Introduction
2. The exiles who returned ch. 2
This chapter contains a record of the people who responded to Cyrus’ decree and returned to the Promised Land. It is a list of families rather than individuals, and the towns in Babylon from which they came. Almost all of these people could demonstrate their Jewish ancestry (Ezra 2:59-60). Nehemiah 7 contains a very similar list.
"The genealogies are a guarantee that Israel is not adrift in a vacuum of this present generation but has security and credentials. And as long as Israel can name names, utter their precious sounds, it has a belonging place which no hostile empire can deny." [Note: W. Brueggemann, The Land, pp. 145-46.]
Be the first to react on this!
