The Book of Ezra, Chapter by Chapter

We want to take you through the book of Ezra chapter by chapter. If you have not read our study on 2 Chronicles we suggest you start there. Because Ezra picks up right where 2 Chronicles leaves off. 2 Chronicles ended with Cyrus king of Persia telling the Jews to go up and build the house of the LORD. Ezra starts with the same decree. Almost word for word. We will tell you what each chapter is about and how it fits into the message of the book. And how it points us to the one God that is revealed in Jesus Christ.

Ezra tells the story of two returns from Babylon. The first was led by Zerubbabel and Jeshua the high priest. They rebuilt the altar and the temple. The second came about 60 years later. It was led by Ezra the priest and scribe. He came to teach the law. The book covers about 80 years. It is a story of small beginnings. The people who came back were not many. The temple they built was not as big as Solomon’s. They had enemies all around. But God was with them.

There are three things we want you to take away from this study. Ezra is about God keeping his word. He said 70 years. And after 70 years he stirred up the heart of a pagan king to send his people home (1:1). Ezra is about the house of God. The first thing they did was build the altar. Then the temple. Ezra is about the word of God. Ezra “prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach” (7:10). And all of it points us to Jesus Christ. We will explain these points as we go through the book. But we want you to keep them in mind as we begin.

Ezra and Nehemiah were one book in the Hebrew Bible. The Jews believed Ezra wrote it along with Chronicles.¹ In chapters 7–9 Ezra speaks in the first person. “And I Ezra” (7:28). So at least part of it came straight from his own hand. Ezra was a priest from the line of Aaron (7:1–5). And he was “a ready scribe in the law of Moses” (7:6).

Some parts of Ezra are not written in Hebrew. They are in Aramaic (4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26).² Aramaic was the language the Persian government used. These parts are mostly letters between the Jews and their enemies and the Persian kings. The writer copied them as they were.

The book has two halves. The return under Zerubbabel and the rebuilding of the temple (1–6). And the return under Ezra and the rebuilding of the people (7–10). Between chapter 6 and chapter 7 there is a gap of about 58 years. We will break it down a little further than that. The decree and the return (1–2). The altar and the foundation (3). Opposition (4). The temple finished (5–6). Ezra comes to Jerusalem (7–8). Ezra’s prayer (9). And putting away the strange wives (10). Just like in our other studies we will be using the KJV for our scripture quotations. And we will let you know where you can find the work of the scholars we reference.

Ezra 1: The LORD Stirred Up Cyrus

Notice who did it. The LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus. Cyrus did not know the LORD. Isaiah said “I girded thee, though thou hast not known me” (Isaiah 45:5). But God moved his heart. And notice why. “That the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled.” Jeremiah said 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10). God keeps his word to the year.³

Cyrus said “The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem” (v.2). Then he said “he is the God” (v.3). Not a god. The God. Cyrus told the people around the Jews to help them with silver and gold and goods and beasts (v.4). Just like the Egyptians gave Israel silver and gold when they left Egypt (Exodus 12:35–36). This was a second exodus.

“Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD” (v.5). The same God who stirred up Cyrus stirred up his people. Not everyone went. Many stayed in Babylon where life was comfortable. Only those whose spirit God raised went. Cyrus brought out the vessels Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple. He gave them to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah (v.8).⁴ 5400 vessels of gold and silver (v.11). The same vessels Belshazzar drank from the night Babylon fell (Daniel 5:2–3). God kept track of every cup.

Ezra 2: The People Who Went Up

Chapter 2 is a list of the people who came back. It starts with the leaders. Zerubbabel and Jeshua and Nehemiah and others (v.2). Then the families. Then the priests and Levites and singers and porters. Every family is counted. Just like the genealogies in 1 Chronicles. These people mattered to God.

Some priests could not find their names in the family records. “Therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood” (v.62). They could not eat of the most holy things “till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim” (v.63). They had to wait until God showed who they were. The whole group was 42,360 (v.64). Plus 7337 servants and 200 singers (v.65). When they came to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem the leaders “offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place” (v.68). They gave according to what they could (v.69). A small group. But willing.

Ezra 3: They Set the Altar

“And when the seventh month was come … the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem” (v.1). As one man. Jeshua the priest and Zerubbabel built the altar of the God of Israel “to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God” (v.2). Notice what they did first. Not walls. Not houses. Not even the temple. The altar. “And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries” (v.3). They were afraid. So the first thing they did was get right with God. They kept the feast of tabernacles (v.4). And they offered morning and evening.

In the second year they laid the foundation of the temple (v.8). When the foundation was laid the priests stood with trumpets and the Levites with cymbals “after the ordinance of David king of Israel” (v.10). And they sang.

The same song they sang when Solomon dedicated the first temple (2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3). His mercy endureth for ever. Even after the exile. Even after the fire. But not everyone was shouting. “But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice” (v.12). The old men remembered Solomon’s temple. This one was so much smaller. “So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people” (v.13).

