Lesson 4 - Ezra 2

[Music] the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are commonly referred to as the story of the restoration of Judah or Israel and it comes at the end of their seventy year Babylonian exile but restoration and what since typically it is meant as the restoration of the temple and the reestablishment of Judah as the Jewish national homeland from a purely historical standpoint that's true however we also need to see this restoration from a wider spiritual viewpoint the restoration we witness in these two books is mainly about reinstituting the Mosaic law complete with the benefits of atoning sacrifices which can only be accomplished with the presence of an operable and a properly functioning temple and priesthood when we look back to the book of Exodus we see that Israel only became a set apart nation at Mount Sinai when God first gave Moses the law prior to that time they were a large they were a growing extended family with Jacob also called Israel as their patriarch until they were given a constitution until they received a set of rules to live by the law of Moses they were not a nation of people capable of being governed what made them a nation and then a nation set apart from all other nations was that their constitution and their set of rules was divine thus while the Jews dispersed about about the Babylonian and then the Persian empires ethnically racially connected fully identifiable is Jews without the re-establishment of their temple and the observance of the laws of Moses and without residing in the land that God has set apart for them they could not be a nation of God now as we open Azra chapter 2 the Babylonian Empire had has been recently conquered and taken over by the media Persian Empire under their King Cyrus the Great Cyrus a Gentile of course was nonetheless directly used by Yehovah as the vehicle to punish Babylon for their inherent wickedness of worshipping a false god system as well as for being a bit too harsh in God's view on his Jewish people but Cyrus would also be the means to release the Jewish people from their captivity in order for them to go back to their homeland to rebuild Jerusalem reconstruct their temple reconstitute the priesthood we shouldn't think however that Cyrus's intent was for Judah to become an independent Jewish state with their own sovereign King as it had been 70 years earlier rather Judah was to remain a district a province within the Persian Empire Cyrus would continue to be their king it's only that Cyrus was an enlightened ruler and he would install a Jewish governor in Judah and he would allow the Jews to worship their God in a way they chose he would even encourage as many Jews who wanted to go to go and migrate back to Judah and to repopulated so we kind of need to step back and get a bigger picture from the time that Nebuchadnezzar first conquered Judah about 606 BC right on through the time of Yeshua and beyond Judah was never again an independent nation although it was Ezra's dream no doubt the dream of most Jews down through the ages that a fully independent State of Israel like it wasn't David's and Solomon's time would rise again it wouldn't happen until 1948 in the modern era and naturally just as those for Gentile world kingdoms the Daniel predicted would prevent Israel from being sovereign and independent so would other empires and regional powers that followed them and today nations throughout this planet are doing what they can do to undo the miracle of the God of Israel that only a few years ago re-established a sovereign Jewish state on the very land that God gave to Abraham what we know is certainty in our time is that even though Israel is going to suffer greatly and at some point is going to become utterly decimated they will never again be exiled from their land we also know that the coming kingdom of God on earth is going to be governed by God himself and in the form of Jesus Christ who will sit on his throne in Jerusalem with the coming Third Temple as his throne room one final comment before we read Ezra chapter 2 this is going to be a long list of meetings some real tongue twisters it's also going to be the names of people and names of places it's going to feel tedious and in fact is one of those chapters that's regularly skipped over for that reason however because you have studied the Torah and the Old Testament books that come before Israel this is going to have much more meaning to you than to those who have not so hang in there and you're gonna find that there is more here than a casual reading of these precious words might reveal so open your Bibles to Ezra chapter 2 Ezra chapter 2 if you have a complete Jewish Bible that's page 11 17 11 17 and we're going to read this chapter here is a list of the people of the province who had been exiled carried off to Beth Babel by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon returned from exile and they went up to Jerusalem and Judah Judah each to his own City they went with zerubabbel Yeshua Nemea Sariah moralia Mordechai bill Sean mispar big fire whom and Bona the number of the men from the people of Israel descendants of Perosh 2,170 two descendants as descendants of shift yeah 372 descendants of Marah 775 descent descendants of Pahoa from the descendants of Yeshua and you off 2812 descendants of alam 1254 descendants of za - 945 descendants of Zakai 760 descendants of Bani 6 forty-two descendants of Babai 623 descendants of Oz God 1222 descendants of a donut calm 666 descendants of big vy 2056 descendants of adine 454 descendants of a tear of jade seah 98 descendants of bits i 3:23 descendants of your ah 112 descendants of hashem 223 descendants of Gabbar 95 descendants of Beit lehem 123 that people of not tufa 56 people anna talked 128 descendants of Ozma vet 42 descendants of Kiryat arene ephyra and barreled 743 descendants of Rahman gaiba 621 people of McMath 122 people of beit el and i 223 descendants of neighbor 52 