EZRA OVERVIEW
Tonight we begin looking at the book of Ezra. This book
picks right where 2 Chronicles left off and it will teach us about the return
of the Jews from
The author is believed to be Ezra and some suggest that Ezra and Nehemiah used to be one book and were called I and II Ezra, while others maintain these are two separate books written by two separate authors. The name Ezra means help.
The key verses in this book are as follows,
Ezra 1:1 Now in
the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth
of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of
Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put
it in writing, saying, 2
Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of
heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a house at
These verses show us how
God worked through King Cyrus to fulfill His promise through Jeremiah. Another
key verse is,
Ezra 7:9 On the
first day of the first month he began his journey from Babylon,
and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, according
to the good hand of his God upon him. 10
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and
to teach statutes and ordinances in
This teaches us about
Ezra’s return to
The key chapter of Ezra
is chapter 6 because the chapter records the completion and dedication of the
temple under the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. Also it
teaches us king Darius ordered the governor not to oppose the Jews, but to help
them with any material that they needed to complete the temple. Darius
recognized the Jews God as the God of heaven. It also tells how they kept the
Passover and purified themselves and even turned the heart of the King of
Assyria toward them who was willing to help them with their work on the temple.
The purpose of this book
is best described in this quote from Keil,
"To show the manner in which the Lord God,
after the lapse of seventy years of exile, fulfilled his promise, as conveyed
by the prophets, by the deliverance of his people from Babylon, the rebuilding
of the temple in Jerusalem, the restoration of the temple worship according to
the law, and the preservation of the restored community from fresh lapses into
heathenism and idolatry by the dissolution of their marriages with Gentile
women."
This promise was prophesied by Jeremiah in,
Jeremiah 29:12 Then
you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me,
when you search for Me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring
you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from
all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to
the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.
The message of Ezra shows us the power of God’s Word and how He can work though evil nations to bring about His promises. When we read books like Ezra it should encourage us knowing that God always keeps His promises. The story of these Jews captivity and restoration can be written in 10 words that all begin with letter R.
This book tells us about two returns of the Jews and the book of Nehemiah tells us about his return with an army. The first group of Jews that came back were around 50,000 strong (Ezra 2:64-65) They were lead back by Zerubbabel, the governor and Jeshua the priest around 536 B.C. The second group mentioned in chapter 8 who were all men, 1754 of them, came back with Ezra around 458 B.C.
This book tells us about the rebuilding of the temple, the Law of Moses being reestablished and Ezra’s reforms. It coverers approximately 78 years from the beginning of King Cyrus reign to the eighth year of king Artaxerxes ar-tuh-zerk-sees (536 – 458 B.C.). Two sections of this book were written in Aramaic 4:8- 6:18 and 7:12-26, which caused some scholars to doubt the historicity of Ezra in the areas because they didn’t believe that the Aramaic language existed back that far. However, archeology has proven these skeptics wrong once again. Please note what Burt Coffman says in regards to this,
Scholars earlier in this century rejected the
fourth chapter of Ezra as "unhistorical"; but, "Once more a
verdict against such radical critical views has now come to light in the famous
Elephantine papyri. These letters are in
Aramaic, the language of diplomacy and trade during the Persian period. They date between 500-400 B.C. They were
written by Jews in the military colony on the
There are 2 main divisions in this book.
1. Chapter 1-6 deals with Zerubbabel’s work and how he was
authorized by King Cyrus to return to
2. Chapter 7 -10 deals with Ezra’s work. Ezra returned to
Now let’s take a closer look at Ezra’s character and work. Ezra was a scribe and a priest (Neh. 12:26,36). He was a descendant of Hilkiah the high priest of Josiah’s reign who found the Law of Moses and in the house of God, which lead to the great reform of Josiah. Tradition says that Ezra was the organizer of the synagogue and president of the Great Synagogue, which compiled the Old Testament canon. We can certainly see that he was a man that prepared to serve God with His whole being because,
Ezra 7:10 For
Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and
to teach statutes and ordinances in
Ezra was a courageous and
faithful servant of God because he put his trust in God. You can see his
courage and zeal to get back to God’s Word when he talked to the priest and the
head of the families and called for them send their foreign wives and children
away. God’s Law did not allow the Jews to intermarry with Gentiles. Through
this process, Ezra shows how serious he takes God’s word because it grieved him
that his people had allowed themselves to break God’s Law this way.
He honored God by reading
and teaching his Word and transcribing it. His greatest desire was to restore
the Word of God in the hearts and lives of his people.
As we will learn when we get to the book of
Nehemiah, Nehemiah built the wall around
Now let take a look at 5
great lessons that we can learn from the book of Ezra.
1. We learn what happens
when we fail to study and obey God’s Word. The Jews had failed miserably in
this area and this is why they had were taken into captivity as,
Isaiah 5:13 Therefore
my people have gone into captivity, Because they have no knowledge;
God’s people are falling
into the same trap today. Far too many people are not studying God’s Word as
they should and they are allowing themselves to be fooled in to believing all
kind of different doctrines. Whenever you and I put God’s truth into our hearts
Jesus said,
John 8:31-32 "If you abide in My word, you are My
disciples indeed. 32
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
However, the more we
listen to others instead of God, we begin to make ourselves slaves of sin once
again. Friends, we must have the attitude of Ezra and prepare our hearts to
seek the Law of the Lord because if we don’t we find ourselves repeating the
children Israel’s mistakes, but instead of being taken in captivity by a
foreign nation, we will become captives of Satan, who has no intentions of letting
us go. So, I hope we can learn from Ezra to diligent seek after God by studying
His word and by obeying it.