Haggai the prophet spoke to this. He asked who among them saw the first house in its glory. “Is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?” (Haggai 2:3). But then God said “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former” (Haggai 2:9). The house was smaller. But it would have more glory. Because Jesus Christ would walk into that house. Zechariah said “who hath despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10). God starts small.

Ezra 4: Let Us Build With You

The enemies of Judah heard that they were building the temple. They came to Zerubbabel and said “Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither” (v.2). These were the people the king of Assyria brought into Samaria. We saw them in our 2 Kings study. “They feared the LORD, and served their own gods” (2 Kings 17:33). They wanted to help. They said they sought the same God.

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua said no. “Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel” (v.3). This might sound unkind. But they were not saying these people could never come to God. Anyone could join if they left their idols (6:21). The problem was mixing. These people wanted to add the LORD to their other gods. That is the same sin that sent Israel into exile. You cannot build the house of the one God with people who serve many gods. Paul said “what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Corinthians 6:16).

When they were refused they turned against the Jews. “Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building” (v.4). They hired counsellors to work against them all the days of Cyrus until the reign of Darius (v.5). Then the writer jumps ahead. Verses 6–23 tell us about letters written against the Jews in the days of later kings. Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes.⁵ Those letters were about building the walls of the city. Not the temple. The writer put them here to show that the opposition never stopped. Then he comes back to the temple. “Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia” (v.24). About 16 years. The foundation sat there and nothing was built on it.

Ezra 5: The Eye of Their God

“Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel” (v.1). Haggai told them they had built nice houses for themselves while the house of God lay waste (Haggai 1:4). So Zerubbabel and Jeshua started building again. “And with them were the prophets of God helping them” (v.2).

Zechariah also had a word for Jeshua the high priest. God told him to make crowns and set them on the head of Joshua the high priest. That is the same person. Jeshua is just another way to spell Joshua. And God said “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH … he shall build the temple of the LORD … and he shall be a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:12–13).⁶ Notice the name. Joshua. In Greek it is Iesous. Jesus. We saw this in our Numbers study. A high priest named Jesus wearing a crown and building the temple of the LORD. It was a picture of the real BRANCH. The King and High Priest who would build the true house of God (Hebrews 3:3–6).

Tatnai the governor came and asked who gave them permission to build. They told him. “But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease” (v.5). The work did not stop while they waited for an answer. Tatnai wrote to Darius. He told him what the Jews said. “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago” (v.11). They said their fathers provoked God so he gave them to Nebuchadnezzar. But Cyrus gave a decree to build it again. Tatnai asked Darius to search the records.

Ezra 6: The Decree Found

Darius searched. They found Cyrus’s decree in Achmetha in the province of the Medes (v.2). Cyrus not only allowed the temple to be built. He said the cost should come out of the king’s house (v.4). So Darius wrote back to Tatnai. Leave them alone. And pay for it out of the king’s taxes from your own province (v.8). Give them whatever they need for the sacrifices “that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons” (v.10). And anyone who changed this decree would have a beam pulled down from his house and be hanged on it (v.11). The enemies who tried to stop the building had to pay for it.

“And they builded, and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo” (v.14). The house was finished on the 3rd day of the month Adar in the 6th year of Darius (v.15). They dedicated it with joy. They offered 100 bullocks and 200 rams and 400 lambs. “And for a sin offering for all Israel, twelve he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel” (v.17). Only a few came back. Mostly from Judah and Benjamin. But they offered for all 12 tribes. They still saw themselves as all Israel.

Then they kept the Passover. The priests and Levites purified themselves “as one” (v.20). And not only the ones who came back from captivity ate it. Also “all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel” (v.21). Anyone could come. But they had to leave their idols and seek the LORD. “For the LORD had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them” (v.22).

Ezra 7: The Hand of the LORD Upon Him

“Now after these things” (v.1). That is about 58 years later.⁷ The story of Esther happened in this gap. Now Ezra comes on the scene. His family line goes all the way back to Aaron the chief priest (vv.1–5). “This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the LORD his God upon him” (v.6). The hand of the LORD upon him. We will see that phrase over and over in these chapters (7:6, 9, 28; 8:18, 22, 31).

This is the key verse of the second half of the book. Notice the order. Seek it. Do it. Teach it. Ezra did not just study the law. He lived it. And then he taught it. You cannot teach what you do not live. James said “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). Notice also that he prepared his heart. The same thing Chronicles said about the good kings. Seeking God starts in the heart.

Then the writer gives us a copy of the letter king Artaxerxes gave Ezra.⁸ It is in Aramaic. Artaxerxes let any Israelite who wanted go back with Ezra. He gave silver and gold for the house of God. He told the treasurers beyond the river to give Ezra whatever he asked within limits. He said the priests and Levites and temple workers would not pay taxes (v.24). And he told Ezra to set up judges who knew the law of his God and to teach those who did not (v.25). A Persian king told a Jewish priest to teach the law of God.

Then Ezra stops and praises God. “Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem” (v.27). God put it in the king’s heart. Solomon said “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). “And I was strengthened as the hand of the LORD my God was upon me” (v.28).