descendants of MOG beach 156 descendants of the other a Lomb 1254 descendants of harine 320 descendants of load Hadid and Oh No 725 descendants of year at home 345 sentence of Senna ah 3630 the KO honey the priests descendants of yeh did yah of the house of yeshua 973 descendants of Amer 1052 descendants of pascha 1247 descendants of a hurry 1017 the live Ayane the levites descendants of Yeshua and cog me el of the descendants of javea the singers descendants of a soft 128 the descendants of the gatekeepers descendants of Shalu descendants of matterr descendants of Tom own decisions about who've descendants of hikita and descendants of show by in all 139 the temple service descendants of Xena sense of how so far descendants of Tybalt descendants of Chios descendants of sea aha descendants of Pedone descendants of Lebanon descendants of Aqaba descendants of a cuve descendants of hagatha descendants of saw my descendants of Hanan descendants of goodell descendants of gajja descendants of Reyat descendants in racine descendants of naquadah descendants of kazaaam descendants of Jews are descendants of pasa the sentence of besides sentences na descendants of man neem descendants of nephew seem descendants of baku descendants of HA Fuuka descendents of her descendents of bots lute descendants of maja the sentence of harsh our descendents of Marcos descendants of cease raw descendants of tamiya descendants of net Sofia descendants of haughty Fah the descendants of Shlomo's servants Solomon servants the citizens of sotai descendants of hasa furet descendants of Prudhoe descendants of Ya Allah descendants of dark own descendants of Cattell descendants of chef teah descendents of hot eel this ends the pokel redhots Mayim and descendants up on me all the temple servants and the descendants of servants number 392 now the following went up from tell mala tell her shockeroo of Adhan and amer but they would not could not state which father's clan their their children belong to so it was not clear whether they were from israel descendents of daily yeah descendants of tobio and dissidents of Nakota 652 and of the descendants of the KO hunting the priests descendants of javea descendents of coats descendants of Barzilai who took a wife from the daughters of bars di Barzilai the gila de and was named after them these tried to locate their genealogical records but they weren't found therefore they were considered defiled they were not allowed to serve as priests the tearsheet ah told them not to eat any of the special especially holy food tell a priest appeared who could consult the Orient to me the entire assembly numbered forty two thousand three hundred and sixty not including their male and female slaves of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty seven they also had two hundred male and female singers their horses numbered 736 mules two forty five camels for thirty-five and their donkeys 6720 some of the heads of father's clans when they came to the house of a denying yerushalayim made voluntary offerings for rebuilding the house of God on site and according to their means they gave in to the Treasury for the work sixty one thousand gold dark bull neem five thousand my name of silver and a hundred tunics for the Kohanim for the priests so the priests the Levites some of the people the singers the gatekeepers and the temple servants lived in their towns and all Israel and their towns okay catch my breath here now what's been described here is the first wave of Jews to return to Judah now when I say first wave I don't necessarily mean that these were the first or the only Jews to go back with this group it's generally thought today by Bible historians that the names listed didn't go as one big group in one long procession that arrived back in Judah simultaneously rather this list is comprised of folks who came back in various stages starting around 538 BC - perhaps 521 BC so this list is a composite list that was compiled by the editor of Ezra from other records and documents in fact the same list appears in other places in the Bible such as in Nehemiah 7 it also appears in the Greek version of Ezra this called estrus that said there are some minor differences among these various accounts in the list of the names and places and in the listing of the numbers of people and in the items that were taken with them further most of the numbers don't add up to the sum totals that are given however if we assume that it's the sum total of people and of items that are correct and that it is the listing of individual people and items it's been corrupted by inadvertent copyist errors in each of times then we can begin by saying that something around 50,000 Jews returned to Judah from their homes in the Persian Empire in this first wave and this means that at least 95 percent of all living Jews in the sixth century BC elected not to go back to their homeland thus those who returned had strong reasons to go after all the province of Judah especially the holy city of Jerusalem still lay in ruins and there was a political opposition from those in surrounding areas to rebuilding Jerusalem in the temple and we're gonna discuss that in detail in later chapters some of those reasons to return no doubt were spiritually driven but others were more practical and it had much to do with a hope of reclaiming land and fields and orchards that their families had owned at one time we must remember that depending on which wave of Jewish deportees that were exiled from Judah to Babylon that one was a part of no Jewish family at this time and been separated from their land holdings any longer than 70 years and others as short as 50 years so just as we see today that Jews are still recovering property and receiving reparations resulting from their mass imprisonment by the Nazis in World War two fifty to seventy years is not enough time for families to just become fully disconnected from her forget about what at one time was