PART II (Ezra 7-10). The Work of Ezra.
Ezra 7:1-10. Ezra's Genealogy; his Return to Palestine.
Ezra 7:1. Now after these things: i.e. those recorded as having taken place in the sixth year of Darius (Ezra 6:15). in the reign of Artaxerxes: 465- 425 B.C. What is now recorded took place in the seventh year (see Ezra 7:7) of Artaxerxes, i.e. in 458, so that a period of nearly sixty years is passed over in silence. For the genealogy of Ezra cf. 1 Chronicles 6:4-14. It is not complete; in addition to 1 Chronicles 6:4-14 see also 1 Chronicles 9:10 f., Nehemiah 11:11, Greek Ezra 8:1 f., Esther 1:1-3.
Ezra 7:6. a ready scribe in the law of Moses: for the rise of the scribes and their activity, see the present writer's The Books of the Apocrypha, Prolegomena, ch. 4. all his request: i.e. as contained in the letter in Ezra 7:12-26.
Ezra 7:7. Cf. Ezra 8:15 ff.; that in addition to the lay element there should have seen not only priests and Levites, but also singers, doorkeepers, and Nethinim in Babylon or its neighbourhood (see Ezra 8:17-20) witnesses to a considerable communal organisation among the Jews during the captivity.
Ezra 7:8. the fifth month: Ab = August approximately.
Ezra 7:9. on the first day of the first month: in Ezra 8:32 it is the twelfth day of the first month, i.e. of Nisan (= March approximately); they arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month, so that the journey from Babylon took about three months and a half. began he to go up: read he decided to go up, i.e. the matter was settled on this day; the actual start, owing to the delay mentioned in Ezra 8:15 ff., was not until the twelfth day of the same month.
Ezra 7:10. For Ezra had set his heart. : He only continued to do more fully what he had been doing among his people in Babylon.