But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the fathers' houses of Israel, said unto them, You have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.
All Commentaries on Ezra 4:3 Go To Ezra 4
Bede
AD 735
And they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the holocaust on each individual day in due order according to the commandment: the duty of the day in its day. The Feast of Tabernacles, which in the Gospel is called by the Greek word scenopegia (i.e. the fixing of tents), was a seven-day feast beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, on which the Lord commanded all the people to make tabernacles for themselves from the leaves and branches of the most beautiful wood and, leaving their homes, to stay in these tabernacles for seven days, daily pondering the decrees of the divine law and offering holocausts to the Lord in fire. They were commanded to do all this, lest thanks for such a great blessing ever depart from their mind, in remembrance of the time in which they once made their exodus from Egypt and dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness, and while Moses preached the law and the divine presence frequently appeared to him, they waited a long time for the day when they would be allowed to enter the Promised Land. And so as those people who had come up from Babylon were making their way to Jerusalem, since they had been inflamed by a wondrously devout love to carry out all the Lord's commandments, they took care to celebrate this feast as well, in the way in which he specifies for their assembly on the fifteenth day, performing on each day of the week those things that were commanded by the law. It befits us to do the same with equal devotion in a spiritual sense. For we too went out from servitude in Egypt through the blood of a lamb that we might come to the Promised Land when, baptized into the sacrament of the Lord's passion, we shook off the heavy yoke of transgression in order that, after being adopted into the freedom of the glory of the children of God, we would be heirs of the kingdom of Heaven. We stayed in tabernacles and tents travelling for a long time through the desert until we should come to our homeland when, renouncing in baptism not only Satan (as it were the king of Egypt, i.e. of darkness) but also all his pomp and the works of this present age, we promised that we should be as pilgrims and wayfarers in this world but citizens of that other life which we hope for from the Lord. In remembrance of this hope and promise we ought to dwell in tabernacles in the seventh month (that is, while the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is described as sevenfold, illuminates us), to desert this world with our whole mind as if it were something foreign and barren, and to hasten with a fixed resolve to the unfading joys of paradise. And it behooves us to do this incessantly for seven days (i.e. for the whole period of our present life which is accomplished in as many days), and of each of these seven days we ought without ceasing to offer 'a holocaust' and 'the duty of the day in its day' - namely a holocaust (that is, an entirely burnt-up offering) in regard to those things that properly pertain to divine service, such as prayers and fasting; and the duty of the day in its day in regard to those things that pertain to the service of brotherly love, such as ministering bread to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the cold, hospitality to the pilgrim, care to the sick, burial to the dead, doctrine to the erring, and comfort to the mournful.
And when he said that they made a holocaust on each individual day according to the commandment, as the day required, he rightly interjected in due order, no doubt because anything in the service of either divine or brotherly love that is performed in a disorderly fashion loses the merit of its perfection. For the honour of a king loves judgement, for whatever tasks we devoutly carry out in honour of the most high king, we certainly must distinguish through discerning judgemen twhen or to what extent we should carry them out so that we do not, by performing our righteous work in a less than orderly manner, corrupt the standard of his righteousness. Paul suggested that we ought to celebrate this Feast of Tabernacles (i.e. scenopegia) in a mystical way when, in the midst of his preaching, he used to make time for the art of tent-making: for he used to make scenomata (i.e. tents) in order to teach that he was himself an inhabitant of this world and yet a pilgrim in it as well, and to educate those whom he was instructing that they must be travelling in this life but expecting and hoping for their homeland in the life to come. For when travelling or making journeys we are accustomed to use tents. The same Apostle testifies that the saints do this in this life when he says: While we are in the body we are travelling apart from the Lord; and to the Hebrews: For here we do not have a lasting city but we are looking for the city that is to come. But since those who entirely turn their minds away from the world and faithfully confess that they are citizens of the homeland which is on high immediately open an entrance in themselves for all the virtues.
