Getting to know Ezra’s story



Julie Swannell



It seems that the Old Testament is often rather obscure and that the lessons to be gained require discernment and determination on the part of the reader.  At least for this reader!  So, I've been doing a bit of research.  My main resource for what follows has been Dummelow's One Volume Bible Commentary.


The first thing is: where is he in the Bible? Well, he appears tucked in between Chronicles and Nehemiah and my reading informs me that we could even read these three books as one continuous story (which, by the way, I have not to date done).


The second thing is: he is only mentioned 26 times in the entire Scriptures: once in I Chronicles where we learn he had four sons (Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon); thirteen times in the book of Ezra, and even then only in two of the chapters (7 and 11); and eight times in the book Nehemiah.


Thirdly it seems that the story may have been written sometime between 340 and 300BC, some two hundred years after the events, and Dummelow suggests that the writer incorporated the writings of Ezra himself Ezra 7: 27 to 9:15); genealogies and records (Ezra 2, 10:18 - 44); and extracts from Aramaic documents (Ezra 4: 7 to 6:18, 7: 12 - 26) in the record.



The Exile

We learn at the outset of the book that we are in Persia and that Cyrus is the current king. Cyrus gives the go-ahead for a new temple ("the house of the Lord") to be constructed miles away in Jerusalem.


Now we need to have a little background here to understand what is going on. It's about 538BC and Cyrus of Persia has just conquered Babylon by diverting the river Euphrates and marching his soldiers along the dried-up riverbed. (The "Cyrus cylinder" records his feelings and is held at the British Museum.) He controlled an empire that stretched over an area of 5,000 km (3,000 miles).


About fifty years before, in 586BC, Jerusalem had been captured by Nebuchadnezzar (king of Babylon), the temple destroyed, and the people deported to Babylonia, where the Euphrates River flows, and where the newly relocated people undoubtedly gathered together into colonies.
In comparison with the desert land of Judah, Babylon was a fertile land so those who kept their heads down and worked hard prospered and were probably left alone by their rulers, while those who were not willing to submit were badly treated. (Isaiah 14: 3 tells of "sorrow" "fear" and "hard bondage", so some lived under very harsh conditions indeed.) Besides working the land, what did these people do? The Children's Illustrated Bible explains that Nebuchadnezzar "made use of the finest craftsmen to rebuild the city of Babylon. The walls and the hanging gardens were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World".



Ezra 2: 64 - 70 offers some details. There were 7,337 [men] plus an unknown number of servants, women and children; 200 "singing men and singing women"; 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, 6,720 asses; 1060 "drams of gold", 5,000 pounds of silver; and 100 priests' garments.


When Cyrus took over (538BC), the Jewish people were considered subjects of the Persian Empire and had to pay taxes which often required borrowing at high interest rates and sometimes resulted in family members being sold into bondage.


As mentioned, Judah was a barren land compared to Babylon so not everyone was interested in returning when Cyrus gave the authorisation to return, but a good number wanted to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. During those 50 years of living under foreign rule, the Jewish people had lost some of their independence and many felt they needed to strengthen their sense of identity, so there had been greater importance given to the ceremonial requirements of their law, and the scribes appear to have adopted the role of moral and religious instructors in lieu of individual prophets. Also, because they had no temple, they had begun worshipping in buildings called synagogues.



How interesting it all is. And we still have "displaced" persons today of course, so what are the lessons learned?