Ezra 1:5 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin; and with them some of other tribes, as appears from 1 Chronicles 9:3; but these only are named, because they were most considerable for number and quality. Whose spirit God had raised to go up; to whom God had given that pious disposition, and that fortitude and resolution, which it required to break through their difficulties, which were great and many, such as their present penury, the length, and hazards, and costliness of the journey, their settlements in comfortable habitations, their dispersion in several and distant places, which hindered the conjunction of their counsels and actions, the multitude of their enemies, the actual possession of their country by others, the great backwardness of many of their own brethren to go with them, and many other discouragements.