Reading 83 | The Bible in 100 Passages

Saturday, December 6, 2025  

Today's Scripture
2 Chronicles 36:20–23

He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom and also declared in a written edict: “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him! Let him go up.” (NRSV)

Reflection

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I gazed up in front of my doorstep to one of the most quietly impressive sites I can recall: a brilliant blue sky without any sign of air traffic as far as my eye could see. With so much fear and uncertainty around travel, planes were rarely seen or heard soaring above. In some parts of the world, like Thailand, natural habitats actually recovered biological health, because there were few people in them dumping garbage or polluting waters. For many of us, the pandemic was a period of great trial, sometimes filled with sickness or frustration, but for certain parts of our land, it was ironically a sabbath.

When the exile comes for Judah, it is a disaster of epic proportions. Young and old, women and men, are not spared the violence of the conquering army. The ugly way of nation warring against nation prevails yet again. But the author of Chronicles hints that injustice was already the norm. The land had, according to them, been denied sabbath. One way to understand that is to consider that the land had been overworked and exploited for the sake of private and royal gain. That’s lamentable on its face, but such exploitation also ran counter to the Torah, the teaching through which the Israelites were to steward the freedom God had given them from Egypt. The sabbath wasn’t just good land policy. Whether or not it was convenient for any particular person or cause, it was sacred.

The inevitable challenges we face in our own time often come because, like the neglect of the sabbath, we fail to steward aspects of our own lives or our common life well. Yet when things finally break down — be it our stability, peace, or comfort — the good news is that God is doing the work of healing. There is rest even in desolation to compensate for the rest that we refused to take at an earlier time. As the old ways come to an end, the Spirit slowly moves us toward new, more fruitful directions.

Prayer

Redeemer God, you foster new life and possibilities out of disruptions and endings. Help us to lament what has gone wrong while welcoming new paths forward. Amen.

Written by Joseph L. Morrow, Associate Pastor

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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