Some parts of the Bible are exciting. Some parts inform or draw us to praise. Some are convicting. Some read like the White Pages we used to have before we abandoned phonelines. Ezra 2 sits very much in that last category. What relevance does it have to a busy modern parent, a stressed worker, a fearful soul?
Ezra 2 is all about God keeping his promises. Yes, it is a long list of names. But they were the faces that went with the fulfilment of God’s promises to bring his people back to the land. Those names, listed one after the other, remind us of how God works to bring about salvation. He does so in the lives of real people, who have names and faces like we do.
In chapter 1 of Ezra, we saw God is in control. God caused Cyrus, the king of Persia, to order the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and provided for the returnees who would go to do this. God also caused Cyrus to return various items taken from the Temple by the Babylonians (who the Persians had in turn conquered) so these could be returned to God’s use.
Chapter 2 provides a long list of returnees to the land of Judah. “These were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried captive to Babylonia. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town” (v.1). While many Jews remained behind, the group listed in chapter 2 are the families who returned to the province to reoccupy it.
The first group listed are the leaders of the returnees. There are eleven names listed (v.2), plus Sheshbazzar at the end of chapter 1. Included in this list is Zerubabbel, who was later a governor of Judah, a descendant of David, and an ancestor of Jesus (Matt. 1:12-13). Twelve returnees. Twelve tribes. Twelve apostles. Here was the core of phase 1 of regathering God’s People.
The second group listed in verses two to thirty-five are the common folk! Some are listed by name and family ties, others by location. Those by location may have been poor, while the named folk are the notable and quotable. Either way, everyone had a place in the return. God called people, rich and poor, to leave behind what they had for the uncertainty and hope of serving God in a new beginning in Judah.
In verses 36 to 39, Ezra’s list turned to the priesthood. Four clans of priests are mentioned, who total 4,289 people. That is ten percent of those who returned. We should not be surprised. The priestly families would be those most likely to want to restore the worship of God as it had been previously, and kept the hoped-for dream alive during long years of exile.
With the priests came a smaller group of Levites (vv.40-42). Without a Temple, they would have had little work to do, and become disillusioned. But a small group returned to take up their God-given role of assisting the priests with keeping the Temple grounds.
With them came a band of temple servants, and servants of Solomon (vv.43-58). Many were originally slaves captured in wars, but their descendants were true believers, who answered God’s call to return. No longer slaves, but servants of the Living God.
Finally were a group who lacked a family record to prove they were Israelites (vv.59-63). Their status was uncertain until God could demonstrate whether they belonged to him, or were attaching themselves for other reasons.
More than 42,000 returned, plus male and female servants (vv.64-67). They faced uncertain times. Jerusalem and the Temple were rubble.
Despite this, there was a sense of optimism. “Some of the heads of families, when they came to the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem, made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site” (v.68) providing funding and garments to start the work of rebuilding God’s place, amongst God’s people, in the land God gave them (vv.69-70).
This return demonstrated God keeping his promises. Jeremiah (25:11) prophesied that the exile would last 70 years, and now God’s people returned to rebuild. But God’s people had faces and names behind them, they were not just a concept. God works in real time, with real people. Like us.
Further, God uses all sorts of people to achieve his ends. Priests and Levites and leaders make sense in this list. The priests form a massive part of the rebuilding team, as we would expect. But God also called ordinary people, and even those descended from slaves to the high calling of rebuilding his presence. We too, whatever our place in the church, and whatever our role might be, have a part in the worship and witness of God in the world around us.
Ezra 2 could have simply listed numbers, not names. But it doesn’t, because God uses people, not numbers, to serve in his kingdom.