26-44). to the third person in Ezra x., showing that he does not regard himself as the slave, but as the master, of his material. Nehemiah, being interested in the social as well as the political condition of the community, unflinchingly rebuked the unbrotherly treatment of the poor by the rich, appealing to his own very different conduct, and finally induced the nobles to restore to the poor their mortgaged property (v.). Similar phrases are continually recurring, e.g. One of the first rulers of the empire, Cyrus, sought to show tolerance to all of the communities in Mesopotamia. The leader of the third stage of the return was Nehemiah, a high official in the Persian imperial administration, of Jewish ancestry, who was seized with a desire to ameliorate the physical condition of Jerusalem and of its Jewish community. The memoirs are immediately preceded by the Aramaic rescript of Artaxerxes permitting Ezra to visit Jerusalem for the purpose of reorganizing the Jewish community (Ezra vii.12-26). 2) Intermarriage challenges the religious identity of the Jewish member of couple: Solomon, beloved of God, was led by his gentile wives to worship their gods (13:26). 2) The attempt to turn the laws of the Torah into the laws of the society. (Intermarriage with the inhabitants of the land is forbidden, according to Deuteronomy 7:3).Therefore, the laws of the Torah had to become the blueprint for the new society. xiii.25). Sefer Ezra-Nechemiah – the Book of Ezra-Nehemiah – is the tenth book in the Ketuvim (Writings) section of the Tanach. There is no obvious motive for the writer who so faithfully transcribed the memoirs of Nehemiah, inventing so vivid, coherent and circumstantial a narrative for Ezra in the first person singular (Ezra vii.27-ix.). Occasion: Ezra-Nehemiah however is about those who did return to Jerusalem from exile, and records the last events of the Old Testament period of history. In this essay, the term “Ezra” is used to describe the complete book. Even if we allow that the number is correct, it is just possible that the king referred to is not Artaxerxes I (465-424), but Artaxerxes II (404-359). Despite their enormous difficulties, Ezra-Nehemiah are a source of the highest importance for the political and religious history of early Judaism. A free summary of Ezra and Nehemiah in an easy-to-understand format. [Footnote 1: Note that the opening verses of Ezra are repeated at the end of Chronicles to secure a favourable ending to the book -- the more so as that was the last book of the Hebrew Bible.] “Rabbi Tarfon said: “It is not incumbent on you to finish the work, but nor are you free to desist from it.” (Mishnah, Avot, chapter 2.). xiii.1-3, Ezra x.10-44, Neh. He then placed the city in charge of two officials, taking precautions to have it strongly guarded and more thickly peopled (vii.). The book covers the period from the fall of Babylon in 539 BC to the second half of the 5th century BC, and tells of the successive missions to Jerusalem of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and their efforts to restore the worship of the God of Israel and to create a purified Jewish community. At a national assembly, Ezra read to the people from the book of the law, and they were moved to tears. 2. identify the contributions of people such as Ezra, Nehemiah, Sheshbazzar, and Zerubbabel. A study of the structure and content of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther in light of the historical setting of each book with an emphasis on the providential care of the Lord for His people, the post exile restoration, and the leadership principles demonstrated by Israel’s rulers. x. He may also have had in mind the words of the great exilic prophet who had represented Cyrus as issuing the command to lay the foundation of the temple (Isa. This episode illustrates another aspect of the recurring problem of defining the boundaries of Israelite identity. The question of the Ezra memoirs raises the further question of the Aramaic documents. Those who did were fired by the hope of building a society which would restore Israel’s ancient glory. “Who was a (true) Israelite?” was an issue of great concern. ), he says little of the homeward journey of the exiles in 537, but much of the temple vessels (Ezra i.) After making allowance, then, for the Chronicler's occasionally cavalier treatment of his sources, we have to admit that the sources themselves are of the highest historical value, though in order to secure a coherent view of the period, they have, in all probability, to be rearranged. The history now moves forward about fourteen years (444 B.C.). (d) Of great interest and importance are the Aramaic sections, Ezra iv. Learn what Ezra and Nehemiah says and what it means in layman's terms. [Footnote 2: In Ezra vi.22 Darius is even called the king of Assyria. Jerusalem and the Temple (the Beit Hamikdash) were destroyed, and thousands of Judahites were exiled to Mesopotamia. In the light of the very plain statements of the contemporary prophets Haggai and Zechariah, we are justified in doubting whether, in Ezra iii., the Chronicler has not antedated the foundation