Weeping and Shouting

Picture a crowd standing in the dust of a building site in Jerusalem, with two sounds rising from it at the same time. On one side, priests blow trumpets and Levites clash cymbals. On the other side, old men are crying out loud, and the two sounds run together into one noise that is "heard afar off."

What they are marking is only a foundation, the first layer of stone for a new temple. About fifty years after Nebuchadnezzar burned the first temple, more than forty thousand exiles have come home with a permit from a Persian king, and so far they have built as far as the floor. Many in the crowd "shouted aloud for joy." But many of the "priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house," "wept with a loud voice." Ezra does not tell us why they wept. He only notes that the men with the longest memories were the ones in tears.

Then comes the detail that makes this passage so useful: "the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people." From a distance the two sounds became one. Nobody in the crowd was told which response was the right one, and the text does not judge either of them.

You know this kind of day. The wedding is lovely, and your father is not there to see it. The new house is good, and it is not the one you lost.

So you do not have to act out whichever feeling the room expects. Today, in one prayer, thank God plainly for what is good. Then tell Him plainly what is missing. Do it in that order, and do not soften either half. Then let one person you trust hear both from you, without feeling you have to explain yourself afterward. God heard both sounds that day, and the house was still built: Ezra later records that "this house was finished."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 151 is Open Thy Mouth (Psalm 81:10).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna