Ezra 2:1

EZRA CHAPTER 2 The number of the people that returned, Ezra 2:1; and of the priests, Ezra 2:36; of the Levites, Ezra 2:40; of the singers, Ezra 2:41; of the porters, Ezra 2:42; of the Nethinims, Ezra 2:43; and of Solomon's servants, Ezra 2:55. Concerning the priests that could not show their pedigree, Ezra 2:61-6:3. The whole number of them and their substance, Ezra 2:64. Their oblations, Ezra 2:68. The children of the province, i.e. the Israelites, called the children of the province, either,

1. Of Babylon, of which province we oft read, as Ezra 7:16 Daniel 2:48 Daniel 3:1,2,30, called the province by way of eminency; of which they are called children, because of their birth and habitation in it for a long time, it being usual to call the inhabitants of any city or place its children. Or rather,

2. Of Judea, called a province, Ezra 5:8. And he calls it thus emphatically, to mind himself and his brethren of that sad change which their sins had made among them, that from an illustrious, independent, and formidable kingdom, were fallen to be an obscure, servile, and contemptible province, first under the Chaldeans, and now under the Persians. Every one unto his city; either unto those cities or towns which belonged to their several ancestors; or rather, to those which were now allotted to them, and from this time possessed by them. For their former cities were either demolished. or possessed by other persons, which they were not now in a capacity of disturbing.