theirs so this is why we see mention at the end of verse one that these Jewish returnees that of these Jewish returnees some returned to Jerusalem mostly the deal with rebuilding the temple but others returned to Judah each to his own City in other words to reclaim their land holdings then we get a listing of leading men who headed up this first wave of returning Jews and we get a similar list and Nehemiah chapter 7 and while mostly the same there are a couple of differences now we're not going to delve deeply into these discrepancies but what we can conclude from it would involve way too much speculation if we did I'm just gonna sum it up by saying that while and as in our is relisting we find the names Sariah Raiola mich par and room in this nia mya 7 list we find instead of those names Azaria Rama Rama mich Perret and nee who Plus and Nehemiah a name is added that doesn't appear in Israel na Himani now some of this can be explained away is simply spelling variations and and some has very likely the result of different ways the names were pronounced in ancient times however not everything were so easily some differences may be due to who exactly was considered important enough to list as one of these important leaders and some might be due to copy errors of the ancient Hebrew text nonetheless the lists are essentially the same there are however a couple of names but I want us to look at because they will provide some continuity as we study Ezra and Nehemiah and also as we incorporate the prophets from that era mainly a guy and Zephaniah now the first name listed indicating his preeminence is zerubabbel we discussed last time that this name has caused some problems because in Chapter one it seems as though the highest-ranked leader of the return was a fellow named Bazaar and then at the beginning of chapter two the leader is called Zerubbabel and for the longest time scholars thought that this was the same person who went by two different names his Babylonian name and his Hebrew name that was kind of a common practice however extensive study and new discoveries makes it makes it very unlikely and more likely it is that these were two different but related people and as we discovered in our last lesson 1st chronicles chapter 3 gives us a listing of David's royal descendants and in that list is a man named Shin Azhar who is the uncle of Zerubbabel and almost certainly scheana's are is an alternative alternate spelling for shesh bazaar and this is all the more likely because back in chapter 1 this shesh bazaar is said to be a priest anon priest i rather a prince or a chief an aussie of judah this means shesh bazaar had to be royalty of judah and the only legitimate royalty of judah was king david's line thus for reasons not recorded bizarre turned over leadership to his nephew is a room Abell maybe it was due to death maybe his ship shesh bazaar was too frail or elderly to make the four month journey hmm so the younger saruba velak today just don't know now I want to remind you one more time about names of persons and places in the Bible this is so important to get they can be confusing and challenging because they vary and yet can still be very accurate and there are three primary reasons for these variations first is that they are the same name but they're in different languages second is sometimes place names just change over time and third words can be pronounced differently depending on one's location southerners I don't know that real well for example once while traveling cross-country I stopped in a well-known city in Kentucky to get gasoline and as I talked to the station attendant I asked him how to get back on the interstate highway he told me to take a Louisville Street take Louisville Street to another Street and make a turn and I drove around for a half an hour I could never find Louisville Street finally I got free stress frustrated and I pulled over I asked another local walk where Louisville Street was and he said you're on it and I looked up and there on the street sign it said Louisville aha Louisville is pronounced Louisville by the locals and depending on who you talk to this place is all call also called Louisville now imagine that you are a recorder of history and you were supposed to write down the name of this place in history book but you also have to do it in a foreign language and especially a language that uses an entirely different alphabet see here's the same place that's pronounced in the same language in at least three different ways and essentially all writing has the goal of using written characters to capture and tell us the sound of a spoken word there is no way you could write down the spoken words Louisville Louisville and Louisville using the same spelling let me give you another example that even involves variant spellings and pronunciations that employ the same language just enunciated differently in different locations the word scheduled is pronounced sheduled in England while pronounced skid new schedule in the USA now if we stuck to our common alphabet correctly to capture the sound of that word in England it ought to be spelled s HED y ool shed you'll in the u.s. it should be spelled s ke D you al skin you'll and if that happened a few hundred years from now language experts would argue whether these two spellings were the same word or if they even met two different things the only way you know is to delve deeply into each culture to ferret out exactly what people meant by those words and how they sounded when they were spoken this is what we regularly encounter in the Bible so until proven otherwise I'm going to go forward saying scheana's R is shesh bizarre and this person is a ruby Belle's uncle now the next name in the list that I want to talk about is one that is very familiar to Heep to the Messianic folks Yeshua now the usual Western Christian pronunciation of this word is of course Jesus the issuer we find here in Ezra is of course not Jesus of Nazareth but this Yeshua of the Ezra list is an important figure he is a priest and in fact he will be the first high priest of the rebuilt temple and the restored priesthood in Jerusalem hmm and since yoshua is such an important name to believers Gentile or Jew I just want to remind you that Yeshua is exactly the same name as Joshua the only difference is that Yeshua is a contraction for the for more formal name Yeshua which is an alternate Hebrew spelling for Joshua so for all practical purposes Yeshua Yeshua Yeshua and Joshua they're all the same name just pronounced slightly differently spelled slightly differently this Yeshua was the son of josedech and grandson of seraya and Sariah was the last high priest of Israel Judah really to preside before the temple was destroyed and then he was put to death by Nebuchadnezzar it's fascinating to me that a fellow named Yeshua which means God saves would be the high priest of the restoration of God's temple land people and of the law of Moses as the Jews returned from their babylonian exile and that our issuer the messiah will be the high priests of the final restoration of God's temple land people and the law of Moses as we enter the Millennium this is a god pattern in a prophecy it's not some happy coincidence now verse 2 ends with the words the number of men from the people of Israel and then there's a listing of names under that category that commences now there's more to this statement that what it might say first of all notice that lists we find in chapter 2 are broken into categories they have different headings the first category consists of those names from verse 2 that is that are of especially important leaders then beginning in verse 3 is a listing of laypeople verse 36 starts a list of priests Kohanim verse 40 is a list of Levites next in verse 41 are the singers verse 42 the gatekeepers verse 45 a long list of temple servants called in Hebrew Metheny myrrh and then after that we have a group that begins in verse 45 labeled as Solomon's servants we're going to talk about the remaining two categories later see here's the thing to notice the three major group headings are the Israelites the priests and the Levites we have to go all the way back to Leviticus and to numbers to recall that the Lord separated the tribe of levy away from Israel Levy would no longer be counted as among their brothers the other tribes of Israel as being part of Israel there are several verses that address this issue but here's one that sums it up well in numbers 1820 I don't I said to Aaron you are not to have any inheritance or portion in their land I am your portion and inheritance among the people of Israel so this of Ezra is recognizing that the tribe of levy is not part of Israel and that levy itself is divided into two groups priests and non priests but wait why does this refer to Israel and then give a series of names and places that are actually associated with Judah I mean shouldn't this be speaking of the lay people of Judah not referring to the lay people of Israel after all this passage is about an exodus of Judah eight Jews back to Judah two centuries earlier the ten northern tribes of Israel called Ephraim Israel had been removed from their lands scattered throughout the Asian continent by the Assyrians and they simply became absorbed into countless Gentile nations where they went so there are a number of opinions about why the word Israel appears here and how it is that we ought to take its meaning I think it's actually fairly straightforward not so challenging to understand but there are several elements involved and they're all important to us first of all the Torah describes a time out in the wilderness when the tribes of Israel were divided by God into two groups the lay people we be called Israel the priestly group the Levites so the editor of Ezra is recalling this divine division of Israel and he uses that as his rationale for establishing these several categories of people that are named in Ezra chapter 2 second is that because the ten northern tribes called Israel had been scattered and dispersed for so long and their Hebrew identity had become greatly diluted some cases forgotten the Jews of Judah began to think of themselves as the only surviving remnant of all Israel they thought of themselves to be representative of all Israel all 12 tribes not just the two tribes of Judah and a Benjamin third it's true a handful of folks from the ten northern tribes had migrated to Judah between the time of the Assyrian exile of the ten northern tribes which is around 722 BC and the Babylonian exile of Judah about 606 BC but there's no evidence that those who had migrated into Judah had kept their formal tribal identities rather they had mostly assimilated and over that hundred years or so and just become Judah i'ts whatever if you might not have assimilated it seems to be an in significantly small number and as we're going to eventually learn and Ezra chapter 8 once the temple was rebuilt and the priesthood was ready to again function a series of sacrifices to dedicate the temple and the priesthood to place everything about the dedication ceremony revolved around the number 12 which is symbolic of the 12 tribes for instance 12 priests were chosen the ceremonial procession began on the 12th day of the month and twelve Bulls were sacrificed and verse 35 of Ezra chapter 8 specifically states that the 12 Bulls were meant to represent all Israel thus the tradition began with the return from Babylon from the Babylonian exile that the Jews considered themselves at that point to be all Israel notice I said tradition because this well-meaning thought to see themselves as all Israel was a fiction they were not all Israel in fact Ezekiel speaks of a day when the ten tribes of Ephraim Israel would eventually join with Judah to reform all Israel Ezekiel spoke this prophecy around the time Nebuchadnezzar was conquering Judah and it is likely that