EZRA
Lesson 12, Chapters 6 and 7
It is a fascinating and unique style of the Holy Bible to thoroughly, carefully, and some times to
expansively document God’s instructions to a Prophet or a King or to His people in general (as
with the Law of Moses), but then instead of elaborating on His worshippers doing what God
ordained it is merely stated that they did. And so we find that to be the case with the rebuilding
of the Temple. After much dramatic build up in the first few chapters of Ezra as to the need for
a new Temple, the unsettling political circumstances surrounding the delay in building it, and
God’s great displeasure with the Jews’ procrastination and hand wringing, which He viewed
as a lack of sincerity and repentance, suddenly in chapter 6 we hear that in keeping with the
command of God the Judahites got back to work and finished it. No fanfare, no details, no
glorification of those who participated; only a matter of fact record that it was built and what
immediately followed its reconstruction.
Let’s continue in Ezra chapter 6 by re-reading part of it, starting at verse 13.
RE-READ EZRA CHAPTER 6:13 – end
After Tatnai the vice-regent of the Beyond the River Province where Judah was located had
accomplished a thorough investigation to see if the Jews had the proper government
authorization for the Temple rebuilding project, he sent a letter to Persian King Darius outlining
what he had observed. He asked that the King would have the records libraries of the Persians
gleaned to see if perhaps a written record from King Cyrus could corroborate (or invalidate)
Zerubbabel’s claims that King Cyrus had ordered that the Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuilt
their Temple. Indeed in the records city of Ecbatana an official memorandum under King
Cyrus’s name was found that fully agreed with what Zerubbabel had told Tatnai.
And so to add his own authority and personal stamp to the matter (as kings often do), King
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Darius informed Tatnai that not only were the Jews to be allowed to complete work on their
Temple without interference or supervision by Persian governmental bureaucrats, but that the
Beyond the River Provincial district was to supply the Jews with the needed funds, in addition
to whatever was needed for ongoing daily operations. I’m sure Zerubbabel and his
companions could have been knocked over with a feather at this news. After all, to this point
they had been bullied, threatened, and completely frustrated for so many years in their efforts
to build a new House of God. But this latest Persian King was even more enthusiastic and
supportive of the Jews’ rebuilding project than Cyrus. Not only was there complete absence of
bigotry against them, it seems the king actually had some kind of mysterious unexplained
admiration for the Jews. What else could this mean than it was the favor of the God of Israel to
supernaturally cause the gentile king of the most expansive empire that the world had ever
known to show such kindness and concern for these worshippers of Yehoveh?
Here I’d like to remind us all that in Haggai chapter 2, God’s favor was promised if only the
Jews would take courage, obey God and build His Temple:
Haggai 2:15-19 CJB
15
Now, please, from this day on, keep this in mind: before you began laying stones on
each other to rebuild the temple of ADONAI,

16
throughout that whole time, when someone approached a twenty-measure pile [of
grain], he found only ten; and when he came to the winepress to draw out fifty
measures, there were only twenty.

17
I struck you with blasting winds, mildew and hail on everything your hands
produced; but you still wouldn't return to me,' says ADONAI.

18
'So please keep this in mind, from this day on, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth
month, from the day the foundation of ADONAI's temple was laid, consider this:

19
there's no longer any seed in the barn, is there? and the vine, fig tree, pomegranate
tree and olive tree have produced nothing yet, right? However, from this day on, I will
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bless you.'"
God kept His word and as usual He kept it in ways that neither Zerubbabel nor the Prophets
Haggai and Zechariah could ever imagine. Who could have guessed that a Persian official
would come to investigate the rebuilding project, once again throwing it into doubt, but that the
current Persian king would enthusiastically support it to such a great extent that he even
vowed a curse against anyone who might think to interfere with it! When God makes a
promise, it is sealed and it will happen. God is the God of everyone, not just the Hebrews.
What a great comfort to us all. But the promise is also conditional on His people trusting Him
and being obedient even in the face of opposition and challenge.
In but the briefest of statements the editor of Ezra says that once they began their work again,
the Jews proceeded steadily and didn’t stop until the Temple was completed. We are thrown a
bit of a curve however in verse 14 when we’re informed that while it was the God of Israel who
was really behind the rebuilding, nonetheless earthly kings were involved and gave their
approval. And the 3 kings listed were Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes. Cyrus and Darius make
sense as they are front and center in the story of the rebuilding of the Temple. But why is
Artaxerxes mentioned? We’ll be hearing more about him in the next chapter of Ezra, but
Artaxerxes came to power many years after the Temple was completed. I searched through
the recorded thoughts of many fine Bible scholars about the inclusion of Artaxerxes in this list
and frankly none of their theories passed the smell test for me. Probably the best (and most
humble) conclusion was by F. Charles Fensham who, in his brilliant commentary on the Book
of Ezra, suggested that our modern logic is not the same as for these ancient Jewish writers.
