Ezra 2:70 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And all Israel in their cities In the cities which their families had inhabited before their captivity. As to those who could not prove themselves Israelites by any genealogical register, they probably settled in those lands which were not claimed, or followed handicraft employments, of one sort or other, in the cities. Although their cities were out of repair, yea, in a ruinous state, yet, because they were their cities, such as God had assigned them, they were content to dwell in them; and were thankful for liberty and property, though they had little of pomp, plenty, or power. Their poverty was an afflictive cause, but their unity and unanimity were happy effects of it. Here was room enough for them all, and all their substance, so that there was no strife among them, but perfect harmony: a blessed presage of their comfortable settlement, as their discords in the latter times of that state were of their ruin.