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Ezra The Scribe
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And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity,
and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the
heathen of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel, did eat.
EZRA means (help), called ESDRAS in the Apocrypha, the famous
scribe and priest.
He was a learned and pious priest residing at Babylon in the
time of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The origin of his influence with
the king does not appear, but in the seventh year of his reign
he obtained leave to go to Jerusalem, and to take with
him a company of Israelites. ( B.C. 457.)
The journey from Babylon to Jerusalem took just four months;
and the company brought with them a large freewill offering of gold and
silver, and silver vessels.
It appears that Ezra's great design was to effect a religious
reformation among the Palestine Jews. His first step was to
enforce separation upon all who had married foreign wives.
Ezra 10:1. This was effected in little more than six months
after his arrival at Jerusalem.
With the detailed account of this important transaction Ezra's
autobiography ends abruptly, and we hear nothing more of him till,
thirteen years afterwards, in the twentieth of Artaxerxes,
we find him again at Jerusalem with Nehemiah.
It seems probable that after effecting the above reformations he
returned to the king of Persia.
The functions he executed under Nehemiah's government were
purely of a priestly and ecclesiastical character.
The date of his death is uncertain. There was a Jewish tradition that he
was buried in Persia.
The principal works ascribed to him by the Jews are
1. The instruction of the great synagogue;
2. The settling
the canon of Scripture, and restoring, correcting and editing the whole
sacred volume;
3. The introduction of the Chaldee
character instead of the old Hebrew or Samaritan;
4. The
authorship of the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and, some add,
Esther; and, many of the Jews say, also of the books of
Ezekiel, Daniel, and the twelve prophets
5. The establishment of synagogues.
• Exactly 2520 years from the exile
of Benjamin, Iceland became an independent nation.
•
The first tribe to be
conquered by the Assyrians was Manasseh,
in 745 B.C. Exactly 2520 years later America became a nation on July 4, 1776.
(Leviticus. 26: 28-46) God warned Israel that if they persisted in continually
breaking His Laws, not only would curses come upon them.
He would punish them for seven times, (a time being 360 years, seven times would
be 2520 years) and would banish them from the land of Palestine and scatter them
among the heathens (like lost sheep)
• Study the book:
Abrahamic Covenant,
(A study outline of the identity of God's people) By E. Raymond Capt
- page 25
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