And while we can guess upon all manner of possibilities for Artaxerxes’ name appearing here,
none can be proven. That we find the same statement about Artaxerxes not only in the Hebrew
texts but also in the Greek Septuagint that was written nearly 3 centuries before Christ was
born says that there was likely no copyist error nor have we created a poor modern English
translation of the Hebrew words and somehow lost its meaning. The ancient editor is
completely competent in his history, and accurate so far as any archeological finds have
proven, concerning the Book of Ezra. The appearance of the name Artaxerxes was intended
and achieved some purpose that is not clear to us.
Verse 15 explains that in the month of Adar (the 12
th
month of the year, at least as concerns
the Hebrew religious calendar), in the 6
th
year of Darius’ reign, the Temple was finally finished
and formally inaugurated into service. Since chapter 4 verse 24 says that the work on the
Temple was halted until sometime in the 2
nd
year of Darius’s reign, then we know that once
work began again it took a little over 4 years to complete. The year was 515 B.C. (by the
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modern Gregorian calendar).
Verse 17 gives us the tally of the sacrificial animals that were used, and also explains that 12
goats were offered up on behalf of all Israel. We discussed last week that here we find the
beginnings of Judah’s belief that as of now they were, and had the right to represent, all 12
tribes of Israel, even though historically and factually they only represented Judah and
Benjamin. This pleasant fiction would become cemented into Jewish Tradition and to this day
most Jews still hold to it (even though with the re-emergence of the 10 Lost Tribes the fallacy
of it is being exposed, and it generally is not a welcomed discovery).
After a purification ceremony and many sacrifices to ritually cleanse and consecrate the
building into service, next the Priests and Levites were purified and consecrated. The final
words of verse 18 say the consecration was “As written in the Book of Moses”, meaning they
would have followed the ritual purification laws of Exodus 29, Leviticus 8, and Numbers 3 and
8.
Either by good fortune or by plan, the month following the completion and dedication of the
Temple was the month of Nisan: the 1
st
month of the religious calendar year. And so they
celebrated Pesach, Passover, on the Torah-ordained day, the 14
th
. Let me give you a brief
Hebrew grammar lesson that might add a bit to your understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Notice how after verse 19 states that they celebrated Passover verse 20 begins in most
English translations (including the CJB) with the words, “For the priests and Levites had
purified themselves…..” In Hebrew the word that is almost always translated into English as
“for” is ki and that is what we find here. However ki is a connecting word; when it is placed at
the beginning of a sentence, it is meant to connect the action of that sentence to the previous
one. So rather than how it seems in our English translations that merely 2 separate facts were
announced in these 2 verses (first that they celebrated Passover, and second that the priests
and Levites were ritually cleansed), what is really being said is that they celebrated Passover
BECAUSE the priests and Levites had been purified. In other words, if they had not gotten
around to purifying the Levites and priests yet, then they could NOT have celebrated Passover.
So for those of you who study Biblical Hebrew, just remember that most of the time we’d be
better off translating ki as meaning “because” or “due to” rather than “for”.
The meaning of verses 19 and 20 then extends to verse 21 as it begins, “So they slaughtered
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the Pesach lambs for all the people…” In other words, because the Levites and Priests were
made ritually clean and they were ordained into service, this is what allowed them to be able to
slaughter the lambs that were the central feature of Passover. If they couldn’t slaughter the
lambs at the Temple then they couldn’t do Passover. Small change, but it adds significant
meaning in that nothing could happen at the Temple until the Priests and Levites had been
ritually purified.
The text continues that all the people who had returned from exile along with all those who had
renounced the filthy practices of the nations living in the land joined in eating the Passover
lambs. This is referring to two groups of people: the returning Jews, and also some others
whose identity is somewhat ambiguous. We’ve already learned that many Jews were left in
Judah by Nebuchadnezzar to be caretakers; and that many of these had intermarried with
gentiles and/or began mixing the pagan worship of gentiles who had moved in to the land with
their own Torah-based worship. I think that the idea is that this 2
nd
group is inclusive of both of
these situations, whereby a person who had gone astray in some way now renounced those
perverted ways to rejoin the purer ways that the Jewish leadership was attempting to re-
establish. And so they were allowed to participate in the Feast of Pesach.