of the temple. Have you ever faced a task that is so difficult and overwhelming that you start to wonder: Should you do it in the first place? They objected to the returnees’ building the Temple on their own and demanded a part in the project. He must have lived a century or more after Ezra and Nehemiah; he looks back in Neh. Rebuilding the Wall of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1:1-7:73) Bridging … The difference is striking. the exiled Jews return to Jerusalem to build the temple (Ezra i.). After a series of lists of priestly and Levitical houses, one of which[1] is carried down to the time of Alexander the Great, xii.1-26, the walls were formally dedicated, and steps were taken to secure the maintenance of the temple service and officers, xii.27-47. Had it been a fiction, the scene of the discovery would no doubt have been Babylon or Susa. When the returnees came back to the land of Israel, they found another group already living there, viz. vii. There not only is an altar immediately built by the returned exiles -- a statement not in itself improbable -- but the foundation of the temple is laid soon after, iii.10, and the ceremony is elaborately described (536 B.C.). The restoration of Israel from exile was God's doing. (Ezra iv.1-5), and he diverges without warning into an account of a similar opposition during the reigns of Xerxes (485-465) and Artaxerxes (465-424) (Ezra iv.6-23), resuming his interrupted story of the building of the temple in ch. Again, the measures of Nehemiah are mild in comparison with the radical measures of Ezra. Unlike Ezra (viii.15ff. To him it may well have seemed inconceivable that the returned exiles should -- whatever their excuse -- have waited for sixteen years before beginning the work which to him was of transcendent importance. On his return to Jerusalem in 432 B.C. The Babylonian empire fell, and the Persian empire gained control of Mesopotamia and most of the Middle East. Ezra iv.6-23). In short, the work of Nehemiah has all the appearance of being tentative and preliminary to the drastic reforms of Ezra. The Jews had appealed to the decree of Cyrus granting them permission to build, and this decree was found, after a search, at Ecbatana. The foreign neighbours of Jerusalem, provoked by their success, meditated an attack -- a plan which was, however, frustrated by the preparations of Nehemiah (iv.). It is just and practically necessary to treat the books of Ezra and Nehemiah together. Dust to Glory provides a panorama of biblical truth and a starting point to help you understand the content of the Bible. Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther Lesson 1 Historical Setting In 587 BC, the Babylonians, under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah relate how God's covenant people were restored from Babylonian exile to the covenant land as a theocratic (kingdom of God) community even while continuing under Gentile rule. When the third stage of the return took place, the issue of intermarriage came to the forefront once again. Copyright © 2002-2021 My Jewish Learning. But the persistence and doggedness with which the Jews of the period confronted these challenges became a model for the generations that followed. The compiler selected from his available material whatever suited his purpose; he makes no attempt to give a continuous account of the period. This is known as the period of the Restoration, and the two men most responsible for the reorganization of Jewish life at this time were Ezra and Nehemiah. The difficulties involved in this presentation of the history are of two kinds -- inconsistencies with assured historical facts, and improbabilities. The influence of the Chronicler is unmistakable even in the Aramaic documents, whose authenticity one would on first thoughts expect to be guaranteed by their language. especially xii.47 with its reference to "the days of Nehemiah," whereas in xii.40, xiii.6, etc., Nehemiah speaks in the first person. ), and the growth of … The first problem that confronted Ezra, when he arrived in Jerusalem, was that “the people of Israel, the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the land…they have taken from their daughters for themselves and for their sons, and mixed the holy seed with the peoples of the land” (Ezra 9:1-2). xii.22), as one to whom the Persian empire was a thing of the past; contemporaries simply spoke of "the king," Ezra iv.8. First and of surpassing importance are (a, b) what are known as the I-sections -- verbal extracts in the first person, from the memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah: --. A brief sketch of the books as they stand will suggest their great historical interest and also the historical problems they involve. i.-vi., Ezra iv.6-23, Neh. xiii.15-22). Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah & Esther; Ezra and Work. It is not impossible to surmount the difficulty by assuming that the laying of the foundation in 536 B.C. Those who do so point out that the audience addressed by Haggai, i.12, 14, ii.2, and Zechariah viii.6, is described as the remnant of the people of the land -- that is, it is alleged, of those who had been left behind at the time of the captivity. The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today's context. The authenticity of the memoirs of Nehemiah is universally admitted. The prophets who spoke about the period of the return, whose prophecies are recorded in Isaiah 40-66, and in the books of Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi, dealt with these challenges not by denying the returnees’ grandiose hopes, but by prophesying “delayed fulfillment.”  Someday, Jerusalem’s victory “will go forth like brightness, and its salvation will burn like a torch” (Isaiah 62:1). Ezra & Nehemiah. The builders “built with one hand, while holding daggers in the other” (Nehemiah 4:11), building during the day and guarding the wall at night (Nehemiah 4:16). God led Jerusalem through a period of restoration and revival by calling on Ezra and Nehemiah to overcome opposition and rebuild the city physically and spiritually. In English Bibles, they are usually split into two, with the book of Nehemiah appearing as a separate book from Ezra, but in the Hebrew tradition, they are one book, entitled “Ezra,” and Nehemiah is simply the second part of Ezra. contents. Nehemiah enforced the sanctity of the temple, and instituted various reforms, affecting especially the Levitical dues, the sanctity of the Sabbath, and intermarriage with foreigners, xiii. As the primary disciple of Baruch the son of Neriah (who had been the primary disciple of Jeremiah), he remained by the side of his great teacher in Babylon until his passing, the Talmud says (Megillah 16b).While in Babylon, E… Whatever may be thought of the view that he has reversed the chronological order of Ezra and Nehemiah, the book undoubtedly contains misplaced passages. The Chronicler stood relatively near to Ezra. the age and work of ezra and nehemiah 46 iv. Return to the Land (Ezra 1:1-2:70) Cyrus’ proclamation and the response, Returning Israelites by family and by city, The Temple ministrants, Those of dubious descent Building the Second Temple (3:1-6:22) After living in captivity in a foreign land, the Israelites return to Jerusalem in three waves to rebuild their temple (Ezra 1:1-11), city (Neh. Again, there are several distinctively Jewish terms of expression in the rescript given by Artaxerxes to Ezra, e.g. Read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in Hebrew and English on Sefaria. Ezra reacted strongly to this news: He tore his clothes as a sign of mourning, and prayed and fasted as a sign of repentance. xii.22) was high priest in the time of Alexander (about 330 B.C.?).]. But Nehemiah did not deal only with the physical problems of the community. It remains to consider briefly the value of these sources. Someday, “the glory of this later temple will be greater than that of the first” (Haggai 2:8). In these sections Ezra is spoken of in the third person. (e) Finally, there are occasional lists, such as Neh. We cannot be certain as to who was the composer of either or both books. the books of ezra and nehemiah 30 iii. Ezra i.-iv.5, iv.24-vi., followed by about seventy years of silence (516-444 B.C.). demands the divorce of the wives (Ezra x.11ff. Then follows a list of those who returned, numbering 42,360 (ii.). ), and the prayer issued in a covenant to abstain from intermarriage with the heathen and trade on the Sabbath day, and to support the temple service (x.). These Samaritans were, in the view of leadership of those returning from Babylonia, merely the descendants of people brought to the Land of Israel by the Assyrian kings at the end of the eighth century in place of the Israelites they deported. This, however, might easily be explained by assuming that Ezra himself had had a hand in drafting the rescript, which is not impossible. by Robert M. Solomon Day 1. No rearrangement can be considered as absolutely certain, but the following, which is adopted by several scholars, has internal probability: --. He amplifies the Nehemiah narratives at the point where the services and officers of the temple are concerned. Rebuilding the Temple (Ezra 1:1-6:22) Restoration of Covenant Life, Phase One: The Work of Ezra (Ezra 7:1-10:44) Nehemiah and Work. 2-4 — “The LORD God of heaven” is a designation of God that is peculiar to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel. There is the same love of the law, the same interest in Leviticalism, the same joy in worship, the same fondness for lists and numbers. They killed the leaders of Judah, plundered the temple before burning it to the ground, destroyed much of the city, including its walls, and took the cream of Jerusalem’s crop of citizens to Babylon. The authenticity of the memoirs of Ezra has been disputed with perhaps a shadow of plausibility. Students will be able to . Attention has been called to the Persian words which they contain, though this alone is not decisive, as they might conceivably be due to a later author; but the authenticity of the decree of Cyrus is practically guaranteed by the story that it was discovered at Ecbatana (Ezra vi.2). vii.1-69 (= Ezra ii. These are the chief