Ezra 3:1

Ezra ALTAR AND TEMPLEEzra 3:1 - Ezra 3:13 . What an opportunity of ‘picturesque’ writing the author of this book has missed by his silence about the incidents of the march across the dreary levels from Babylon to the verge of Syria! But the very silence is eloquent. It reveals the purpose of the book, which is to tell of the re-establishment of the Temple and its worship. No doubt the tone of the whole is somewhat prosaic, and indicative of an age in which the externals of worship bulked largely; but still the central point of the narrative was really the centre-point of the events. The austere simplicity of biblical history shows the real points of importance better than more artistic elaboration would do. This passage has two main incidents-the renewal of the sacrifices, and the beginning of rebuilding the Temple. The date given in Ezra 2:1 is significant. The first day of the seventh month was the commencement of the great festival of tabernacles, the most joyous feast of the year, crowded with reminiscences from the remote antiquity of the Exodus, and from the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. How long had passed since Cyrus’ decree had been issued we do not know, nor whether his ‘first year’ was reckoned by the same chronology as the Jewish year, of which we here arrive at the seventh month.

But the journey across the desert must have taken some months, and the previous preparations could not have been suddenly got through, so that there can have been but a short time between the arrival in Judea and the gathering together ‘as one man to Jerusalem.’ There was barely interval enough for the returning exiles to take possession of their ancestral fields before they were called to leave them unguarded and hasten to the desolate city. Surely their glad and unanimous obedience to the summons, or, as it may even have been, their spontaneous assemblage unsummoned, is no small token of their ardour of devotion, even if they were somewhat slavishly tied to externals. It would take a good deal to draw a band of new settlers in our days to leave their lots and set to putting up a church before they had built themselves houses. The leaders of the band of returned exiles demand a brief notice. They are Jeshua, or Joshua, and Zerubbabel. In Ezra 3:2 the ecclesiastical dignitary comes first, but in Ezra 3:8 the civil. Similarly in Ezra 2:2 , Zerubbabel precedes Jeshua. In Haggai, the priest is pre-eminent; in Zechariah the prince.

(1) The seventh month was come. —Rather, approached. Tisri, answering to our September, was the most solemn month of the year, including the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, afterwards distinguished as “the feast” pre-eminently. As one man.—Not all, but with one consent.

Ezra 3:1 . When the seventh month was come — We may suppose they left Babylon in the spring, and were four months on their journey; for so long Ezra and his company were in coming, Ezra 7:9 . The seventh month therefore commenced soon after their arrival in Judea, when, as many of the feasts of the Lord were then to be solemnized, the people gathered themselves together — By agreement among themselves, rather than by the command of authority; to Jerusalem — Though they were newly come to their cities, and had their hands full of business there, to provide necessaries for themselves and their families, which might have excused them from attending on God’s worship in public, till the hurry was a little over, as many with us foolishly put off their coming to the communion till they are settled in the world; yet, such was their zeal for religion, now they were newly come from under correction for their irreligion, that they left all their business in the country to attend God’s altar; and in this pious zeal they were all of a mind, they came as one man.