Ezra - Chapter 2

THE PEOPLE WHO RETURNED

In this interesting chapter we are given a very specific listing of those people who chose to make the return trip back to Judea after the command allowing the freedom to make this choice was granted by Cyrus.

While there are 70 verses, it is very hard for those of us in our day to make sense of this long listing so we should rather try to reflect on the overall meaning of reason for the listing.

Verses 1 & 2 detail the fact that there are descendants of the original families carried away by Babylon in the first wave of those returning. This list is closely in line with the similar information given in Nehemiah 7:6-72, proving once more the wisdom of perhaps viewing these two books as one as the Hebrew Bible does. History does not allow us to know who was the author of these lists. Verse 64 provides the head count of those returned of 42,360. Unfortunately, standard addition of the listing by family here and in Nehemiah does not total that number (Ezra = 29,818 & Nehemiah = 31,089).

It seems possible that the variance may come from the individual family numbers listing only men while the total is meant to include women and children. There are several instances of such totals in our scripture, even in the total of those in the multitudes fed by Jesus in miracles of multiplication of small amounts of food to satisfy many who were hungry.

There are some important mentions in this long list and are likely included for us to grasp the important foundation of this group for those who would come later. We see that the high priest family of Joshua (Jeshua) was included. A number of Levites were listed to assure understanding of proper worship upon the arrival back into the holy city.

The family of Asaph, the song master of Solomon's Temple, was included to further assure proper musical worship. Asaph was appointed by David and he wrote a number of the Psalms. Two other special groups were included, one of whom was non Hebrew.

The first was the Nethinims (Gibeonites from Joshua 9) who assisted the Levites in worship duties. The second were some Levitical priests who were unable yet to prove their heritage. These were not allowed to serve until the high priest could later consult the sacred stones of God (Urim & Thummim) to gain God's permission.

The chapter ends with the beginning of the resettlement of families in Jerusalem and surrounding areas.