And, as the Torah commands, after eating the Pesach lamb they celebrated the Feast of
Matza that begins the next day, Nisan (also called Aviv) 15
th
. What I like is that it emphases the
joy with which they celebrated these springtime Biblical feasts. No doubt the joy comes from
having been unable to celebrate them for so long, but also because joy OUGHT to be the tone
that these feasts are celebrated in because they signify deliverance from slavery and
oppression. For the Jews of ancient times, it was from the oppression of being slaves in Egypt
(and lately captives of Babylon). But for modern Believers who make Yeshua the Lord or our
lives, we should celebrate these same feasts and do them with joy because we’ve been
delivered from being slaves to sin and oppressed by Satan, into eternal fellowship with God. I
regret that it’s been less than 2 decades since I finally came to understand that
these so-called Jewish Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread were for me too, as a
gentile Believer. In fact, by all rights these feasts now may have even more meaning and
purpose to me than to my dear Jewish friends who aren’t yet Believers because I have
appropriated the ultimate spiritual meaning of these feasts in Messiah, while they still observe
them mostly as Tradition. I long to celebrate these feasts with my Jewish brethren in the same
spirit; and I long for all Christians to see what a sad error it was to throw these God-ordained
feasts out and to replace them with shallow manmade customs.
Let’s move on to Ezra chapter 7.
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READ EZRA CHAPTER 7 all
We take a significant leap in time between the end of chapter 6 and the beginning of chapter 7;
about 57 years.
Chapter 7 begins at a time (458 B.C.) that is well after the completion of the Temple in 515
B.C., and the purpose of these final chapters of Ezra is to finally introduce the namesake of
this book. So notice something important: while Ezra is almost invariably spoken of as being
pivotal in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, in fact he came to Judah long after it was
completed and in operation.
Let me give you an easy marker to get the sense of the timing. The Temple was completed
around 35 or 40 years before the time of Esther. And Ezra came to Jerusalem about 20 years
after the story of Esther and Mordecai saving the Jews of the Persian Empire from genocide at
the hands of the evil Haman. Darius was the King when the Temple was completed; Xerxes
was the King at the time of Esther; and now Xerxes’ son Artaxerxes is the King when Ezra
immigrates to Judah. So a lot of time has passed since the Temple was rebuilt and put back
into operation, lots has gone on in the Persian Empire, and there’s been plenty of time for the
zealousness for purity in worship and lifestyle of the Jews in Judah to deteriorate; and it has.
So the real purpose for Ezra coming to Judah is not at all connected with rebuilding the
Temple. Rather Ezra is the leader of a reform movement to restore the proper worship of God,
the proper observance of priestly ritual in the Temple, and the proper obedience of priests and
lay Jews to the Torah of God instead of to the many manmade doctrines of convenience and
tolerance that had grown up in Judah as an accommodation to the gentiles who lived in and
around Judah, and to their Persian government.
Chapter 7 begins with a substantial genealogy of Ezra. Let’s talk about that for a minute
because it is typical of Biblical genealogies, including that of Yeshua. Notice how it begins with
saying the Ezra is the “son of” Seraiah, and then continues with a list of more than a dozen
additional “son of” names. And since Aaron is the final name on the list, and Eleazar is the 2
nd
to the last (Eleazar is indeed one of Aaron’s sons), what we immediately learn is that the point
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is to show that Ezra is a legitimate priest. Only Aaron’s son Eleazar represents the priestly
line; his other sons produced what the Bible calls Levites, who are non-priests but are qualified
to be Temple blue collar workers.
However, Aaron lived 800 years before Ezra, so it is obvious that far more than the 16
generations mentioned here came and went during that long time period. In fact, Ezra is not
the biological son of Seraiah as this genealogy would seem to claim. Seraiah lived before the
Babylonian exile and this of itself proves that Ezra could not have been his son (at least as we
think of son in the modern Western world). Almost certainly the point of listing Seraiah was to
show which branch of the priestly line Ezra belonged to.
Thus there are a couple of important things for us to understand: first is that “son of” (ben in
Hebrew) has a much more expansive meaning in the Bible than how we use the term today.
That is, in modern times a son is only 1 generation apart from his biological father. But in
ancient times the term more meant “descended from”. Thus it was especially common in
Biblical genealogy to use “son of” when referring to a relationship between a Bible character
and his grandfather. And that is because the ancients tended to live in large extended family
units, and especially in the Middle East because the most elder male was the unquestioned
leader and authority, then he was also the living patriarch to whom all those born into the
family were seen as connected to and were to be identified with.
