1Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
2“Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel (he is God), which is in Jerusalem. 4Whoever is left, in any place where he lives, let the men of his place help him with silver, with gold, with goods, and with animals, in addition to the free will offering for God’s house which is in Jerusalem.’”
5Then the heads of fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites, all whose spirit God had stirred to go up, rose up to build Yahweh’s house which is in Jerusalem. 6All those who were around them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with animals, and with precious things, in addition to all that was willingly offered. 7Also Cyrus the king brought out the vessels of Yahweh’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought out of Jerusalem, and had put in the house of his gods; 8even those, Cyrus king of Persia brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. 9This is the number of them: thirty platters of gold, one thousand platters of silver, twenty-nine knives, 10thirty bowls of gold, four hundred ten silver bowls of a second kind, and one thousand other vessels. 11All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought all these up when the captives were brought up from Babylon to Jerusalem.
Within the Jewish scriptures Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah come as a group, in fact Ezra and Nehemiah are written as one book. When we read the bible it’s vital to understand that some of these books are not chronological but actually go hand in hand. To capture the big story of the exile and return it’s important to know the whole picture. Here are some key points that might give greater insight into the rest of the Old Testament books as we study them together.
- The exile from Judah happened while king Nebuchadnezzar ruler in Babylon and it happened in 3 stages.
- 606BC. The first sweep took the royal family and the nobility from Judah to captivity this included Daniel. So, we know the story of Daniel happened near the beginning of the exile
- The second round up was around 597BC the tradespeople and craftsmen were removed from Judah. It was in this second phase that Ezekiel was taken.
- The final stage of the exile was a clean sweep when in 586BC Babylon’s army came in and took everyone else and left the city and the temple in ruins.
When we begin the book of Ezra, there is nothing, no people, no money and no royal family. It’s easy to focus on the devastation of all this. However, we need to remember that at the same time God was at work through Daniel, Ezekiel and others doing great and mighty things right in enemy territory. It is easy to focus on the devastation of where we are, when we can’t see the bigger. But, even we feel like nothing is happening, God is still at work.