Ezra: the return and the temple

About the book

The book takes its name from Ezra, "a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses" (Ezra 7:6). In the Hebrew Bible Ezra and Nehemiah were one book; the division into two came later. The passages that hold the Persian court's letters and decrees (4:8–6:18 and 7:12-26) are in Aramaic, the language the empire widely used.

Jewish tradition says that Ezra wrote it Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra. From 7:27 to 9:15 Ezra speaks in the first person, and many hold that this part at least comes from his own hand. Many scholars think that someone later joined Ezra's record, Nehemiah's memoir and the Persian documents into one book.

Its story lies in the era the map under the Jesus tab calls return and rebuilding (c. 539–430 BC). Chapters 1–6 tell of the first return with Zerubbabel in 538 BC and the temple finished about 516 BC; chapters 7–10 of Ezra's own return, more than half a century later.

Ezra came "in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes" (Ezra 7:7). Tradition and many scholars take this king to be Artaxerxes I, which puts Ezra's coming in 458 BC, thirteen years before Nehemiah's in 445: that is the book's own order, and the two later stand together before the people (Nehemiah 8:9). Other scholars take him to be Artaxerxes II, which puts it in 398 BC, after Nehemiah. The two men appear together in only a few places, which these scholars think were joined when the book was compiled, and they point to "the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib" (Ezra 10:6): if this Jehohanan descended from Eliashib, high priest in Nehemiah's day, Ezra came later. Many others reply that both were common names and settle nothing.

How it unfolds

Key passages

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia

Ezra 1:1

Jeremiah had foretold a return when Babylon's seventy years were complete (Jeremiah 29:10), and Isaiah had named Cyrus as the LORD's shepherd and foretold that Jerusalem would be rebuilt and the temple's foundation laid (Isaiah 44:28). The decree that closed 2 Chronicles opens this book.

When the foundation was laid, the people sang, "For He is good; for His loving devotion to Israel endures forever" (Ezra 3:11). But the old men who had seen the first temple wept aloud, and no one could tell the shouts of joy from the weeping. Matthew Henry writes, "We ought to be thankful for the beginnings of mercy, though it be not yet perfect" Matthew Henry. The work, halted by opposition, began again through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1) and was finished.

With the temple standing, the people needed to live by God's word:

For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, to practice it, and to teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel.

Ezra 7:10

John Wesley bids us notice the order: first understand, then practise, then teach John Wesley. Then the leaders told Ezra that the people, priests and Levites among them, had married into the surrounding peoples and their abominations, as the law forbade. Ezra fell down before the house of God, weeping and confessing, and a great assembly wept with him (Ezra 10:1). It is a hard scene for readers today, but the book tells it as repentance: a people standing again as God's covenant people.

The book and Christ

God moved a foreign king to keep the word he had spoken by his prophets. "For all the promises of God are ‘Yes’ in Christ," writes Paul (2 Corinthians 1:20): the God who kept his promise of return keeps every promise in him.

Zerubbabel, who led the first return, was of David's line but never sat on a throne. Yet Matthew's genealogy names him, "Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel" (Matthew 1:12): from this returned remnant came the promised son of David.

The temple the old men wept over was later rebuilt on a grand scale by Herod, and it was the temple Jesus entered. There he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again" (John 2:19), speaking of his body (John 2:21). The temple rebuilt in stone was waiting for Christ, the true temple.

Reading it

Its ten chapters take five days at two a day; begin with Ezra 1, and read the lists of chapters 2 and 8 quickly. Read chapters 5–6 beside Haggai and Zechariah, who prophesied at that time.

More than half a century passes between chapters 6 and 7, and the story of Esther falls in those years. Ezra's story goes on in Nehemiah.

Practice