the Jews were assuming that this prophecy that was spoken about 70 years earlier was referring to the return to Judah from their Babylonian exile yet when we read Ezekiel 37 the last few verses make it clear that couldn't possibly be so Ezekiel is directly linked to why it is that the editor of Ezra probably chose to call the returning Jews Israel instead of Judah so we're going to stop and we're going to read Ezra 37 in its entirety now we've read it before in earlier lessons but because it is so pertinent to us now and in the immediate future it's sure were that sure worth looking at again so open your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 37 very powerful chapter Ezekiel chapter 37 if you have a complete Jewish Bible it is page 691 here we go Ezekiel chapter 37 with the hand of a doe and I upon me I don't I carried me out by his spirit and sent me down in the middle of a valley and it was full of both bones he had me passed by all around them there were so many bones lying in the valley they were so dry and he asked me human being can these bones live I answered Adonai Elohim only you know that and then he said to me prophesy over these bones say to them dry bones hear what Adonai has to say to these bones Adonai Elohim says I will make breath into you and you will live I will attach ligaments to you make flesh grow on you cover you with skin put breath in you you will live and you will know that I'm at and I so I prophesied it or as ordered and while I was prophesying there was a noise a rattling sound it was the bones coming together each bone in his proper place and as I watched ligaments grew on them flesh appeared skin covered them but there was no breath in them next he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy human being saying to the breath that Adonai Elohim says come from the four winds breathe and breathe on these slain so that they can live so I prophesied as ordered and the breath came into them and they were alive and they stood up on their feet of the huge army and then he said to me human being these bones are the whole house of Israel and they are saying our bones have dried up our hope is gone we are completely cut off therefore prophesy and say to them at oh I don't I Elohim says my people I will open your graves and make you get up out of your graves I'll bring you into the Land of Israel then you will know that I am at an I who had what when I have opened your graves and made you get up out of your graves my people I'll put my spirit in you you will be alive then I will place you in your own land and you will that ayat and I have spoken that I have done it says that and I the word of at and I came to me you human being take one stick and write on it for Judah and for those joined with him among the people of Israel take another stick and write on it for Joseph the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel who's joined with him and finally bring them together into a single stick so that they become one in your hand and when your people ask you what all of this means tell them that Adonai Adonai Elohim says this I will take the stick of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim together with the tribes of Israel who are joined with him put them together with the stick of Judah and make them a single stick so that they become one in my hand the six on which you write are to be in your hand as they watch then say to them that I don't know Elohim says I will take the people of Israel from among the nations where they have gone and gather them from every side and bring them back to their own land I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel and one King will be king for all of them they will no longer be two nations they will never again be divided into two kingdoms they will never again defile themselves with their idols their detestable things any of their transgressions but I will save them from all places where they've been living and sinning I'll cleanse them so that they will be my people and I'll be their God my servant David will be king over them and all of them will have one shepherd they will live by my ruling z-- and keep and observe my regulations they will live in the land I gave to Jacob my servant where your ancestors lived they will live there they their children their grandchildren forever David my servant will be their leader forever I will make a covenant of peace with them and everlasting covenant I will give to them increase their numbers set my sanctuary among them forever my home will be with them I'll be their God we'll be my people the nations will know that I am Adonai who says Israel apart as Holy when my sanctuary is with them forever so there you have it there will be a time when the tribes of Ephraim Israel will be rejoined with the tribes of Judah they will then go back to the mountains of Israel and reconstruct a sovereign nation and if you're I were among the pious and zealous Jews returning home to Judah from Babylon and from Persia and if we only wish to concern ourselves with the first 21 verses of Ezekiel 37 and to ignore the last seven verses of this chapter then it's easy to see why they would assume why you would assume that this prophecy was pointing to their return home from their Babylonian exile but when we read those final seven verses it is made clear that what they will re-establish is a permanent sovereign nation and a descendant of David will rule over them forever the problem is that they would never again until 1948 of our current era be sovereign and they would not be under a Davidic King they're still not obviously and they would not remain in that land forever rather not long after Christ's death the temple would once again be destroyed and Jerusalem decimated this time by the Romans the Jews would not have their own king the Jews would once again be exiled so the events of Ezekiel 37 can't possibly have referred to the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile