Persian Empire
While Ezra and Nehemiah were originally separate books (see Ezra 2 in Neh 7:6–70), in the Hebrew Bible and Talmud they were joined together and called Ezra (עֶזְרָא).[1] Josephus (ca. AD 37–100) also mentioned the book of Ezra, assuming that Nehemiah was joined with it at his time of writing (A.J. 11.5). The books were first separated in the Latin Vulgate (ca. AD 200), as were 1 and 2 Esdras, by the church father Origen (ca. AD 184/185–253/254).
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147. The Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Israel. Excavations on the SE corner of the Temple Mount have revealed stonework possibly dating to the time of Zerubbabel, the man who led the first group back from exile and who began rebuilding work on the temple. © אסף.צ / Wikimedia Commons |
The purpose of the book is to demonstrate that God is continuing to bless his covenant community and to provide an account of Israel’s return to the and of promise (538 BC). It also stresses the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and the temple, a process led by Ezra and Nehemiah. It is written from a religious rather than historical perspective. It places the emphasis upon a holy nation and a kingdom of priests under God’s holy law.
Ezra omits fifty-eight years from the construction of the second temple to Ezra’s return to Jerusalem in 458 BC with a second group of exiles (Chs. 7–10). He was able to return after asking Artaxerxes for permission to return to help bring stability to the project. However, many stayed behind in Babylon, choosing to support the work with gifts and money.
During this time, 10,000 people travelled the 1000-mile distance between Babylon and Jerusalem in four months, under the guiding hand of God. Upon Ezra’s arrival he learned that many of the people of Israel had intermarried with the people of Palestine,[2] who practiced pagan religion (9:1–4). Ezra pulled out his beard[3] in despair: they had broken the covenant God had made with His people (9:10-11), and as a result, the remnant was in danger of God’s judgment.
Following Ezra’s prayer of intercession on behalf of the people, Israel expressed the desire to enter a covenant with God in which one of the conditions would be that foreign wives, as well as well as the children born of these mixed marriages, would be sent away. They came on their own and annulled their marriages (10:1–44). The people came individually and annulled their marriages (10:1-44). This move has been much criticised by later scholars, who—from their own cultural perspective—charge Ezra of strict legalism and overzealous racial purity. However, it must be stated that this was not Ezra’s motive: instead, he was zealous for God’s name and for the people to be holy. God's people had married those who refused to abandon their idolatry, and who were tarnishing the purity of Israel's worship. How could Israel be used of God if they were locked into marriage covenants with those following idols?
The book of Ezra displays the sovereignty of God in the human hearts of rulers and people alike, to move them to accomplish his redemptive purposes. The Lord moved their spirits to carry out his purposes (1:1; 1:5; 7:9; 7:27)
[1] The two books may have been combined in an effort to correspond the number of the canonical books with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 400.
[2] Damiel L. Smith-Christopher, “The Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10 and Nehemiah 13: A Study of the Sociology of Post-Exilic Judaean Community,” in Second Temple Studies: Vol. 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, LHBOTS 175 (Bloomington, IN: T&T Clark, 2009), 243–65.
[3] Michael Heltzer, “The Flogging and Plucking of Beards in the Achaemenid Empire and the Chronology of Nehemiah,” AMitI 28 (1996): 305–7.
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