Ezra 8: The Hand of Our God Is Upon Them

Chapter 8 lists the families who went with Ezra. Ezra gathered them by the river Ahava. He looked them over and found no Levites (v.15). So he sent for them. And “by the good hand of our God upon us” they brought him men of understanding (v.18). Then Ezra did something.

Ezra had told the king that God takes care of those who seek him. Now he was carrying a fortune in silver and gold through dangerous country. He could have asked for soldiers. But he was ashamed to. He had already said God would protect them. So he fasted and prayed instead. And God did. “The hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way” (v.31).

Ezra weighed out the silver and gold to 12 priests. He told them “Ye are holy unto the LORD; the vessels are holy also” (v.28). Keep it until you weigh it again in Jerusalem. When they got there they weighed everything. It was all there (v.34). Then they offered 12 bullocks “for all Israel” (v.35). All Israel again.

Ezra 9: Ashamed and Blush

Then the princes came to Ezra with bad news. “The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands” (v.1). They married the daughters of the nations around them. “So that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass” (v.2). The leaders were the worst. This is exactly what sent them into exile. God told them in Deuteronomy 7:3–4 not to marry the nations “For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.” That is what happened to Solomon. Now it was happening again.

Ezra tore his clothes and pulled out the hair of his head and beard. He sat down astonied until the evening sacrifice (vv.3–4). Everyone who trembled at the words of God gathered around him. Then at the evening sacrifice he got up and fell on his knees and spread out his hands to God.

Notice the word our. Our iniquities. Our trespass. Ezra had not married a foreign woman. He just got there. But he did not say their sin. He said our sin. He stood with his people before God. Daniel prayed the same way (Daniel 9:5). So did Nehemiah (Nehemiah 1:6). This is what Jesus does for us. He had no sin. But he stood in our place. “He is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2).

Ezra reminded God of how good he had been. “For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia” (v.9). God gave them “a nail in his holy place” (v.8). A small hold. A little reviving in their bondage. And now they turned around and broke his commandments again. “For thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve” (v.13). Ezra did not ask God for anything. He did not make excuses. He ended with this. “O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous … behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this” (v.15).

Ezra 10: There Is Hope in Israel

While Ezra prayed and wept a great crowd gathered. Men and women and children. And they wept too (v.1). Then Shechaniah said “We have trespassed against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: yet now there is hope in Israel concerning this thing” (v.2). Hope. Even after all of it. He said let us make a covenant to put them away. “Arise; for this matter belongeth unto thee: we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it” (v.4).

A proclamation went out. Everyone had to come to Jerusalem in 3 days. On the 20th day of the 9th month “all the people sat in the street of the house of God, trembling because of this matter, and for the great rain” (v.9). Ezra stood up. “Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives” (vv.10–11). The people said “As thou hast said, so must we do” (v.12). It took 3 months to go through every case. The book ends with a list of the men who had married foreign wives. Priests first. Then Levites. Then the people (vv.18–44).

This is a hard chapter. We need to be careful with it.⁹ The problem was not race. Rahab was a Canaanite. Ruth was a Moabite. Both came into Israel because they left their gods and came to the LORD. The problem was idolatry. These wives had not left their gods. They were bringing them into Israel. The same sin that destroyed Solomon and the nation was starting all over. And the leaders were leading the way. This was a special case at a special time. The whole future of the people was at stake.

In the New Testament Paul gives us different instructions. If a believer is already married to an unbeliever they should not leave if the unbeliever is willing to stay (1 Corinthians 7:12–14). But a believer should not marry an unbeliever in the first place. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14). The principle in Ezra still stands. God’s people must be separate from idolatry. Ezra ends abruptly with the list of names. And Nehemiah 13 tells us the same problem came back again.¹⁰ The law could show them their sin. It could not change their hearts.

We have gone through Ezra chapter by chapter. Here is what we can conclude. First Ezra is about God keeping his word. He said 70 years. And “that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus” (1:1). He moved the hearts of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes. Kings who did not know him did what he wanted. “The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him” (8:22).

Second Ezra is about the house of God. The people built the altar first. Then the temple. The old men wept because it was so small. But God said the glory of the latter house would be greater (Haggai 2:9). And it was. Jesus Christ walked into that temple. He taught in it. He cleansed it. And he said “in this place is one greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6). Jesus is the true house of God. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

Third Ezra is about the word of God. Ezra “prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments” (7:10). And when the people heard what the law said they trembled. The word of God showed them their sin. But it could not take it away. They needed more than a scribe. They needed the Word made flesh.

Fourth Ezra is monotheistic. Cyrus said of the LORD “he is the God” (1:3). The Jews said “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth” (5:11). They would not build with those who served the LORD and other gods (4:3). Only those who “separated themselves … from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel” could join them (6:21). One God. No mixing.

And Ezra points us to Jesus Christ. Zerubbabel the son of David led the people home. He is in the family line of Jesus (Matthew 1:12). Jeshua the high priest was crowned as a picture of the BRANCH who would be “a priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:13). His name was Jesus. The people came out of captivity. Jesus came “to preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18). The temple was rebuilt. But the walls of Jerusalem were still broken down. That is where Nehemiah begins.