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Ezra Chapter Two

 

Ezra 2

Chapter Contents

The numbers that returned. (1-35) The numbers of the priests and Levites. (36-63) The offerings for the temple. (64-70)

Commentary on Ezra 2:1-35

(Read Ezra 2:1-35)

An account was kept of the families that came up out of captivity. See how sin lowers a nation which righteousness would exalt!

Commentary on Ezra 2:36-63

(Read Ezra 2:36-63)

Those who undervalue their relation to the Lord in times of reproach persecution or distress will have no benefit from it when it becomes honourable or profitable. Those who have no evidence that they are by the new birth spiritual priests unto God through Jesus Christ have no right to the comforts and privileges of Christians.

Commentary on Ezra 2:64-70

(Read Ezra 2:64-70)

Let none complain of the needful expenses of their religion. Seek first the kingdom of God his favour and his glory then will all other things be added unto them. Their offerings were nothing compared with the offerings of the princes in David's time; yet being according to their ability were as acceptable to God. The Lord will carry us through all undertakings entered on according to his will with an aim to his glory and dependence on his assistance. Those who at the call of the gospel renounce sin and return to the Lord shall be guarded and guided through all perils of the way and arrive safely at the mansions provided in the holy city of God.

── Matthew HenryConcise Commentary on Ezra

 

Ezra 2

Verse 1

[1] Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity of those which had been carried away whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah every one unto his city;

The province — Of Judah called a province chap. 5:8. And he calls it thus emphatically to mind himself and his brethren of that sad change which their sins had made among them that from an illustrious independent and formidable kingdom were fallen to be an obscure servile and contemptible province first under the Chaldeans and now under the Persians.

Verse 2

[2] Which came with Zerubbabel: Jeshua Nehemiah Seraiah Reelaiah Mordecai Bilshan Mispar Bigvai Rehum Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:

Who came … — This catalogue differs in some names and numbers from that Nehemiah 7:6-64 which might be because several names were given to the same persons; and because of the many changes which might happen in the same families between the time of the first making of this catalogue by Ezra and the making it anew so many years after.

Verse 3

[3] The children of Parosh two thousand an hundred seventy and two.

The children — The posterity as that word is constantly taken in this catalogue.

Of Parosh — That descend either from Parosh or from that family whereof Parosh was the chief. And so for the rest.

Verse 5

[5] The children of Arah seven hundred seventy and five.

Seven hundred … — In Nehemiah 7:10 they were only six hundred and fifty two it seems seven hundred and seventy five marched out of Babylon but some of them died others were hindered by sickness or other casualties and so there came only six hundred and fifty two to Jerusalem. And the like is to be said in the like differences: which it suffices to hint once for all.

Verse 21

[21] The children of Bethlehem an hundred twenty and three.

Beth-lehem — And so these were the remainders of the inhabitants of that city. (And the like may be said of the two following names Netophah and Anathoth or others of the like nature.) So little was Beth-lehem among the thousands of Judah! Yet thence must the Messiah arise.

Verse 39

[39] The children of Harim a thousand and seventeen.

Harim — The head of one of the twenty four courses which David appointed 1 Chronicles 24:8 of all which courses some observe here are not above four or five that returned. There is another Harim mentioned above verse 32 but that was no priest as this was verse 36.

Verse 43

[43] The Nethinims: the children of Ziha the children of Hasupha the children of Tabbaoth

Nethinims — Persons devoted to the inferior services of the priests and Levites. Commonly supposed to be the Gibeonites given (so their name signifies) by Joshua first and again by David when Saul had expelled them to the priests and Levites for those services.

Verse 55

[55] The children of Solomon's servants: the children of Sotai the children of Sophereth the children of Peruda

Servants — Who had lived in Solomon's family and after his death called themselves and their families by that name esteeming it a great honour that they had been servants to so great a prince.

Verse 62

[62] These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy but they were not found: therefore were they as polluted put from the priesthood.

Genealogy — The Jews were generally very exact in their genealogies from their own choice and interest that they might preserve the distinctions of the several tribes and families which was necessary both to make out their titles to offices or inheritances and to govern themselves thereby in the matter of marriages and from the special providence of God that so it might be certainly known of what tribe and family the Messiah was born.

