the Second Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Commentaries
Geneva Study Bible Geneva Study Bible
Cyrus's Decree; Exiles Return to Jerusalem.Chapter 2
List of Returning Exiles From Babylon.Chapter 3
Rebuilding the Altar and Temple Foundation.Chapter 4
Opposition to Rebuilding; Work Halted Temporarily.Chapter 5
Prophets Encourage Rebuilding; Investigation by Persian Officials.Chapter 6
Temple Completed; Dedication and Passover Celebrated.Chapter 7
Ezra's Mission to Teach God's Law.Chapter 8
Ezra's Journey to Jerusalem; Offerings for the Temple.Chapter 9
Ezra's Prayer of Confession for Intermarriage.Chapter 10
Repentance and Reform Regarding Foreign Marriages.
- Ezra
by Editor - Theodore Beza
The Argument - As the Lord is always merciful to his Church, and does not punish them, but so that they should see their own miseries, and be exercised under the cross, that they might contemn the world, and aspire to the heavens: so after he had visited the Jews, and kept them in bondage 70 years in a strange country among infidels and idolaters, he remembered his tender mercies and their infirmities, and therefore for his own sake raised up a deliverer, and moved both the heart of the chief ruler to pity them, and also by him punished those who had kept them in slavery. Nonetheless, lest they should grow into a contempt of God’s great benefits, he keeps them still in exercise, and raises domestic enemies, who try as much as they can to hinder their worthy enterprises: yet by the exhortation of the prophet they went forward little by little till their work was finished. The author of this book was Ezra, who was a priest and scribe of the Law, as in Ezra 7:6. He returned to Jerusalem the sixth year of Darius, who succeeded Cyrus, that is, about fifty years after the first return under Zerubbabel, when the temple was built. He brought with him a great company and much treasure, with letters to the king’s officers for all things needed for the temple: and at his coming he fixed that which was amiss, and set things in order.