Толкование 1-я книга Ездры 1 глава 3 стих - Экзегет

The king’s great faith and great mercy is evident in these words – faith in that he understood that, before other nations, the people of Israel are God’s people; mercy because without exception he allowed all who wished to return to their homeland to do so as free people; faith because he acknowledged that the same Lord God not only dwelt in heaven and was in Jerusalem but also could go up with each of those who were returning from Babylon to Jerusalem. Is it not clearer than light that Cyrus believed this God to be not corporeal and confinable in terms of place but a spirit and present everywhere? He confessed that God was present in Jerusalem and in the temple and yet did not doubt that he ruled simultaneously in the kingdom of heaven. And he believed that he ruled in heaven in such a way that he was nevertheless with his faithful on earth and guided their hearts and hands to the doing of those things which are salutary. Moreover, all the words of this passage are redolent with the spiritual sense. For to whom is it not readily apparent that it is only those whom God is with who can journey from the confusion of sins to works of virtue as though from the slavery of Babylon to freedom in Jerusalem, since we are able to do nothing without him? (Ср. Ин. 15:5) Who would not rightly see that the reason that the word ‘going up’ is used in the same sentence is no doubt that all who sin and are enslaved to the cares of this world are in the lowest place, whereas those who desire to please God must direct their mind to higher matters, sigh after the things of heaven, and through love of the eternal rise above all the pomp and enticements of the world? It is also mentioned that Jerusalem is in Judea (i.e. in ‘confession’), in order that we who have deserved through forgetfulness of God to be held captive by the Chaldeans (which means ‘demons’, i.e. evil spirits) and through the confession of divine mercy to be set free may return to the vision of free peace and light and there build a house to the Lord God of Israel. That is to say, we should prepare our own hearts (which the Lord himself deigns graciously to dwell in and to illuminate with his presence) in the unity of universal peace, in the confession either of our own sin or of his divine mercy and grace, but we must also take care to inflame the hearts of our neighbours to the praise of their Creator and to works of mercy. And so in both these ways we build a house to the Lord when we either exercise ourselves in works of righteousness or call forth those whom we can to the path of righteousness by examples and by words.