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Basics

BOOK: Ezra

Description: historical book telling of the return after the Exile and the rebuilding of the Temple and reforms brought to the returning community.

Author: a scribe, possibly Ezra. Originally written as one book with Nehemiah

Date written: 440BC

Chapters: 10

Brief Synopsis

• Gets its name from the key figure, Ezra.
• King Cyrus of Persia, present ruler over the exiles of Israel, is moved by the Lord to decide to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
• He releases the Jews to return to do the work.
• The rebuilding of the Temple starts but they receive much opposition and eventually help is received from documents back in the royal archives.
• The Temple rebuilding is completed.
• Ezra the scribe comes at the next king’s direction to bring administration to Jerusalem in accordance with God’s law.
• The returning exiles realize they have failed the Law by having mixed marriages and resolve to put this right.

Why read Ezra

Well, to understand the wonder of the contents of this relatively short book, we have to remind ourselves where it fits in the history of Israel:

1. About 688 BC, Isaiah prophesied that a Cyrus would be used by the Lord to return an exiled Israel to their land to rebuild the temple – see Isa 44:28 / 45:13

2. Throughout the reigns of three of the last kings of Judah, Jeremiah brought warning after warning that God would destroy Jerusalem and carry the people into captivity if they did not repent and turn away from their idolatry. They ignored him.

3. Three times Nebuchadnezzar, the all-powerful king of Babylon, invaded the Land

• first in 605 when Daniel and his friends were taken with many others,
• second in 597 when Ezekiel and some ten thousand Jews were deported to Babylon [see 2 Kings 24:12-17] and
• finally in 588/87 when Jerusalem AND the Temple was eventually destroyed and the vast majority of the remaining people taken into exile in Babylon.

4. According to Ezra 2:64 over 42,000 returned in 538BC after Cyrus was moved upon by the Lord to return them, and records suggest the work of rebuilding the temple started on 537BC, was then delayed, resumed on Sept 21, 520BC (Ezra 3:8) and was finished on Mar 12, 516BC (Ezra 6:15), i.e. approx. three and a half years building. The problems of rebuilding are recounted in this book.

5. In 458 Ezra returned to Jerusalem as seen in chapters 7 & 8 of this book. (Nehemiah will return in 445)

The background Kings of Ezra & Nehemiah

As various kings are mentioned in both books, we need to understand the times of their various reigns:

a) Kings of Babylon

• Nebuchadnezzar  (605 – 562),
• various lesser rulers concluding with Belshazzar (562 – 539)
• after which Babylon fell to Cyrus the Persian

b) The Persian Empire

• Cyrus (539 – 530)
• Cambyses (530-522)
•  Darius (522-486)
•  Xerxes (Ahasuerus) (486-465/64)
•  Artaxerxes  (464-423) [NB. From Neh 2:1 we see Nehemiah came in 444/5BC]

Time Frame Summary

It is important to try and grasp the times:

• 587 – The sack of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
• 538 – Cyrus sends the first group back to the Land to rebuild the Temple.
• 516 – The Temple completed. (roughly a 20 year delay)
• 458 – Ezra returns to Jerusalem. (roughly 60 years later)
• 445 – Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem

In Part 1 of this book, we see Cyrus sending back the first exiles to rebuild the Temple. Chapters 1-3 are the run-up to the rebuilding and chapters 4-6 recount the opposition they experienced to the rebuilding up to completion.

Part 2, a number of decades later, sees Ezra returning to Jerusalem and his concern over the intermarriages that had been going on contrary to God’s words through Moses.

CONTENTS

• PART ONE: The First Return (538BC) & Temple Rebuilding
  • 1: Cyrus Helps the Exiles to Return
  • 2: The List of the Exiles Who Returned
  • 3: Celebrations & Starting to Rebuild the Temple
  • 4:Opposition to the Rebuilding of the Temple
  • 5: The local governor enquires of the king
  • 6: Approval, Continuation & Completion (520BC)
• PART TWO: The Second Return (458BC) & Reordering Marriages
  • 7: Ezra’s return to Jerusalem
  • 8: Those Returning to Jerusalem
  • 9: Ezra’s Anguish & Prayer About Intermarriage
  • 10: Resolving the issue of Marriage Unfaithfulness

Lists

Intriguingly, the books shows signs of a scribe with a great sense of administration and record keeping and the combined books of Ezra and Nehemiah include the following lists:

• the temple articles (Ezra 1:9-11),
• the returned exiles (Ezra 2, which is virtually the same as Neh 7:6-73),
• the genealogy of Ezra (Ezr 7:1-5),
• the heads of the clans (Ezra 8:1-14),
• those involved in mixed marriages (Ezra 10:18-43),
• those who helped rebuild the wall (Neh 3),
• those who sealed the covenant (Neh 10:1-27),
• residents of Jerusalem and other towns (Neh 11:3-36)
• priests and Levites (Neh 12:1-26).

Documents

Similarly, we find seven official documents or letters (all in Aramaic except the first, which is in Hebrew), each of which plays a significant part in all that took place.

• the decree of Cyrus (1:2-4),
• the accusation of Rehum and others against the Jews (4:11-16),
• the reply of Artaxerxes I (4:17-22),
• the report from Tattenai (5:7-17),
• the memorandum of Cyrus’s decree (6:2b-5),
• Darius’s reply to Tattenai (6:6-12)
• the authorization given by Artaxerxes I to Ezra (7:12-26).

Concluding Comments

• The new reader might wonder why so much attention is given to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. The answer is that the Temple was the symbolic “house of God” the place where God revealed His glory to His people in the past and where He was said to reside. It was the focal point for worship and the sacrificial system that was at the heart of their relationship with the Lord.

•  Intriguingly Jeremiah prophesied a 70-year period of the Exile, but the Jews started returning to Jerusalem long before that period was up. What is interesting is that it was exactly seventy years between the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the finishing of its rebuilding. The seventy years would thus appear to be the period of the absence of the Lord’s presence within the city.

•  What is remarkable about this history is that Cyrus was a heathen king who was impressed by God to initiate the return and the rebuilding. Even more, the later king, Artaxerxes, sent Ezra with very godly instructions to establish the people, and in between King Darius gave them a very favorable conclusion to the debate about their right to be there in the Land. The hand of God was clearly on these three heathen kings to bring about the restoration of His people.

•  We might find the closing chapters disturbing in the light of the non-Jewish wives being put away but two comments are applicable. First, it is a reminder of what comes all the way through the Old Testament: these are God’s unique people who were to remain distinct from other peoples. Second, we are not told HOW they resolved this issue. We assume that they simply divorced their foreign wives but we would remember that the Law was always remarkably caring for all classes of people. It is possible that some of those men returned to Babylon with their wives; we just don’t know. The account leaves us speculating for it does not give us an answer. What is clear, however, is the determination of the returning remnant of Israel to do all they could to be right with God.

•  Although we have not featured it in the Key Verses above (simply to save space) it is worth reading the accounts of the enemy opposition and the ways it was overcome, especially in the light of our comments above about the heathen kings that were involved.

•  Clearly as much as the destruction of Jerusalem was the judgment of God, the restoration after exile was the goodness and grace of God, working to bring His people back to the land and create an environment in which to bring His Son, some four hundred years later.