Hello and welcome to Ezra. It’s not a book I know a huge amount about. Apparently, according to The Bible Project, it was one book with Nehemiah originally!

Anyway, Ezra is about some of the people who were taken to Babylon into exile returning to Jerusalem. Once there, they wanted to rebuild the altar and the temple. They made a start, but various things got in the way. To quote the Bible Project, their ambitions began with hope and ended with disappointment. Politics all over, the cynic in me would say!

I was struck by one section in Chapter 3. Here, the foundations of the temple were re-laid. The younger generation were delighted, but those who were older and knew the former temple were disappointed because it didn’t meet their expectations. I think this is true of society in many ways nowadays. We have experienced such different things to those in other generations, and that can create polarisation, as it does here. Verse 13 says ‘…the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people weeping…’.

There’s also some uncomfortable stuff about divorce. Some of the people married outside of the Israelite community, and the other leaders encourage Ezra to issue an edict to send those women and children away. I have lots of questions about this. It’s certainly unusual to see anybody in the Bible encouraging divorce!

My favourite verse is: Ezra 7.10: This was because Ezra had determined to study and obey the Law of the Lord and to teach those decrees and regulations to the people of Israel.

Sophia fell asleep listening to me read this once. But it is only ten chapters long!

Thanks to Susbany on Pixabay for the photo.