) for use in purification: Who prepared
them? Moses did so first; Ezra, the second; and after Ezra five more were
prepared according to Rabbi Meir. The Sages say that seven more were done from
Ezra’s time onward. Who prepared them? Simeon the Just and Johanan the high
priest each prepared two. Elyehoenai ben Hakkuf, Hanamel the Egyptian, and
Yishmael ben Piavi each did one.
By
mentioning Ezra in conjunction with the other high priests who prepared red
heifers (Emden reasons), the Mishnah seems to imply that Ezra, too, was a high
priest. This idea gains support from the view that the red heifer might only be
prepared by the high priest (see Parah 4:1). ….
[End
of quotes]
I
agree with those Jewish legends saying that Ezra was the high priest.
He,
the Azariah of the Book of Daniel, was the same as the high priest, Jesus (and was
also Jesus, the author of the Book of Sirach), the man who was a brand plucked
out of the fire – the Fiery Furnace of King Nebuchednezzar!
