Ezra Esdras
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(help): a) (Ezra 7:1) son of Seraiah and descendant of the high priest Hilkiah, who lived in the days of King Josiah. All that is known about Ezra is contained in the last four chapters of the book of Ezra and in chapters 8 and 12 of the book of Nehemiah. From these passages we see that Ezra, who was of the line of Aaron, was a pious and learned priest living in Babylon under king Artaxerxes Longimanus; further, they tell us that in the seventh year of that king’s reign he received permission to go up to Jerusalem, and took with him all the Jews who wished to return to their homeland, as well as priests, Levites, singers, and others.
The number of those who wished to accompany Ezra to Judea came to 1,734 persons (Ezra 8; Neh. 7). Their journey from Babylon to Jerusalem took four months. “And we came to Jerusalem,” says the sacred writer, “and abode there three days. Now on the fourth day was the silver and the gold and the vessels weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth… and all was reckoned by number and by weight, and all the weight was written at that time” (Ezra 8:32–34). These offerings were designated for the future Temple at Jerusalem and for the purchase of sacrificial animals.
Ezra then entered upon the discharge of his ministry, and did very much to establish good order and discipline among the people and to preserve the law of God in all its purity. Learning that not only ordinary Jews, but even Levites and priests, contrary to the Law of Moses, had entered into marriage with pagan women, he showed on this occasion a particular zeal for God and His law, and bound the people and the priests by oath to put away these unlawful marriages, as a result of which more than a hundred unlawful marriages were dissolved at that time (Ezra 9, 10).
His prayer, uttered on this occasion, was so moving that the whole people wept bitterly. With this account of his pious reforms, the biography of Ezra breaks off rather abruptly. Nothing more is said of him for a period of thirteen years, up until the very arrival of Nehemiah in Jerusalem (Neh. 2:11; 5:14; 8). Ezra probably spent all this time in Persia, and returned to Jerusalem again under Nehemiah, in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. Of Ezra’s part in the restoration of the wall of Jerusalem, which was Nehemiah’s special concern (Neh. 2, 3, 4, 6), nothing is said, but at the dedication of the wall he is clearly mentioned (Neh. 12:26–36).
Ezra went up onto the wall with the leaders of Judea, and on that day of rejoicing for the Jews, in the presence of all the people gathered in the street, he read aloud, amid the utmost universal reverence and attention, the words of the Book of the Law; and since he read in the original Hebrew, the other priests present at the time translated his words into the Chaldean [Aramaic] language, which was native to Babylon and common to the Jewish captives. This considerably eased Ezra’s labor, for he read from morning until noon, which continued also on the following day.
The reading of the Book of the Law was accompanied by the solemn celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasted eight days, during which Ezra read and explained the Law to the people every day (Neh. 8, 9, 10). Some time after this, according to the testimony of Josephus, Ezra died in old age and was buried with great magnificence in Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition, he died during his last journey from Jerusalem back to Persia, and was buried on the border of Persia at Nehar Samora, on the lower Tigris, where his tomb is pointed out to this day.
Among the other great achievements accomplished by Ezra for the good of his homeland, according to Prideaux, two important deeds especially claim our attention: namely, the restoration of the observances of Jewish law according to the ancient customs that had been in use among the Jews before the Babylonian captivity and were in accordance with the indications of the prophets; and, further, the gathering and combining of the sacred Old Testament books into a single collection — the establishment of their canon — in the course of which he undoubtedly corrected errors that had crept into the copies then in use through the carelessness or ignorance of copyists, and replaced obsolete place-names with their more modern equivalents.
Besides this, Ezra is credited as the author of 1 and 2 Chronicles, the book of Ezra, and the second part of the same — the book of Nehemiah. He is also credited with founding the Great Synagogue and other synagogues, and with introducing into use, for the writing of Holy Scripture, the Chaldean [square Aramaic] script.