Ezra 2:1

THE REGISTER OF THE RETURNED EXILES

Very little comment is needed on this chapter. The purpose of the sacred author was that of establishing the continuity of the nation of God's chosen people; and, just as the return itself was presented by him as a "Second Exodus," so this list of names was designed to link the present company of returnees with the glorious names of their previous history, with the implied teaching that they were still the Chosen People and that God would continue to bless them.

"This same list of names appears in Nehemiah 7:6-73 and in Esdras 5:4-46. It is not easy to account for the discrepancies."[1] In fact, we have never seen any attempt by any scholar to harmonize the lists. They satisfied the people who returned from Babylon; and that is really all that matters.

"Seven distinct groups of people are mentioned."[2] These are: (1) the leaders; (2) the men of Israel; (3) the priests; (4) the Levites; (5) the temple servants; (6) the sons of Solomon's servants; and (7) those of uncertain genealogy.

The return from exile was not an "all at once" experience. It went on somewhat gradually over a period of years; and this list might have been revised or corrected from time to time; and some scholars believe that it included some who had never been in captivity at all, "but who were in full sympathy with the returnees."[3]

It is amazing that Sheshbazzar to whom Cyrus' treasurer counted out the sacred vessels is not mentioned here; and it is not at all impossible, as suggested by Hamrick, that the author of Ezra here identified him and Zerubbabel as the same person.[4]

Regardless of our questions, many of which are impossible of any perfect solution, these names are of abiding interest in their own right. These are the names of those who kept alive the sacred hope, who did not give up, even when it seemed that all was lost, and whose children lived to turn their backs upon their shameful humiliation in Babylon, cross the burning sands of the desert, and return to that sacred elevation in Jerusalem where they built again the altar of Jehovah and faithfully resumed the worship of the God of their fathers.

"This chapter is certainly among the most uninviting portions of the Bible for the modern reader both because of its tedious nature and because of its overtones of racial exclusivism and pride."[5] However, the importance of the chapter lies in the evidence it presents concerning the development of that priestly heirarchy that came to be, in time, the total ruin of Israel.

THE LIST OF THE LEADERS

"Now these are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezar the king of Babylon had carried away into Babylon, and that returned unto Jerusalem and Judah, everyone into his city; who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah."

"The children of the province" (Ezra 2:1). "This expression indicates that the Jewish exiles, although now released from captivity and allowed to return to their own land, were nevertheless still under the sovereignty of Cyrus, occupying a tributary province of the Persian empire."[6] This was a dramatic contrast with the glory days of David and Solomon.

"Who came with Zerubbabel" (Ezra 2:2). "Here Zerubbabel appears as the leader of the return to Jerusalem. The name means seed of Babylon, indicating that he was born there. He is usually described as the son of Shealtiel (Ezra 3:2); but 1 Chronicles 3:19 shows him to have been the son of Shealtiel's brother Pedaiah. Probably Shealtiel died childless, whereupon a Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5ff) resulted in the birth of Zerubbabel, who was thus the actual son of Pedaiah but the legal son of Shealtiel."[7]