SET APART FOR THE LORD

Set apart what belongs to the Lord. God sets apart people and treasures for His purposes. When God does this, the objects and people become Holy. They are used to display God’s glory. When we give gifts to the ministers of God, the things we offer become holy, something we can never achieve if we withhold them or keep them for ourselves.

In the account of Ezra, he is making an inventory of gifts from the king, brought as offerings to the Lord. He wanted to be a good steward for these gifts. Under his accountability, all the gifts were measured up. Ezra wanted this done in the front of the elders. They wanted to make sure the family leaders were watching. After the inventory was completed, the gifts were distributed to the priests accordingly.

(Ezra 8:28-30)

28 I said to those men, “You are set apart to the Lord. So are these things. The silver and gold were offered to the Lord by those who chose to give them. He is the God of your people. 29 Guard all these things carefully until you weigh them out. Weigh them in the special rooms of the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. Do this in front of the leading priests and the Levites. Make sure the family leaders of Israel are watching.” 30 Then the priests and Levites received the silver and gold and sacred objects. All of them had been weighed out. They were going to be taken to the house of our God in Jerusalem.

Before the passage above took place, the journey to Jerusalem began with intense prayers before the Lord. After which, Ezra separated 12 of the chief priests to their designations (Ezra 8:24). The chief priests were tasked to take care of the gifts of silver, gold, and vessels that were received from the king as gifts for the temple.57 The glory of the Lord is again on display as pagan kings and people bring in treasures to offer for the temple.

(Ezra 1:7-11)

7 King Cyrus also brought out the objects that belonged to the Lord’s temple. Nebuchadnezzar had carried them off from Jerusalem. He had put them in the temple of his own god. 8 Cyrus, the king of Persia, told Mithredath to bring them out. Mithredath was in charge of the temple treasures. He counted those objects. Then he gave them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

9 Here is a list of the objects. There were 30 gold dishes. There were 1,000 silver dishes. There were 29 silver pans.

10 There were 30 gold bowls.

There were 410 matching silver bowls. There were 1,000 other objects.

11 The total number of gold and silver objects was 5,400. Sheshbazzar brought all of these back with him to Jerusalem. So Sheshbazzar and the Jews who had been forced to leave Judah came up from Babylon to Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:7-11)

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