GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
EZRA 7:1-10
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7:1 Now after this, during the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, 2 son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub, 3 son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth, 4 son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki, 5 son of Abishua, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the chief priest– 6 this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses which the LORD the God of Israel had given. The king granted him everything that he asked for, because the hand of the LORD his God was upon him. 7 In the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, some of the Israelites– priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants went up to Jerusalem. 8 Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month in the seventh year of the king. 9 On the first day of the first month he began the journey from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he arrived at Jerusalem, for the hand of the LORD his God was upon him. 10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD, to do it, and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Ezra takes five verses to recite his pedigree, the generations of Levites going back nine hundred years to Aaron, the brother of Moses. Ezra’s list may not interest every reader, but let’s notice one or two things about it. If we compare it with 1 Chronicles 6:3-15, the genealogy of the high priests from Aaron to the time of the exile, it matches Ezra’s list with just two differences. A series of six names is omitted between Azariah and Merioth in verse 3, but the series is otherwise identical, and therefore Ezra simply contracted the list, omitting well-known names from a well-known genealogy. The only other difference is that the high priest at the time of the exile, Jehozadak, is omitted from verse 1. This is probably because Ezra was not directly descended from Jehozadak, but from one of his brothers. Ezra was a priest, but not the high priest. He is described as a scribe, and it was in the dual role of priest and scribe– scholar and spiritual leader– that he made a lasting impact on the people of Judah and on the people of God today.
More important to us than Ezra’s pedigree is his degree, that is, his course of study and his desire “to study the law of the LORD, to do it, and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel” (verse 10).
Ezra “desired to study the law of the Lord and to do it.” It is generally accepted that it was Ezra who brought together the books of the Old Testament into the sequence that stands today. His arrangement was:
▪ The Law of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
▪ The Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings).
▪ The Later (or Latter) Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Shorter Prophets, eventually called “the Twelve” or “the Minor Prophets,” although Malachi was not yet written in Ezra’s time.
▪ The Writings (or just “the Psalms” for short, Luke 24:44). Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the “Five Scrolls” (Songs of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther), Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1-2 Chronicles.
It is also generally thought (and accepted) that Ezra collected the Book of Psalms as we have it today. There are a few pages with some Psalms that have non-Biblical Psalms among the Dead Sea Scrolls, but there are also pages among those Scrolls that have a few of the Psalms that are out of the usual order. These were perhaps song collections and not really copies of the Book of Psalms. Ezra may also have gathered the Proverbs into the order we have them, but this might not be the case. I think that Solomon himself probably composed the Proverbs into more or less the sequence that we have today.
Ezra also desired “to teach the Lord’s statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Ezra had an impact upon the Jews that cannot be missed or overstated. He is often considered to be a second Moses with regard to the Scriptures. He set standards for the people to adhere to the written text of the Old Testament that continued for a long time, and in some ways still remain.
Ezra gives us the time interval that it took him to travel from Babylon to Jerusalem: from the first month to the fifth month, setting out and arriving on the first day of each of those months; in other words, it took him four months and one day to make the journey. Knowing without a doubt that he would not have traveled on any Sabbath day, it took him just over a hundred days (104 days) to actually walk the distance, or about eleven or twelve miles per day.
In verse 6, Ezra is described as “skilled” in the law of Moses. The word, mahar, usually means “quick.” This is surely a clear way of saying that Ezra was a quick study, and quick to grasp the importance of each passage of Scripture as he read and studied it. Some scholars are blessed with such a gift; others of us are slower on the uptake, but after many years of study we begin to catch on. Thanks be to God that he has uses for both such students of his word.
Ezra realized that “the hand of the LORD his God was upon him.” This phrase will keep turning up (7:9; 7:14; 7:28; 8:18; 8:22; 8:31) both here and in Nehemiah, and also for contrast with “the hand of foreign kings” (9:7). God was with Ezra because he had work for Ezra to do, and Ezra believed in God and trusted in his word. Ezra’s abilities were gifts from God, not reasons for God choosing him. So it is with us. We are not chosen by God to serve him on account of how clever or quick or how pretty we might be, but simply because he loves us. He has tasks for us all, and he gives us abilities to do those tasks (Matthew 25:15). But we should not be upset if we seem to be unequal to a task. The disciples worked “each according to his ability” (Acts 11:29), and they did not enrage the Lord because some were quicker, or deeper thinkers, or more personable and interesting public speakers. “It is the Lord who gives you your abilities” (Deuteronomy 8:18). His will is that we should use them faithfully, and trust in him.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Ezra 7:1-10 a quick study