Verse 63

[63] And the Tirshatha said unto them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.

Tirshatha — The governor Zerubbabel.

With Urim … — That this point which could not be found out by human skill might be determined by Divine direction. Hereby it appears that the Urim and Thummim were lost in the destruction of the city and temple tho' the Jews fed themselves with hopes of recovering them but in vain. And by the want of that oracle they were taught to expect the great oracle the Messiah.

Verse 64

[64] The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore

The whole … — The particular sums here recited come only to twenty and nine thousand eight hundred and eighteen. Unto whom are added in this total sum twelve thousand five hundred and forty two. Which either were of the other tribes beside Judah and Benjamin: or were such as were supposed to be Israelites but could not prove their pedigree by their genealogies.

Verse 65

[65] Beside their servants and their maids of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women.

Women — For women as well as men were employed in this exercise in the temple-service.

Verse 68

[68] And some of the chief of the fathers when they came to the house of the LORD which is at Jerusalem offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place:

The house — That is to the ruins of the house; or to the place were it stood.

Verse 69

[69] They gave after their ability unto the treasure of the work threescore and one thousand drams of gold and five thousand pound of silver and one hundred priests' garments.

Sixty one thousand drams — Sixty one thousand drams of gold amount to something more than so many pounds of our money. So bishop Cumberland who likewise supposes five thousand pounds of silver to be about thirty seven thousand pounds sterling.

Verse 70

[70] So the priests and the Levites and some of the people and the singers and the porters and the Nethinims dwelt in their cities and all Israel in their cities.

And all Israel in their cities — And they dwelt in peace in perfect harmony a blessed presage of their settlement as their discord in the latter times of that state was of their ruin.

── John WesleyExplanatory Notes on Ezra

                             

 

02 Chapter 2

 

Verses 1-67


Verse 1-2

Ezra 2:1-2

Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity.

Going up out of captivity

I. The deliverance from captivity.

1. This captivity had been--

The most deplorable degradation and the most real and terrible subjection are those of sin.

2. This deliverance--

Salvation from the bondage of sin is freely offered in the gospel but no one is compelled to accept the offer.

II. The journey home. This journey was--

1. A restoration.

2. A restoration to their own home.

3. A restoration to religious privileges. The salvation of Jesus Christ restores man to his true condition and to his forfeited inheritance.

III. The subordination to leaders. Society could not exist without leaders and rulers. They are necessary--

1. For the maintenance of order.

2. For insuring progress.

3. Because of the differences in the characters and abilities of men. (William Jones.)

Emancipation

The Rev. J. Jackson Fuller of the Cameroons a coloured missionary said at the Young People’s Meeting of the Baptist Centenary: “Although our fathers in my country were born under the British flag yet we were nothing more and nothing else than the chattels of the Englishman. We were British slaves and it was partly by the missionaries going to our country--the island of Jamaica--and telling us of the love of Jesus Christ that their vivid description of our oppressed condition aroused the English nation and in the year 1834 after paying twenty millions of money you set us all free. The very day you passed the Emancipation Act in England I was made free. You young people would have been glad or your fathers before you would have been glad had they the opportunity of seeing that morning in the year 1884 when thousands of children and their fathers and mothers gathered together during the evening waiting for that morning of the 31st of July to dawn. At eleven o’clock at night they gathered in mass and waited for the hour to pass when the clock should strike twelve. And then you would have been glad to see that mighty mass of human beings rise on their feet and sing the Doxology--‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.’ I was among that number that gathered that night. I heard the Doxology sung. I am one of the boys that were rescued when you paid twenty millions of money and set our fathers free.”


Verses 2-64

Ezra 2:2-64

The number of the men of the people of Israel.

