THE BOOK OF EZRA.
INTRODUCTION.
The Book of Ezra, written by the famous priest and scribe whose
name it bears, covers a period of about eighty years, namely, that
following the exile of the Jews, about 538 to 458 B. C. During this
period six kings of Persia occupied the throne and were the sovereigns
of the Jews: Cyrus the Great, his son Cambyses, the usurper
Pseudo-Smerdis, Darius I, son of Hystaspes, Xerxes I (known also as
Ahasuerus), and Artaxerxes Longimanus. The book records the fulfillment
of God’s promise to bring His people back to Palestine. The book is
divided into two distinct parts, the first part, chapters 1 to 6,
telling of the return of the exiles under Zerubbabel and Joshua in the
year 536, and the second, chapters 7 to 10, relating the coming of the
returned exiles, more than 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine once more,
especially in and near Jerusalem; under Ezra, eighty years later, a
second band returned to the land of their fathers. During the period
covered by this book the Temple had been rebuilt and the true worship
restored in Jerusalem. The exiles were from this time forth known as
Jews. They did not form an independent nation, but their country was a
province of Persia, until the entire empire was conquered by Alexander
the Great, 331 B. C., when they, of course, passed under the
jurisdiction of Macedonia, or Greece. It should be noted, finally, that
the captivity of the Jews had at last cured them of their idolatry, for
there are few evidences of idolatry or of false worship in Judea after
the exile.
Paul E. Kretzmann