Purpose, Occasion, and Background
The Persian Empire at the Time of Ezra
The Global Message of Ezra for Today
Introduction to Ezra
Timeline
Author and Date
The book of Ezra 1:1 never declares its author, and the book’s contents make it difficult to determine when it was written. Ezra 1:1 recounts events that occurred long before Ezra’s time. Ezra 7:27 clearly comes from Ezra’s own hand, since it is written in the first person. Ezra 7:1 and Ezra 10:1 describe events in Ezra’s time, but are written in the third person. It is possible Ezra may have combined the other materials with his autobiographical writings to form the book. Or, a later historian may have collected all the portions to describe Israelite history from c. 538–433 B.C. Many scholars believe that the same author wrote Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1–2 Chronicles 1:1. In ancient times, Ezra and Nehemiah were counted as one book. The events narrated in Ezra–Nehemiah occur over a century: Ezra 1:1 covers 538–515 B.C.; Ezra 7:1–Nehemiah 13:1 covers 458–433 B.C.
Theme
The theme of Ezra is faithfulness to the Lord, both in keeping the Mosaic law (Ezra 7:6) and in worship. Because of his concern about worship, Ezra stresses the importance of rebuilding the temple.
Purpose, Occasion, and Background
As the people return from exile in Babylon to the Promised Land, they are under threat from the non-Jews living there. Having been driven from the land previously because of their sin, they also need to learn once again how to live in covenant with God. The land must be restored through the physical presence of God’s people, and the people must revive a spiritual commitment to serve God alone. As the temple is rebuilt and more exiles come back to the land, the people start to reestablish the nation that God had promised Abraham. As the priests return and begin to teach the people how to love God and live according to his ways, the people recommit themselves to the Lord.
The book of Ezra 1:1 encourages the postexilic community toward pure worship and holy behavior. Ezra calls the people back to covenant loyalty and obedience to the Mosaic law. The book rejoices in God’s provision in returning them to the land, rebuilding the temple, and calling his people back to himself. The book also warns against falling away again through sin and against serving other gods. The remnant of Israel should persevere in hope, repent in humility, and live in obedience.
Key Themes
- The Lord is faithful to his promises, and his mercy is greater than his anger (Ezra 9:13).
- The Lord works providentially by all means, especially through powerful rulers, to bring about his greater purposes (e.g., Ezra 6:22).
- The exiles are the remnant of Israel, the “holy race” (Ezra 9:2, Ezra 9:8). They are bound by covenant to guard their identity and character as the people of the Lord by obeying his law.
- People belong to the Lord by willingly accepting his covenant. Membership in the covenant community is open to the people of any nation who meet this requirement (Ezra 6:21).
- Faithfulness to the Lord is demonstrated by proper attention to worship. In Ezra, this is shown especially in the rebuilding of the temple and in the proper ordering of its services. The priests, Levites, gatekeepers, musicians, and other temple servants once again perform their duties (Ezra 2:36; Ezra 3:10).
- The heart of worship is joy (Ezra 6:22).
Outline
- Cyrus’s Decree and the Return of Exiles from Babylon (Ezra 1:1)
- The Returned Exiles Rebuild the Temple on Its Original Site (Ezra 3:1)
- Ezra the Priest Comes to Jerusalem to Establish the Law of Moses (Ezra 7:1)
- Ezra Discovers and Confronts the Problem of Intermarriage (Ezra 9:1)
- Ezra discovers the problem of marriage to idolaters, and prays (Ezra 9:1)
- The people agree to dissolve the marriages (Ezra 10:1)
- List of those who were implicated (Ezra 10:18)
The Persian Empire at the Time of Ezra
c. 458 B.C.
During the time of Ezra the Persian Empire had reached its greatest extent, engulfing nearly the entire Near East. In 539 B.C. the Persians under Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonians and absorbed their territory into the empire, including the lands of Israel and Judah (known as Beyond the River). The next year Cyrus allowed the people of Judah to return home under the leadership of Zerubbabel and rebuild the temple of the Lord. Later, around 458 B.C., another group of Judean exiles returned under Ezra’s leadership.
The Global Message of Ezra
The Big Picture of Ezra
The central message of the book of Ezra 1:1 is found in Ezra 1:1 the scribe’s moving confession on behalf of his people (Ezra 9:6). God had justly sent Israel into exile for its sins (Ezra 9:6), but, in his perfect timing, the Jews who later returned to Jerusalem have received God’s grace to revive them (Ezra 9:8). God’s mighty hand has stirred the Persians to send the Jews home with supplies to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 9:9).
The completion of this task is in jeopardy, however, not from the Persian kings or external enemies but from within the community of faith itself—God’s unholy people who dwell in God’s holy city (Ezra 9:10). Exile threatens to repeat itself unless the Jews repent from intermarrying with the peoples of the land (Ezra 9:13).
Though Ezra’s confession occurs in the second half of the book, its themes are found throughout this book. The two parts of the book of Ezra 1:1 (chs. Ezra 1:1 and chs. Ezra 7:1) narrate historical events separated by about seventy years (compare Ezra 1:1; Ezra 7:1). Yet Ezra 1:1 and Ezra 7:1 share an important feature: both sections record the struggles of the Jewish remnant to stay faithful to the God who has graciously brought them home from exile.
