The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era.[1] Its subject is the Return to Zion following the close of the Babylonian captivity, and it is divided into two parts, the first telling the story of the first return of exiles in the first year of Cyrus the Great (538 BCE) and the completion and dedication of the new Temple in Jerusalem in the sixth year of Darius (515 BCE), the second telling of the subsequent mission of Ezra to Jerusalem and his struggle to purify the Jews from the sin of marriage with non-Jews. Together with the Book of Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew bible.[2]
Ezra is written to fit a schematic pattern in which the God of Israel inspires a king of Persia to commission a leader from the Jewish community to carry out a mission; three successive leaders carry out three such missions, the first rebuilding the Temple, the second purifying the Jewish community, and the third sealing of the holy city itself behind a wall. (This last mission, that of Nehemiah, is not part of the Book of Ezra.) The theological program of the book explains the many problems its chronological structure presents.[3] It probably appeared in its earliest version around 400 BCE, and continued to be revised and edited for several centuries after before being accepted as scriptural around the time of Christ.[4]
Contents |
For the bible text, see Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version) or see King James Version
The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1-6, covering the period from the Decree of Cyrus to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person; chapters 7-10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told largely in the first person. The book contains several documents presented as historical inclusions.
In the early 6th century Judah rebelled against Babylon and was destroyed. As a result the royal court, the priests, the prophets and scribes, were taken into captivity in Babylon. There a profound intellectual revolution took place, the exiles blaming their fate on disobedience to their God and looking forward to a future when he would allow a purified people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. The same period saw the rapid rise of Persia, previously an unimportant kingdom in present-day southern Iran, to a position of great power, and in 539 BCE Cyrus II, the Persian ruler, conquered Babylon.[5]
It is difficult to describe the parties and politics of Judah in this period because of the lack of historical source, but there seem to have been three important groups involved: the returnees from the exile who claimed the reconstruction with the support of Cyrus I; "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"; and a third group, "people of the land," who seem to be local opposition against the returnees building the Temple in Jerusalem.
The following table is a guide to major events in the region during the period covered by the Book of Ezra:
| King of Persia[6] | Main events[7] | Correlation with Ezra-Nehemiah[8] |
|---|---|---|
| Cyrus II (550-530) | Fall of Babylon, 539 | Directive to the Jews to rebuild the Temple - first return of the exiles to Jerusalem (taken as 538, as Babylon fell in October 539) |
| Cambyses (530-522) | Conquest of Egypt, 525 | |
| Darius I (522-486) | Secures the throne in 520/519 after fighting off various rivals | Temple rebuilt, sixth year of Darius (515) |
| Xerxes (486-465) | Failed attempt to conquer Greece, beginning of struggle with Greeks for control of the eastern Mediterranean | |
| Artaxerxes I (465-424) | Successful suppression of Greek-supported revolt in Egypt, 460-456; revolt of Megabyzus, governor of the territory which included Judah, 449 | Currently most widely accepted period for arrival of Ezra in the "seventh year of Artaxerxes" - second return of the exiles to Jerusalem (458 if the king is Artaxerxes I, or 428 if the year is read as his thirty-seventh instead of his seventh); mission of Nehemiah, 445-433 (return before the death of Artaxerxes) |
| Darius II (423-404) | ||
| Artaxerxes II (404-358) | Egypt regains independence, 401 | Alternative period for arrival of Ezra and second return of exiles to Jerusalem (398 if the king is Artaxerxes II) |
| Artaxerxes III (358-338) | Egypt reconquered | |
| Darius III (336-330) | Persia conquered by Alexander the Great |
The oldest texts of the Bible treat Ezra-plus-Nehemiah as a single book. (Nehemiah 3:32, footnote)[9] Later the Jews divided this scroll and called it First and Second Ezra. Modern Hebrew Bibles call the two books Ezra and Nehemiah, as do other modern Bible translations. A few parts of the Book of Ezra (4:8 to 6:18 and 7:12:12-26) were written Aramaic, and the majority in Hebrew, Ezra himself being skilled in both languages.[10][11] Ezra-Nehemiah was divided into two separate works by the time of the early Christian scholar Origen, in the 3rd century, and the separation became entrenched in Christian Bibles in the Western European tradition when this was followed by Jerome in his Latin translation.[1] It was not until the Middle Ages that the two became separated in Jewish Bibles.[12]
1 Esdras (or Esdras α - there is also an Esdras β) - is an alternate Greek-language text of Ezra. This text has one additional section (and related changes) in the middle of Ezra 4. The addition arranges the text around a chiastic structure and relieves a textual problem surrounding the identity of King Ahasuerus in Ezra 4:6. Although the content is substantially the same, the verses are numbered differently from Ezra.