as a result of what we read today in the second chapter of Ezra the Jews of the modern State of Israel have continued in this 2500 year old Jewish tradition that they are the twelve tribes of Israel however some are starting to face up to this fantasy as the ten so-called lost tribes have only recently re-emerged from their hiding places in Asia and they are insisting they have the right to go home to Israel not as Judah not as Jews but rather as Ephraim Israelites and through some newly modified laws of Israel and some rethinking on the part of some of the chief rabbis in Israel the realization is slowly settling in as the Jews don't represent all twelve tribes just two of them the other ten tribes are starting to trickle home is Ephraim Israelites joining with their Jewish brothers as illustrated by that two sticks prophecy and so the fulfillment think about this the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 is finally underway but it's not happening in the sixth century BC as those Jewish returnees from Babylon thought instead it's in the twenty first century AD right before our very eyes we are the eyewitnesses of the fulfilling of Ezekiel 37 what a privilege see this is a great lesson for all believers Jewish or Gentile the Jews of old thought they saw prophecy partially fulfilled and they thought close enough and thus they jumped to some conclusions that proved to be false and as we read the prophecies of the latter days and the end times we need to realize well that it's all gonna come true not just part of it and it will be full and it will be complete or partial and exactly how it looks when it happens is difficult to impossible for us to know right now we just have to maintain faith that it will happen and we need to be on the lookout for it to happen let's now spend just a short time deciphering these several lists of names that form ezra chapter 2 we'll just be a few minutes with this first the names that are presented come in two forms family names and place names so from verses three through twenty we have a list of clan or family names who are going back to judah from verses 21 to 35 we have we don't have the names of people we have the names of cities and towns that certain exiles originally came from and they're on their way back to where they believe they still have land holdings to reclaim as their own and it is important to note that all of these place names all of these cities and towns lie within the territory of Judah not to the former territory of the northern ten tribes let me also address something that I've heard some he poops folks and Jews claim it is that many of these names listed are associated clans of the ten northern tribes of Ephraim Israel that's possibly indicating that many of the 10 Lost Tribes are among this group this claim has no validity in my research of excellent ancient language experts and the top-tier modern Bible scholars there is no way to differentiate whether these names are associated with Jew Benjamin Ephraim Dan Rubin or any other specific tribe there's no way to know now the list of Kohanim the list of priests starting at verse 36 is short there's only four family names given and that would make sense because there were only ever a handful of priestly families and so their numbers would be comparatively small this list can be directly connected to the list of priestly families in first chronicles chapter 24 chapter 24 after the priests are listed the Levites the singers the gatekeepers are listed and it's rather surprising that the number of Levite temple workers is so few as compared to the priests one would expect the number of Levite temple workers to be a factor of at least three or four times higher than the number of priests whom the Levites served we can only speculate the sense the Levites were the blue-collar workers who held menial jobs they were essentially servants to the higher class priests there weren't very many Levites in Persia and Babylon all that eager to return in fact later on in chapter 8 we're gonna find Ezra complaining that he can only muster 38 of them to come and serve now most scholars and rabbis believe that the singers were also Levites the gatekeepers jobs were to keep the temple and the treasury safe and secure there was a sizable number of gatekeepers who returned 139 likely because the gut job carried some prestige and didn't involve very much arduous labor all of the Levites were listed by family name and not the Levitical City that their family had come from then we come to verse 43 and a class of workers called temple servants or Nathan NEMA and these appear to be the lowliest class of temple workers this class was subordinate to both the priests and the common Levite temple workers that Nathan team were the servants of the servants so to speak but there's some controversy about just who these folks are very likely they were originally a mixture of foreigners who were captured in war and assigned to the worst-possible temple duties that no Levite wanted along with the Gibeonites people from benjamin who were one-time punished almost to extinction and then some amount of hereditary Levites we've got a few more categories to go which we'll look at next week and we'll then next week we'll also get into chapter 3 as the Jews arrived back in Judah and now they begin to settle in and start the task of rebuilding the holy temple please rise [Music] you see [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

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Keywords: Ezra, Old Testament, Torah, Seed of Abraham, Torah Class, Tom Bradford, Bible Study An in depth, verse by verse, study of the book of Ezra. Lead, this Bible study takes us into m, customs, languages, time lines, critical events, not to mention an overview of ho

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Length: 53min 0sec (3180 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2019