bears his name. He was the son, or perhaps grandson, of Seraiah (2 Kings
25:18-21), and a lineal descendant of Phinehas, the son of Aaron (Ezra
7:1-5). All we know of his personal history is contained in the last four
chapters of his book, and in Nehemiah 8 and 12:26.
In the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus (see DARIUS),
he obtained leave to go up to Jerusalem and to take with him a company of
Israelites (Ezra 8). Artaxerxes manifested great interest in Ezra’s
undertaking, granting him “all his request,” and loading him with gifts for
the house of God. Ezra assembled the band of exiles, probably about 5,000
in all, who were prepared to go up with him to Jerusalem, on the banks of
the Ahava, where they rested for three days, and were put into order for
their march across the desert, which was completed in four months. His
proceedings at Jerusalem on his arrival there are recorded in his book.
He was “a ready scribe in the law of Moses,” who “had prepared his heart
to seek the law of the Lord and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and
judgments.” “He is,” says Professor Binnie, “the first well-defined
example of an order of men who have never since ceased in the church; men
of sacred erudition, who devote their lives to the study of the Holy
Scriptures, in order that they may be in a condition to interpret them for
the instruction and edification of the church. It is significant that the
earliest mention of the pulpit occurs in the history of Ezra’s ministry
(Nehemiah 8:4). He was much more of a teacher than a priest. We learn
from the account of his labours in the book of Nehemiah that he was
careful to have the whole people instructed in the law of Moses; and there
is no reason to reject the constant tradition of the Jews which connects his
name with the collecting and editing of the Old Testament canon. The final
completion of the canon may have been, and probably was, the work of a
later generation; but Ezra seems to have put it much into the shape in
which it is still found in the Hebrew Bible. When it is added that the
complete organization of the synagogue dates from this period, it will be
seen that the age was emphatically one of Biblical study” (The Psalms:
their History, etc.).
For about fourteen years, i.e., till B.C. 445, we have no record of what
went on in Jerusalem after Ezra had set in order the ecclesiastical and civil
affairs of the nation. In that year another distinguished personage,
Nehemiah, appears on the scene. After the ruined wall of the city had been
built by Nehemiah, there was a great gathering of the people at Jerusalem