It’s been 70 long years of exile. Cyrus, king of Persia, declares he wants to build God a Temple in Jerusalem. This is odd, because Cyrus is not a follower of the One True God. But Cyrus decrees that all the Hebrews who want to help build the Temple are welcome to go. With that, the exile is over. Whoo-hoo!! Things that Nebuchadnezzar had stolen from the Temple 70 years before will be restored.
Ezra records that 42,360 people returned to Jerusalem. They first rebuilt the altar so that they could make sacrifices, and two years after the return to Jerusalem they began to rebuild the Temple. (The prophet Haggai has more to say on this.) Finally, God will be able to dwell among His people again.
The other people who lived around jerusalem didn’t like the temple being rebuilt, so they sent a letter to king Darius. “These people said that Cyrus decreed they could their temple. Check this out for us.” Darius not only found it was true, he supported the effort and ordered everyone to leave them alone. They finished rebuilding the Temple in four years, which is a remarkable feat. Some of the cathedrals in Europe took decades, if not centuries, to complete.
Once the Temple was finished, there was a rededication and also a celebration of Passover, for it was that time of year. The whole land was full of joy!
Unfortunately, the neighboring people tried to make trouble again and wrote letters to the king complaining that the “new” people of Jerusalem would not pay taxes to the rulers of the land. The king wrote back, commanding that construction should stop. (Today this practice is know as “creating red tape.”) Finally, more letters from more rulers demanding that would everyone just please let the children of Israel alone so that they can rebuild their city.
After all this was settled, a scribe by the name of Ezra led a second wave of people out of Persia. King Artaxerxes had declared that they could go home and worship their God. Finally! And they had a new Temple, too!
Once they returned to Jerusalem, Ezra discovered a major problem--many of the men had married foreign wives. He, like Daniel, prayed a prayer of repentance on behalf of the nation of Israel. The people determined that the foreign wives should be sent away, and the children of these wives, too. That is how the book of Ezra ends, with details of record keeping.
Why is there so much emphasis on the foreign wives? The book of Ezra is 10 chapters long, and the foreign wives issue takes two of those chapters. The problem was not with the women themselves. Foreign wives meant foreign gods. The Israelites were to separate themselves from these other gods, and they had not done so--this broke their covenant with God, and resulted in the exile in the first place. After the exile, a repentant nation renewed their covenant with a gracious God.
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