A suggestive record

Consider--

I. The significance of the fact of the record.

1. It Was an honour to the pious and patriotic ones who returned.

2. It is an illustration of the Divine record of God’s spiritual Israel (Luke 10:20).

3. It suggests that every one of His people is precious in the sight of God (Isaiah 49:16).

II. The significance of the contents of the record. We have in this list--

1. Significant persons.

2. A significant place: Bethlehem (Ezra 2:21).

3. Significant numbers. (William Jones.)

Religious service

It is here suggested--

I. That there are various spheres of service in the Church of God (Ephesians 4:11-12).

II. That the humbelest sphere of service in the Church of God is a place of privilege and honour.

III. The privilege of sevice in the Church of God is not limited to any particular races or classes of men. (William Jones.)


Verse 62

Ezra 2:62

These sought their register.

The importance of a clear spiritual pedigree

I. The doubtful pedigree amongst the people is an illustration of uncertainty as to our spiritual state.

1. This uncertainty may consist with association with the people of God (Ezra 2:59-60).

2. This uncertainty must involve spiritual loss.

Lacking Christian assurance our testimony for Christ would be likely to be deficient in clearness and attractiveness in fervour and force; it would especially fail to set forth the joyful character of true religion.

II. The doubtful pedigree amongst the priests is an illustration of uncertainty as to our ministerial calling and condition.

1. A ministerial pedigree may be lost by reason of worldliness.

2. The loss of ministerial pedigree involves a corresponding loss of ministerial power and reward.

3. The final decision as to the standing of a minister of uncertain pedigree must be given by God Himself (Ezra 2:63). (William Jones.)

Melancholy records

Here is the picture of men seeking a register and finding nothing in it; looking up old family papers and their names are not found in the tender record. A man not known at home! He may have been born there and have lived a good many years of his early life there; but to-day he has no record on the hearthstone no place at the table no portion in the family memory: it would be a breach of courtesy to name his name. Something must have happened. There is an ineffable sadness about this: all nature seems to be violated; instincts have been rooted out; natural affection seems to have been burned down and utterly destroyed. Consider the tremendous possibility of outliving one’s natural rights or forfeiting birthright inheritance paternal blessing all the wealth of home’s true love. Talk of falling from grace! What is this but an apostasy from the best grace--a fall from childhood’s trust the wilful obliteration of the name from the scroll whose meaning is nothing but love? Here is a child who is not named in the will. Consider what you have done. How infinite in detestation must have been the character which resulted in this issue! Take more general ground and the principle still applies. Here is a man who is unknown in the community; his name may be written upon certain official papers but it is not inscribed on the scroll of the heart on the memory of gratitude; it is not to be found anywhere put up as a thing most prized and loved. He is but a figure in the community but a tax-payer but an occupier of a house; he is not a living presence in any sense of beneficence. When he is buried no one will miss him in the heart. His name is not written upon the register of trust affection or benevolent interest. Seeing that all these things are possible there must be a reason for them: what is it? It is always a moral reason where it touches any conception of general justice. At the last shall we go to the book of life and not find our names there? The answer is in our own lives. Sad to turn away from the record saying “My name is not there!” But blessed be God the humblest least vilest may through the blood of the everlasting covenant the whole mystery of the priesthood of Christ have their names written in heaven. (J. Parker D. D)


Verses 65-70

Ezra 2:65-70

And some of the chief of the fathers when they came to the house of the Lord which is at Jerusalem offered freely.

Possessions and offerings

I. The completion of their journey. “They came to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem.”

II. The extent of their possessions (Ezra 2:65-67).

III. The presenation of their offerings.

1. The object of their offerings.

2. The spirit of their offerings.

3. The measure of their offerings.

IV. The settlement in their cities. This suggests--

1. Home after exile.

2. Rest after a long and tedious journey. (William Jones.)

Offering freely

As I was reading my Greek Testament the other day I was delighted with a discovery concerning the well-known text: God loveth a cheerful giver. The word cheerful is our word for hilarious. And I began to imagine what would happen if the meaning of the word was put into action. “Will you give five pounds to missions?” “Will you contribute a hundred pounds towards our evangelistic work this winter?” “Ha ha ha! I am only too glad for the opportunity to give since I have so abundantly received.” And the hilarious giver writes out a cheque on the spot. How much better that sounds than the doleful “Oh dear! I am tired with the never-ending calls for money money money.” But this “hilarious” giving is not possible except the Spirit is dwelling richly within. For only the Spirit shows the greatness of that salvation which we received through Christ and the greatness of our consequent obligation. (A. J. Gordon.)

