Ezra 2:65-67 - Exposition

THE NUMBER OF THE SLAVES , HORSES , MULES , CAMELS , AND ASSES OF THOSE WHO RETURNED ( Ezra 2:65-67 ). It may seem strange that matters of this trivial character should be recorded with such exactness in Holy Writ; but enumerations similar in character are not unfrequent (see Genesis 23:14 , Genesis 23:15 ; 2 Chronicles 17:11 ; Job 42:12 ). They may perhaps be viewed as teaching the lesson that with God nothing is too trivial for exact knowledge, even "all the hairs of our head" being "numbered" ( Matthew 10:30 ). In the present passage the enumeration is not altogether without a further historical value, since it is indicative of the general poverty and low estate of the returning exiles, who had but one slave and one ass to every six of their number, one horse to every sixty, one camel to every hundred, and one mule to every one hundred and seventy-five.