The contents of Ezra-Nehemiah are structured in theological, rather than chronological, order: "The Temple must come first, then the purifying of the community, then the building of the outer walls of the city, and so finally all could reach a grand climax in the reading of the law."[13] The "plot" follows a repeating pattern in which the God of Israel "stirs up" the king of Persia to commission a Jewish leader (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah) to undertake a mission; the leader completes his mission in the face of opposition; and success is marked by a great assembly.[14] The tasks of the three leaders are progressive: first the Temple is restored (Zerubabbel), then the community of Israel (Ezra), and finally the walls which will separate the purified community and Temple from the outside world (Nehemiah).[15] The pattern is completed with a final coda in which Nehemiah restores the cult of Yahweh.[16] This concern with a schematic pattern-making, rather than with history in the modern sense of a factual account of events in the order in which they occurred, explains the origin of the many problems which surround both Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources.[17]
In the 20th century views on the composition of Ezra revolved around the competing views that either it was written by Ezra himself, who may also have been the author of the Books of Chronicles, or alternatively, that the author of Chronicles was also the author of Ezra.[18] More recently it has been increasingly recognised that Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles all have extremely complex histories stretching over many stages of editing,[19] and most scholars now are cautious of assuming a unified composition with a single theology and point of view.[20] As an indication of the many layers of editing which Ezra has undergone, one recent study finds that Ezra 1-6 and Ezra 9-10 were originally separate documents, that they were spliced together at a later stage by the authors of Ezra 7-6, and that all have undergone extensive later editing.[21]
There is general recognition that the editing of Ezra continued well into the Hellenistic era.[4] The question of when the core of the book originated depends in the first place on the dates assigned to Ezra himself (assuming him to have been a historic person). The only clue to go by is the note in Ezra 7:7-8 that he arrived in Jerusalem in "the seventh year of Artaxerxes." Unfortunately there were three kings of this name and the text doesn't specify which one. The traditional date, and currently the most popular candidate, is 458 BCE, based on the assumption that the king is Artaxerxes I. A date of 398 BCE, based on the possibility that the king might be Artaxerxes II, was once popular but has been seriously challenged in recent scholarship. A date of 428 BCE, based on the idea that the "seventh" year of Artaxerxes is a mistake for "thirty-seventh" year, has become less popular, as it is based entirely on conjecture.[22]
Seven purported Persian decrees of kings or letters to and from high officials are quoted in Ezra. Their authenticity has been contentious, some scholars accepting at least some of them as genuine, others rejecting them, either in whole or in part. L.L. Grabbe surveys six tests against which the documents can be measured (comparative known Persian material, linguistic details, contents, presence of Jewish theology, the Persian attitude to local religions, and Persian letter-writing formulas) and concludes that all the documents are late post-Persian works and probable forgeries, but that some features suggest a genuine Persian correspondence behind some of them.[23]
| Books of the Ketuvim (Hebrew Bible) |
|---|
| Three poetic books |
| Psalms Proverbs Job |
| Five Megillot |
| Song of Songs Ruth Lamentations Ecclesiastes Esther |
| Other books |
| Daniel Ezra – Nehemiah Chronicles |
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Book of Ezra
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| Preceded by Daniel |
Hebrew Bible | Succeeded by Nehemiah |
| Preceded by 1–2 Chronicles |
Western Old Testament |
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| Preceded by 1 Esdras |
Eastern Old Testament |
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