So the point is that in modern times we see genealogy as an exact science that is incomplete
and full of gaps if we can’t list every single generation from us to as far back as we’re trying to
go in our family history. But to the ancient Hebrews a genealogy was purpose driven and so
the list could vary slightly depending on what it was trying to convey to the reader. Thus many
Bible commentators (especially liberal and the high critical academics) will accuse the Biblical
genealogy lists as being either inaccurate or fabricated because they skip generations and call
someone “son of” when there is no way that person could have been the direct father to the
person being called his son. And this is what happens when we try to stuff the modern Western
mindset back into the Bible. Essentially Christian scholars have for centuries decided that the
Bible ought to conform to modern Western literary and societal structure, or those passages
are simply wrong and need to be reinterpreted. And why do they do this? Because the Hebrew
origins of the Bible is not something they want, and so to try to understand the Bible in its
original Hebrew context is seen as either irrelevant or a danger to our gentile New Testament
faith.
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Seraiah was either Ezra’s great or great-great grandfather. And the purpose of taking this
particular genealogical list back to Eleazar and Aaron was to establish Ezra’s priestly
credentials, not who his biological parents were, nor where he stood as regards rights of
inheritance, nor whether he was a firstborn, nor for any other reason. This general
understanding of how Hebrew genealogical lists work applies to all genealogies in the Bible,
from Genesis to Revelation. A complete genealogy without gaps is rare, and when we do find
it, it will only cover a very few generations.
The name Ezra is actually a contraction, in the same way that Yeshua is a contraction of
Y’hoshua. Ezra is a contraction of Azariah and it means “the Lord has helped”. Ezra
represents a critical transitional figure in the progress of Judah, much the same way that
Samuel was. That is, Samuel was a one-of-a-kind hybrid Prophet, Priest, and Judge who
ushered in the era of the Kings by anointing Saul as first King of Israel. What we’re soon going
to learn about Ezra is that he was a unique kind of Priest and Torah teacher. Why is that
important? Because this helps to reveal one aspect of the formative days of the new religion of
the Jews: Judaism. I won’t review because it would take too long, but recall that what today
we call Judaism began in Babylon, and then really began to take firm root in Persia. The exiled
Jews, without Temple or Priesthood and thus with no way to be ritually cleansed nor could they
have their sins atoned for nor could they observe any law of the Torah that involved the
Temple or sacrifice, began to devise their own ways around the problem. Houses of worship,
prayer and fellowship that in time became known as synagogues were established. Non-
priests, or at least non-practicing priests, typically were the leaders of these synagogues. What
did they teach? It’s not clear, but what is clear is that by the time of Esther the Jews in Persia
weren’t much interested in, and had little familiarity with, the Laws of Moses.
When Ezra returned it was well after Esther’s era, the people who had returned to Judah had
little idea of what was contained in God’s Word even though the Temple had been in operation
for almost 60 years, and the Priesthood was functioning in some fashion. The notion that had
been brought back with the Jews from their exile was that they had the latitude to kind of make-
it-up-as-they-go and it had become a permanent part of Jewish society. It was the priests
whose God-given duty it was to teach the people His Torah; no one else was given the
authority. But in the person of Ezra we have a non-practicing priest whose chosen ambition
became devotion to Torah study and Torah teaching. Thus we find the beginnings of an office
or class of people who had religious authority, but who were not attached to the Temple as
serving priests, yet somehow they became the supreme authorities and teachers of God’s
Word and of His Law.
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In Christ’s day we hear of the Scribes and the Pharisees and the Torah Teachers who were
the accepted authorities of Judaism when it came to knowledge of the Law and of the
Scriptures in general. But as Judaism progressed, and it became more and more Tradition-
based and less and less Holy Scripture based, we see the emergence of the Rabbis. And while
even today the Rabbis refer to themselves as Torah Teachers, and their disciples as Torah
Students, in fact they are not usually studying Scripture but instead are studying and beholden
to the Talmud and to Halakah; the Rabbinical laws of Traditional Judaism. And because
whether Jew or gentile we’re all humans and subject to the same frailties and temptations,
Christianity veered off onto the same path as Judaism until today Christianity is less and less
about God’s Word and more and more about accepting each denomination’s doctrines and
traditions.
