The Rebuilding of the Temple

• Ezra was a priest, the great-grandson of Hilkiah the priest, who, 160 years earlier, had directed King Josiah's reformation (Ezra 1:1; 2 Kings 22:8), and a most worthy descendant of his famous ancestor.
• He went from Babylon to Jerusalem in 457 b.c., 80 years after the Jews had first returned under Zerubbabel, and 13 years before Nehemiah came.

• The last two verses of 2 Chronicles (36:22–23) are the same as the first two of Ezra (1:1–2), possibly because Chronicles and Ezra were originally one book.
• This proclamation, permitting the Jews to return to Jerusalem, was issued shortly after Daniel had read the handwriting on the wall, in which it was declared that Babylon would fall to Persia - which happened that same night (Daniel 5:25–31).
• Daniel probably showed to Cyrus the prophecies that were thus fulfilled (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10)
• as well as the prophecies of Isaiah, who 200 years before had called Cyrus by name, stating that under him the Jews would return and rebuild Jerusalem (Isaiah 44:26 - 28; 45:1, 13).
• No wonder Cyrus had a high regard for the Jews' God (v. 3).

• According to verses 64–65, a total of 42,360 Jews returned, plus servants.
• However, when the numbers in the list are added together, the total falls about 11,000 short of this number.
• This surplus of 11,000 is thought to have been composed of exiles from tribes other than Judah.
• Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 9:3.
• Israel is named in Ezra 10:25.
• The term “all Israel” is used of those who returned, and 12 bulls and 12 he-goats, representing the 12 tribes, were sacrificed (Ezra 2:70; 6:17; 8:35).
• This would make it appear as if the returning exiles of Judah, in their homeward journey, gathered in some from other tribes.
• It helps us to understand how, in New Testament times, Jews were still spoken of as the Twelve Tribes (Luke 22:30; Acts 26:7; James 1:1).

• In the seventh month of the first year of their return the Israelites built the altar and kept the Feast of Tabernacles, in joyous thanksgiving to God.
• In the second month of the following year, when the foundation of the temple was laid, they made the heavens ring with their shouts of praise and thanksgiving.
• But the older men, who had seen the first temple, wept aloud, so insignificant would the new temple be compared with Solomon's temple.
• Zerubbabel (v. 2), the governor (Haggai 1:1), was a grandson of King Jehoiachin, who had been deported to Babylon (1 Chronicles 3:17–19).
• He was the one who would have been king, had there been a kingdom.
• With fine courtesy, Cyrus appointed him to be governor of Judah.

• As work on the temple and wall (v. 16) progressed, the peoples to whom the Jews' land had been given, and their neighbors, began to object.
• Through intimidation and intrigue they succeeded in stopping the work for 15 years, until the reign of Darius I.

• Darius I was friendly toward the Jews, and in his second year (520 b.c.), 16 years after the Jews had been allowed to go home, work on the temple was resumed with the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.
• Shortly thereafter came the decree from Darius for the temple to be completed, with an order to draw on the royal treasury for the needed funds.
• Within four years it was completed and dedicated amid great rejoicing.
• The famous Behistun inscription, which supplied the key to the ancient Babylonian language was made by this same Darius.

• Between  chapters 6 and 7 is a gap of about 60 years.
• The temple was completed in 515 b.c., and Ezra came to Jerusalem in 458 b.c., in the reign of Artaxerxes I, who was Queen Esther's stepson.
• Ezra the priest went to teach Judah:
• the Law of God
• to beautify the temple
• to restore the temple service.

• When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he found a situation that made him heartsick.
• The people, priests, Levites, and leaders had freely intermarried with their idolatrous neighbors - a thing that God had again and again forbidden the Jews to do.
• In fact, it was the very thing that had led the Jews into idolatry before, which had been the cause of their captivity.
• God had sent prophet after prophet, and judgment after judgment, and at last had resorted to the captivity, almost wiping the nation out of existence.
• Now a little remnant had come home - and they are again up to their old tricks of intermarrying with idolatrous peoples.
• Ezra's measures to rid them of their non-Jewish wives may seem severe to us, but it was effective.

• Tradition makes him the originator of synagogue worship and president of the Great Synagogue.
• The Great Synagogue was a council, consisting of 120 members, said to have been organized by Nehemiah in about 410 b.c., with Ezra as president.
• Its purpose was the rebuilding of the religious life of the returned captives.