The Church the rallying point of nations

The temple and its worship marked the last days of the kingdom of the Jews anterior to their captivity and formed the point around which the returning wanderers gathered at their restoration to the home of their fathers. So around the Church the events of all successive empires have gathered since the day of Pentecost.

I. Every state of importance alike in ancient mediaeval or modern history has gathered round the Church and has received its shape and definiteness from her. Egypt Assyria Persia Greece and Rome each became important in their different times in proportion as they were able to bless or to chasten the Church of God. The long dynasties that ruled on the banks of the Nile; the invasion of the Hyksos; the vast undertakings of Rameses or Amasis; the gigantic records of antiquity which rise in such sepulchral magnificence in Egypt from amidst her waste of sand; the high philosophy of one Ptolemy and the literary research of another proclaim one after the other in successive generations the splendour of an empire whose principal end of existence was to aid in the throes of the early Church; to give a home to the famine.stricken patriarchs; to be a scourge in the successive invasions of Shishak Pharaoh Hophra and Pharaoh Necho and to be the probation of the Jews when God ordained the Chaldean captivity. All these seem to have been the main objects for which Egypt existed as a nation. So in each successive period in after-history the Church became more and more the central body which gave shape to the kingdoms of the world alike in mediaeval as in modern history. The vast multitudes from the north-east of Europe which swept like a bankless flood over the fertile plains of Italy arrested by the walls of Constantinople or of Rome or diverted by the intercession of Ambrose or Gregory became at length themselves children of the Church whom they had persecuted; and the imaginative genius of the Goth lent mellowness sublimity and tone to the architecture and service of the Church. Men who came to persecute remained to pray and the Gothic invasion formed an era in ecclesiastical history. The kingdom of France beheld a repetition of the acts of Constantine in the conversion of Clovis; and Clotilds and her husband resembled in the story of their conversion Ethelbert king of Kent and Bertha his wife. Charlemagne followed in the passage of years in family as well as name mixed up with those who were giving protection to while they received their own definiteness from the Church of Christ. And the gifts of Pepin became a record to a long after-day of the power which the Church had to give shape to the early civilisation of Europe. From the death of Charlemagne throughout eight following centuries the interests of Europe became synonymous with those of France or Germany while they oscillated in alternating supremacy each of them seeking the recognition of the Church for their claims. The Great Reformation which broke out over Northern and Western Europe bore upon the billows of its tempestuous sea the vessels that carried the destinies of Spain and Austria France and England and many of the minor states of Germany; while religious questions became the direct causes which shook the dynasty of the Stuarts and agitated France through the illustrious periods of Catharine de Medici and Henry the Great and the imbecile reign of Louis XIII while the names that have rendered so many pages of French history interesting--the Hugonot and Coligni Conde and Turenne--were immediately brought out by questions connected with the doctrine and discipline of the Church in defence of which each one of them was brought before the notice of history.

II. The Church has in her that principle of vitality which gives her the power to rekindle life where it has been extinct and to reconstruct the shattered portions of fabrics which have fallen to decay. The children of Israel leaving their patriarchal government at Goshen to enter upon that developed state of their history which was to issue in the kingly line of David preserved their nationality and drew together their otherwise scattered forces around the tabernacle the priesthood and the lawgiver; and the Church of God became in the wilderness of Sinai the source and fountain of national life and existence to the tribes reseeking their home. A second time the chosen people were called upon to bewail their sins in a long captivity; a second time their national distinctiveness bid fair to be lost but the voices of Daniel and Ezekiel sounded loudly to penitence and prayer by the Chebar and in Babylon. These were the voices of the Church of God--these represented that eternal principle around which national and individual existence might coil and find compactness. These were the forces from within which kept together the people of the captivity and were the means of restoring them in their national integrity to their homes. Forlorn and orphaned indeed must the returning tribes have felt; like men who in the chill of the morning wander amid the fading flowers of the banquet of yesterday. At that moment the Church again became the centre of their national revival and around the foundation stones of the temple the scattered people again became a nation. (E. Monro.)

──The Biblical Illustrator