Canter Bridge

Disappointment frequently dogs the story of the Jewish Commonwealth that was founded by the returnees from Babylonian captivity. The exilic prophets—at least those whose legacy found its way into the canonical vision of a people reborn against the strong currents of history—were better at cultivating expectation than at managing it. So the same narrative that crystallizes the unlikely rebirth of a Jewish people that should have faded into the historical mist under the strong hand of their Babylonian captors ends up hoping for more than Return produces.

The building of a temple to replace the ruined Solomonic edifice is a microcosm of this remarkable interweaving of hope, jubilation, and disappointment:

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the LORD with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, according to the directions of King David of Israel; and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD,

‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.’

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

YHWH, we are told in the closest thing to an Old Testament creed, is good. His steadfast love endures forever. Yet this good love seems somewhat tarnished in its redeployment of a Jewish nation in what we have come to call the Holy Land. Israel’s second coming seems rather provincial when compared to the vast reaches of Davidic and Solomonic empire, by now looking rather like Israel’s Golden Age and the touchstone against which all forward movement is doomed to be measured.

Young enthusiasts, jubilation having undone their hair, shout wildly at the great accomplishment that stands before them. Their triumphal cries mingle unknowingly with the grief of those who can’t bring themselves to see this new little house as a worthy replacement of the vast courts that Solomon had erected for his God.

It is often so. Biblical faith knows only a little of absolute, historical landmarks. Its best kings go haughty in blessing. Its temple is torn down, its priests dilute their rites, half its prophets lose the acuity necessary to distinguish YHWH from Baal. New things are celebrated, as they should be, yet the oldsters remember when things were better and wonder about the sanity of youngsters devoid of memory and proportion.

Yet from such small things, stained by the ineradicable ink of disappointment, a future emerges. For some few, the old glories lose their drag and through redemption’s strange alchemy become rather the platform upon which novelties good in themselves are anchored.

One or two who wept before the pathetic small thing that the priests filled with their singing must have laid their hand, regardless of ancient Solomon’s prowess, to plows that churned up soil in promising little rows.