So Ezra was a wise and skilled expert in the Law of Moses, he operated outside of the
priesthood, and he apparently lived in the City of Babel where there was a great concentration
of Jews who had chosen to remain in Babylon and not migrate to their historic homeland,
Judah. Later we’ll find out that Ezra’s cohort Nehemiah would come from Susa, the Persian
governmental capital. Apparently Ezra was some sort of recognized leader and authority or the
King of Persia would have had no reason to become involved with his return to Jerusalem,
since no permission was needed for Jews to migrate to Judah. Rather it is clear that Ezra
wanted and needed royal authority to go to Jerusalem in order to assume a role of religious
authority over the Jewish population and the Temple. After all, Judah already had a Jewish
governor and a High Priest; so upon Ezra’s appearance there would be competition and rivalry
to control the Temple and to guide the Jewish people. Whatever it was that he asked the King
for, the King granted it to him in writing so that few would want to challenge him.
Ezra didn’t go alone. Like with Zerubbabel so many years earlier, because he was a leader of
some stature, he was able to assemble an entourage to go with him. And not surprisingly,
since Ezra was of certified priestly bloodlines, he recruited priests and Levites of various job
duties to go to Judah with him. While the words aren’t here to say so, no doubt essentially
what Ezra was doing was taking a hand-picked team with him that he intended on taking over
the Temple operations with; people that would be loyal to him and his teachings and not to the
priests who were currently running the Temple operations.
History tells us that this was quite a dangerous time in this part of the empire. Egypt was in full
rebellion against Artaxerxes and the highways were risky to travel on. This is why we hear in
verse 9 that God’s good hand was upon him; Ezra made it to Judah safely when he easily
could have been attacked by rebels along the way. He started his journey in the 7
th
year of
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Artaxerxes’ reign (458 B.C.) on the 1
st
day of the 1
st
month of the year. The first month is
Nisan, the same month as Passover. He left from the city of Babel and did not arrive in
Jerusalem until the 1
st
day of the 5
th
month; exactly a 4 month journey. We’ll find out later that
he was slightly delayed due to difficulty recruiting some Levites that he felt were needed.
Verse 10 begins with the words, “For Ezra had set his heart on studying and practicing the
Torah of Adonai….” Several things I want to comment on to bring today’s lesson to a
conclusion. First, as with our brief Hebrew grammar lesson near the beginning of the talk
today, this verse begins with the connecting word ki. So the idea is that the REASON that (in
verse 9) God’s good hand was upon Ezra so as to give him traveling mercies to arrive safely
in Jerusalem was because Ezra had set his heart on God’s Torah, both to learn it and to live
it. That little word ki can have a large effect on how we understand Scripture. And so we see
that God’s assurance of safe travel and Ezra’s sincere intent to study and live by God’s
Torah was a cause and effect scenario. And this is something that modern day Believers need
to take to heart. As much as the Western Church seems to be deathly afraid of carrying out
God’s commandments as our obligation of good works in case it might be construed as
legalism, in fact the Biblical promise of divine blessing is contingent on our doing the good
works that God’s laws prescribe. Naturally it must all come from a sincere trust and love for
the Lord; but nonetheless tangibly doing His will as opposed to just knowing it is a natural part
of our relationship with Him.
Second is that while the Hebrew word lev is properly translated here to “heart”, remember as
we’ve discussed numerous times that when the term heart is used in the Bible it means
something entirely different than what it means to modern Westerners. We have adopted a
meaning for heart as an indication of feelings and emotions. However in the Bible the heart has
nothing to do with feelings and emotions, it is referring to our intellects. And this is because
until around the 4
th
century A.D. it was generally believed that the heart organ is where human
thought took place. It was the liver and kidneys where it was deemed that our various emotions
resided. So a much better English translation would be that Ezra set his mind (instead of his
heart) on studying and practicing God’s Torah.
And finally, it is important to understand that this verse is telling us that Ezra was not merely a
student of God’s Word, but most clearly was a person who practiced what he preached. He
didn’t study for the sake of occupation or mental exercise, or to acquire a vocation or a
position of authority. He studied because he trusted God and in my opinion he compared what
was being practiced as the Jewish religion of that era (earliest Judaism) to what the Torah
actually said, and he knew something was amiss. He wanted to know the truth so that he could
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do it; he didn’t want to learn and practice a bunch of doctrines and traditions that had an aura
of piousness but were far from God’s commandments and principles.
H.G.M. Williamson in his commentary on the Book of Ezra said it most eloquently: “He (Ezra)
is a model reformer in that what he taught, he first lived. And what he lived he first made
sure of in the Scriptures. With study, conduct, and teaching put deliberately in this right
order, each of these was able to function properly at its best: study was saved from
unreality, conduct from uncertainty, and teaching from insincerity and shallowness”.
We’ll continue with chapter 7 next time.
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