Ezra 1:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ezra 1:5. Then rose up the chief of the fathers, &c. Eminent and experienced men, from whom it might justly be expected, that, as they were above their brethren in dignity, so they should go before them in duty. Of Judah and Benjamin And with them some of the other tribes, as appears from 1 Chronicles 9:3; but these only are named, because they were most considerable for number and quality. And the priests and Levites Who, as became them, were among the first that set their faces toward Zion. If any good work is to be done, let ministers take the lead in it. With all whose spirit God had raised, to go up Whom he had inspired with reverence and love for himself as the God of Israel, and a deep concern for the restoration of his worship at Jerusalem, and with that resolution and fortitude which were requisite to enable them to break through the difficulties and discouragements which were in their way. These were undoubtedly great and many; such as their present penury; the length, and hazards, and expenses of the journey; their being dispersed in several and distant places, which prevented the conjunction of their counsels and actions; the multitude of their enemies; the actual possession of their country by others; the ruinous state of Jerusalem, and the other cities and towns of Judea; and the great backwardness of many of their own brethren to go with them. Add to this, the temptation was strong to some of them to stay in Babylon, being conveniently and comfortably settled there, and having contracted an acquaintance with their neighbours, such as was agreeable and pleasing to them. By these and such like considerations, many were induced to remain where they were, or at least not to go with the first that went. But there were some that broke through these difficulties, and they were those whose spirits God had raised up: whom by his Spirit he had inspired with a generous desire of liberty, and a gracious affection to their own land, the land God had given them, and a desire for the free and public exercise of their religion. Had God left them to themselves, and to the counsels of flesh and blood, they would have stayed in Babylon: but, as he had raised up the spirit of Cyrus to proclaim this liberty, so he raised up their spirits to take the benefit of it, and set their faces toward Zion, as strangers asking the way thither, Jeremiah 50:5. For, being a new generation, they went out, like their father Abraham, from this land of the Chaldees, not knowing whither they went.