2. We can learn another
valuable lesson from how some of these Jews married outside the family of God. God
had a reason he wanted them to only marry other Jews and that was because God
knows how much a wife or husband can influence each other. This was Solomon’s
downfall. Not only did he break the Law by marrying more than one woman, He
also married foreign women and they brought along with them all their pagan
beliefs. Even though Solomon had been given wisdom from God, his wisdom didn’t
keep him from being corrupted from these foreign women.
This should teach us
today the importance of marrying someone one that has the same conviction as we
do about serving the Lord. I can’t even begin to count the number of people I
know that either stopped going to church or starting going to a domination
because of the influence of their mate.
Now, I am not saying that
a person has to date a Christian because I know of several non-Christians that
became Christians during the dating process, but when it comes to spending the rest of your
life with that person its important that both of you agree on your faith
because if you do not it most likely cause problems in your marriage. You should
never be confident that you will convert that person after you married because
that doesn’t happen very often. If you mate is staying at home while you go to
church all the time it can become a real test to your faithfulness and while
some are able to remain faithful others lose it and choose to stay home with
their mate. Paul tells us,
1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not
be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits."
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with
unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what
communion has light with darkness?
So, we need to learn from
this how important it as Christians that we choose a mate that will help us to
get to heaven instead of hindering us.
3. Another thing we learn
from Ezra is that the only way restoration back to God will occur is when
courageous men are willing to stand up and preach God’s Word and nothing else.
If Ezra wanted to do things his way, he may have never said a thing about the
Jews separating themselves from these foreign woman and children because he
wasn’t heartless. He knew how difficult this would be with all the human
emotions involved, but he was not concerned about his personal feelings.
Instead, he boldly proclaimed God’s truth on this matter and this is the same
attitude that preachers must have today.
Preachers are human and
they understand human emotion and when it come to the area marriage, divorce
and remarriage most preachers would probably leave this topic alone if it was
up to them, but just as Ezra taught the truth in matters like these preachers
must preach the truth marriage, divorce and remarriage because God’s Word is
our guide and we must go by it no matter how many human emotions are involved
because God knows best. So, ever preacher and teacher must follow the command
that was given to Timothy in,
2 Timothy 4:1 I
charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will
judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in
season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all
longsuffering and teaching. 3
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according
to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up
for themselves teachers; 4
and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside
to fables. 5 But you be
watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,
fulfill your ministry.
4. The fourth lesson we
learn from Ezra is the sorrow that sin brings and God willingness to forgive us
of our sins when we count the cost of discipleship and repent and conform our
lives to His word. Ezra said,
Ezra 9:13
"And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great
guilt, since You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and
have given us such deliverance as this,
14 "should we again break Your commandments, and join in
marriage with the people committing these abominations? Would You not be
angry with us until You had consumed us, so that there would be no
remnant or survivor? 15
"O LORD God of
Because of the sin they
had committed against God is caused Ezra to be sorrowful and to rip his
garments and he said,
Ezra 9:6 O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to
lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our
heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens.
Ezra understood that the
wages of sin was death as Paul said in
Ezra 10:2 And
Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, spoke up and said
to Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken pagan wives
from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope in
Notice they would have
hope if they did this and they were going to do it because it was what the Law
demanded and they were encouraged to do it and be of good courage.
This teaches us the
important of getting the sin out of our life no matter how difficult it may be
and we can know that God will forgive us of that sin and will be there to help
us find a way of an escape as Paul teaches us in,
1 Corinthians 10:13 No
temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful,
who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the
temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
5. The fifth and finally
lesson we learn from Ezra is the divine providence of God. Jeremiah had
prophesied about the return of the remnant after 70 years captivity in Jer.
25:12; 29:10). Isaiah named Cyrus almost 200 years before the ruler was born as
the king that would make it possible for the Jews to return back to Jerusalem
(Isa 44:28; 45:1). We can see how God used the Persian kings to bring about His
promise. Just as God worked His providence in non-miraculous way, He does the
same for us today as Paul said in,
Romans 8:28 And we
know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who
are the called according to His purpose.
Every Christians should
learn from these 5 great lessons in the book Ezra and use them to strengthen
your faithfulness to God. The last thing I want to share with you a more
detailed timeline of the events that occur in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Esther.
536 B.C. - Cyrus
released
535 B.C. - Work began on
the reconstruction of the temple, but they were "troubled" in
building (Ezra 4:4)
529 B.C. - The work on
the temple (such as it was) ceased (Ezra 4:24)
520 B.C. - Haggai and
Zechariah stirred up the people to rebuild the temple. They were again
"troubled" but received Darius' permission to continue.
516 B.C. - The people
completed the reconstruction of the temple (Ezra 6:15) (Ezra 1--6, Haggai,
Zechariah)
485 B.C. - Ahasuerus
became king
483 B.C. – Queen Vashti
was deposed
479 B.C. - Ahasuerus was
defeated at Thermopylae and
479 B.C. - Esther became
queen
474 B.C. - Esther saved
her nation (Esther)
457 B.C. - Ezra returned
(Ezra 7--10)
444 B.C. - Nehemiah
returned to build the wall
432 B.C. – Nehemiah
returns again from