Ezra, Ezrah [ÔöÇ├Âz’rÔöÇ├ó]

–help or my helper.

The Man Who Honored Scripture

Ezra or 1 Esdras, as he is called in the Vulgate, was the son or grandson of Seraiah, the high priest who was slain after the taking of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:18, 21). As a priest, he was descended from Zadok and from Phinehas (Ezra 7:1-6). He was also a ready scribe (Ezra 7:6, 11, 12, 20), which occupation implied three things:

He was a student and as such had a duty to himself to study the will of God as revealed in His Word, that he might hide it in his own heart (Ezra 7:10).

He was an interpreter with a duty to his own generation in teaching his fellow exiles what he had learned. In this way he gave the "sense" of the Word (Neh. 8:2-8).

He was a copyist, which meant that this learned man had a duty to his own race in multiplying and preserving intact the very words of God (Ezra 7:10, 11).

Ezra was also an able administrator. He conducted the Jewish exiles back to Jerusalem in peace and safety, and establishing himself as their leader, reformed them with a vigorous hand. Summarizing his life and labors, we can say that this Old Testament reformer was:

I. A man of deep humility and self-denial (Ezra 7:10-1510:6).

II. A man of great learning with a fervent zeal for God's honor (Ezra 7:108:21-23).

III. A man of great trustworthiness (Ezra 7:13, 26).

IV. A man anxious to commend his cause to others (Ezra 8:2-20).

V. A man who knew how to pray (Ezra 8:2110:1).

VI. A man deeply grieved over the sins of the people (Ezra 9:310:6).

VII. A man who spared no pains to bring the people to repentance.

Traditional history says that it was Ezra who instituted the Great Synagogue, became its first President, settled the Canon of Jewish Scripture and began the building of synagogues in Jewish provincial towns. Ezra lived to a good old age, dying like Moses at the age of 120 years.

Ezra was a studious, prayerful ecclesiastic who set his heart to realize definite ideals:

To know the Law of Jehovah. What a passion was his to ascertain, explain and administer that Law!

To will to do the Law. Ezra not only taught the Law but urged the people to serve the Lord with heart, mouth and mind.

The key words of the Book of Ezra are Restoration, Reorganization, Reformation. The emphasis is upon the preservation of the national and religious life of the people. The leading ideas of the book are:

The Purity of Worship

The Sanctity of the Sabbath

The Power of Prayer

The Faithfulness of God

Order in Religion and Delight in Praise

Mutual help in Service

The Purity of Common life.

“What should we learn from the life of Ezra?”……Ezra was the second of three key leaders to leave Babylon for the reconstruction of Jerusalem. Zerubbabel reconstructed the temple (Ezra 3:8), Nehemiah rebuilt the walls (Nehemiah chapters 1 and 2) and Ezra restored the worship. Ezra was a scribe and priest sent with religious and political powers by the Persian King Artaxerxes to lead a group of Jewish exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:8, 12). Ezra condemned mixed marriages and encouraged Jews to divorce and banish their foreign wives. The most dramatic part of the book is the crisis over marriages between Jewish leaders and women from the peoples of the lands (Ezra 9:2). Ezra renewed the celebration of festivals and supported the rededication of the temple and the rebuilding of the Jerusalem wall. Ezra 7:10 describes a shaping of the community in accordance with the Torah. Ezra's goal was to implement the Torah, and his impeccable priestly and scribal credentials allowed him to remain the model leader.……The book of Ezra continues from where 2 Chronicles ends, with Cyrus, king of Persia, issuing a decree which permits the Jews of his kingdom to return to Jerusalem after seventy years of captivity. God is universally sovereign and can use a polytheistic king of Persia to make possible His people's release. He used Artaxerxes, another Persian king, to authorize and finance the trip and Ezra to teach God's people His Law. This same king also helped Nehemiah restore some measure of respectability to God's holy city.……Ezra's effective ministry included teaching the Word of God, initiating reforms, restoring worship and leading spiritual revival in Jerusalem. These reforms magnified the need for a genuine concern for reputation and for public image. What must the world think of God's people with dilapidated city walls? What would distinguish God's people who were guilty of intermarriage with those not in proper covenant relationship with the one true God? Nehemiah and Ezra were then, and are now, an encouragement to God's people to magnify worship as their top priority, to emphasize the need for and use of God's Word as the only authoritative rule for living, and to be concerned about the image God's people show to the world.……Ezra came back from captivity in Babylon expecting to find the people serving the Lord with gladness, but upon his return to Jerusalem, he found the opposite. He was frustrated and sorrowful. His heart ached, but he still trusted the Lord. He wanted the Lord to change the situation and blamed himself for not being able to change the people's hearts. He wanted the people to know how important and essential the Word of God was. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written to fulfill the Word of God. Nothing must supersede worship of God, and obedience is not optional. The Sovereign God looks over and protects His children, always keeping His promises and providing encouragement through those He sends (Ezra 5:1). Even when His plan seems to be interrupted, as with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, God steps in at the appropriate time to continue His plan.……God is as intimately involved in our lives as He was with Ezra's life, and like Ezra we are sometimes enabled to do the impossible. Ezra did the impossible, for the hand the Lord his God was on him (Ezra 7:8). Every believer is a living temple (1 Corinthians 6:19) in which the Holy Spirit dwells. The opposing forces in Ezra's day were people with evil in their hearts. The opposing force in our Christian lives today is evil himself, Satan, who has come to destroy us and in turn destroy God's temple (John 10:10). Our goals should be worthy in God's eyes as well as our own. Yesterday's sorrows can be today's successes if the hand of the Lord is upon us. Ezra's goal was worthy in God's eyes, and he effectively used the returning Jews' sorrows for the success of rebuilding God's city and restoring worship.