Daily Manna · Day 151 · May 31
Weeping and Shouting
“But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:”
Dust, and two sounds coming out of it at once. Trumpets and cymbals on one side of the crowd; old men crying loudly enough that the noise carries past the edge of the city.
The occasion is the laying of a foundation. Not a finished temple. A foundation. Fifty years after Nebuchadnezzar burned the first house, a few thousand returned exiles with limited money and a permit from a Persian king have got as far as a floor of stone. The younger ones shouted for joy, and they had never seen the first house. The priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were ancient men had seen it, and they wept with a loud voice. Ezra does not tell you why they wept. He notes only that the men with the longest memories were the ones crying.
Then comes the detail that makes the passage useful: the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people. At any distance the two were one sound. Nobody was told which response was the appropriate one, and the text passes no verdict on either.
You know this afternoon. The wedding is lovely and your father is not there. The new house is good and it is not the one you lost.
So stop performing whichever feeling the room is expecting. Today, in one prayer, thank God plainly for what is good and then tell him plainly what is missing from it, in that order, softening neither half. Then let one person hear both from you and do not explain yourself afterward.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 151 is Open Thy Mouth (Psalm 81:10).