The Global Message of Ezra
How does a book about Jews returning to Jerusalem contain global good news?
Blessing the nations. The international scope of the Lord’s plan becomes evident from the first verse. The book of Ezra 1:1 begins in Hebrew with the word “and” (Ezra 1:1), indicating that exile to Babylon will not be the end of the story. Israel’s defeat hardly proved that Babylon’s gods were stronger than the God of Israel—quite the opposite! Exile was just a forerunner to a new stage of history in which God would show his sovereignty over all nations. As God promised through the prophet Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36:22; Ezra 1:1), the exile of his people to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:17) would be followed seventy years later by a return to the land (Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10). The sojourn in Babylon would be God’s special way of preparing Israel to be a global blessing once again (Jeremiah 29:11). The nation would fulfill its original commission to bless the other nations of the world (Jeremiah 31:7; Jeremiah 33:9).
God’s surprising deliverance. The promise of such a glorious restoration seems to fly in the face of reality. Much like Egypt in Exodus 1:1, Babylon was an arrogant superpower that would never liberate Israel willingly. But in the just providence of God, Babylon collapses under the weight of its own pride (see Daniel 5:1) and falls to Medo-Persia, a gentler empire with a rather different foreign policy. The book of Ezra 1:1 tells us that “the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 1:1) to send Israel back to its homeland. Cyrus provides Israel with supplies to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2). Much as God once granted Israel favor with the Egyptians (Exodus 3:22; Exodus 12:36), Israel receives favor from the Persians, who give them precious metals (Ezra 1:4) and return the temple’s instruments of worship (Ezra 1:6).
God also directs later Persian kings such as Darius and Artaxerxes to ensure that the Jews receive all that they need to revive their worship in Jerusalem (Ezra 6:6; Ezra 7:11). Each Persian king mentioned in the book of Ezra 1:1 pays his respects to the “God of heaven” (Ezra 1:2; Ezra 6:9, Ezra 6:10; Ezra 7:12, Ezra 7:21, Ezra 7:23). Ezra rightly praises God for touching the hearts of these kings (Ezra 7:27).
A universal language. It is not only the story line of Ezra that emphasizes God’s lordship over the nations; even the language of the book underscores this, for it sometimes shifts to Aramaic (Ezra 4:8; Ezra 7:12). This is significant because Aramaic was the international language of diplomacy in the Near East, whereas Hebrew was the specific language of the Jews. The God of Israel possesses authority over all peoples.
Intermarriage. Given these universal purposes of God, why is the book of Ezra 1:1 so harsh in condemning intermarriage with other peoples, even to the point of describing how the Jews banished their foreign wives and children (Ezra 9:1)? The issue at stake here, however, is spiritual compromise rather than ethnic bias. As Ezra’s confession indicates (Ezra 9:10), intermarriage with the peoples was a return to the same sins that led Israel into exile in the first place. The spiritual condition of Israel was grave—even the priests of Ezra’s time were guilty of intermarriage (Ezra 10:5, Ezra 10:18). Since their leaders had led the way in rebelling against God, it was necessary for the Jews to take drastic measures in separating from the pagan influences brought by intermarriage. Otherwise God’s judgment in the form of exile could easily have been repeated.
The Global Message of Ezra for Today
Though the book of Ezra 1:1 narrates the activities of a tiny Jewish community, their story of repentance and redemption has three major implications for the global church today.
God’s redemption and the world powers. First, God reigns supreme over all human powers, both cruel (Babylon) and gentler (Persia) ones. God may allow proud empires to have their day in the sun, but he also reserves the right to replace them when it suits his global purposes. So the political loyalties of Christians must belong, first and foremost, to the only King whose rule is eternal: “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14). Our allegiances must align with God’s indestructible kingdom rather than with the fate of a particular country or political cause.
God’s redemption and his people’s suffering. Second, the children of God should differ from the world in how they view suffering. Unlike other ancient and modern peoples, they can have confidence that God is equally at work in victory and defeat. The book of Ezra 1:1 shows us that the sovereignty of God extends even to the suffering of his oppressed people. The numerous miracles that God accomplished for the Jews in restoring them to the land did not spare them from suffering—instead, the eyes of God watched over his people even as he allowed their enemies to oppose them (Ezra 5:5). This truth finds its ultimate expression in how the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, an apparent defeat from a human perspective, actually proved to be God’s greatest victory over the powers of this world (Colossians 2:14).
God’s redemption and his people’s sin. Third and finally, the description of the Jews in Ezra 1:1 shows that the greatest threat to God’s global purposes is his own people who will not—or cannot—stay faithful to him. The Old Testament prophets had predicted a glorious restoration of Israel to the land. But the various struggles of the Jews who returned from exile seemed anything but glorious. The temple rebuilt in Ezra 4:1 did not remain forever—it was eventually destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. Spiritual apathy had begun long before this, however. Within a single generation after the rebuilt temple’s dedication (Ezra 6:19), the Jews of Ezra’s time walked away from God (see Ezra 9:1; also Nehemiah 13:1). The spiritual problem of human hearts that cannot stay faithful to God finds its only solution in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He is in himself a new temple (John 1:14; John 2:18). Through his atoning work he has restored God’s presence to his people—the very reason the temple existed. And through the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, God is now building his church into a new temple in Christ that will embody his presence in the world (1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21; 1 Peter 2:5).