sources, but there can be no doubt that they were compiled -- that is put together and in certain cases worked over -- by the Chronicler. The first period (Ezra, chaps. vv. xi., xii., xiii.4-31, Ezra vii., viii., Neh. To say nothing of the first clause, which has a suspicious resemblance to the language of Deuteronomy, such a wish addressed to the God of the Jews is anything but natural on the lips of a Persian. EZRA­NEHEMIAH . They were aware that Jeremiah had prophesied that there would be an exile, but there would also be a return (chapter 32, especially vv. ][Footnote 2: Cf. ), whereas Nehemiah only forbids intermarriage between the children (Neh. In accordance with a decree of Cyrus in 538 B.C. 1. recount the major events of the post­exilic period and explain their significance in the covenant history of Israel . Nehemiah, a royal cup-bearer in the Persian palace, hears with sorrow of the distress of his countrymen in Judea, and of the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, by whomsoever written, are properly so named according to analogy from the principal persons mentioned in them. Against threats of war from the Samaritans and the Ammonites, who did not want to see Jerusalem become the political centre of the land, Nehemiah rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem. Read Ezra 1:5-6. We cannot be too grateful to him for giving intact the vivid and extremely important account of the activity of Nehemiah the layman in Nehemiah's own words (i.-vii.5); at the same time, his own interests are almost entirely ecclesiastical. Nehemiah complains (Nehemiah 13:21) that the children of intermarried couples are unable to understand Hebrew, a basic requirement for being a member of the returnees’ Jewish community. He gives passages irrelevant settings (cf. xiii., Ezra ix. was a purely formal ceremony while the real work was not begun till 520; still, it is awkward for this view that the language of two contemporary prophets is so explicit. His fidelity in transcribing the memoirs of Nehemiah is proof that he was not unscrupulous in the treatment of his sources. Whereupon Darius gave the Jews substantial support, the buildings were finished and dedicated in 516 B.C., and a great passover feast was held (v., vi.). Its substantial authenticity seems fully guaranteed by the spontaneous and warm-hearted outburst of gratitude to God with which Ezra immediately follows it (Ezra vii.27ff): "Blessed be Jehovah, the God of our fathers, who hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart," etc. the detailed allusion to sacrifices in Ezra vii.17. As the first Sukkot festival in the land of Israel approached, the returnees reinstated the sacrificial offerings at the site of the Temple, and then began rebuilding the Temple itself (Ezra chapter 3). Next year, amid joy and tears, the foundation of the temple was laid (iii.). at Jerusalem) may overthrow all kings and peoples that shall put forth their hand to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem" (Ezra vi.13). Chapter 8 – Ezra reads the Law to the people and they celebrate the Feast of Booths. It tells the narrative of the return to Zion. He speaks about the practical consequences of intermarriage, and mentions two points: 1) Intermarriage challenges the ethnic identity of the community, and erodes its sense of peoplehood. After first Isaiah’s message of rebuke, another writing under his name came to comfort Israel with immortal poetry. Some have argued that the Torah was promulgated by Ezra, but it is clear that at least most of the text of the Torah existed during the first Temple period. Armed with a commission from Artaxerxes, Ezra the scribe, of priestly lineage, arrived, with a company of laity and clergy, at Jerusalem from Babylon, with the object of investigating the religious condition of Judah and of teaching the law (vii.). xliv.28); and he may in this way have thrown into the period immediately after the return activities which properly belong to the period sixteen years later. The Books of Ezr and Ne are a compilation of genealogical lists, letters and edicts, memoirs and chronicles. It has been alleged that the account of the career of Ezra has been largely modelled on that of Nehemiah, as that of Elisha on Elijah, and that legendary elements are traceable, e.g. i.4, 9). They celebrated the feast of booths, and throughout the festival week the law was read daily (viii.). ), Neh. In that case, the date of Ezra's arrival would be 397 B.C. With the king's permission, and armed with his support, he visited Jerusalem, and kindled in the whole community there the desire to rebuild the walls (ii.). Through the work of Ezra and Nehemiah Israel’s new identity became centered around the law and temple.” “Ezra and Nehemiah had played a vital role in preserving the religious life and culture of the Jews who returned from exile when the community was about to be swallowed up by its neighbors. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the only completely historical books in the third section of the Hebrew Bible, the Ketuvim (Writings). 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