Ezra Chapter 2 - Lesson
1. A registry is given of about 50,000 people who returned from Babylon captivity to the ruins of the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the house of the Lord after it had all been destroyed 70 years earlier by King Nebuchadnessar. Where did each of these return to live? vs. 1 In thereon cities
2. Who did they come with? vs. 1 - List 11 Names -
1)Zerubbabe
2) Jeshua
3)Nehemiah
4)Seraiah
5)Reelaiah
6)Mordecai
7)Bilshan
8)Mispar
9)Bigvai
10)Rehum
11)Baanah
1)Zerubbabe
2) Jeshua
3)Nehemiah
4)Seraiah
5)Reelaiah
6)Mordecai
7)Bilshan
8)Mispar
9)Bigvai
10)Rehum
11)Baanah
3. Every individual is accounted for from the heads of the households. (vs.2-35) ... How many does it total? vs. 35 - three thousand and ksix hundred and thirty
4. The priests are listed by their households. What is the number of priests from each of them? Give the household name and the number listed. vs.36-39 - 1) lJedaiah, of the house of mJeshua, nine hundred seventy and three.
2)The children of nImmer, a thousand fifty and two
3)The children of oPashur, a thousand two hundred forty and seven
4)The children of pHarim, a thousand and seventeen.
2)The children of nImmer, a thousand fifty and two
3)The children of oPashur, a thousand two hundred forty and seven
4)The children of pHarim, a thousand and seventeen.
5. How many are listed for the Levites that came? vs. 40) 74
6. What was the number of singers who came from the sons of Asaph? vs. 41) 128
7. The sons of the gatekeepers are listed. How many were there of all of them? vs. 42) 139
8. The temple servants are listed by households and the sons of Solomon's servants are listed as well. (vs.43-57) ..... What was the total of all of them combined? vs. 58 - 392
9. How many came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan and Immer? vs. 60)162
10. What was the dilemma they faced? vs. 59) Could not prove that they were of the12 tribes .
11. The sons of the priests were listed who searched their ancestral registration and could not be located. (vs.61,62) ... Therefore they were considered unclean and excluded from the priesthood. The governor said they should not eat of the most holy things until what happened? vs. 63 stood up a priest with hUrim and with Thummim
12. Do a Biblical word search on these things and see what the significance of this would be in making them clean to eat the most holy things. Share your results below:
- Thummim -is widely considered to be derived from the consonantal root תתּוּמִים (t-m-m), meaning innocen
There is no description of the form of the Urim and Thummim in the passage describing the high priest's vestments, and a number of scholars believe that the author of the passage, which textual scholars attribute to the priestly source, wasn't actually entirely aware of what they were either.[3] Nevertheless, the passage does describe them as beingput into the breastplate, which scholars think implies they were objects put into some sort of pouch within it, and then, while out of view, one (or one side, if the Urim and Thummimwas a single object) was chosen by touch and withdrawn or thrown out;[3] since the Urim and Thummim were put inside this pouch, they were presumably small and fairly flat, and were possibly tablets of wood or of bone.[3] With the view of scholars that Urim essentially means guilty and Thummim essentially means innocent, this would imply that the purpose of the Urim and Thummim was an ordeal to confirm or deny suspected guilt; if the Urim was selected it meant guilt, while selection of the Thummim would mean innocence. wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim
13. What is the total of the whole assembly? vs. 64 iforty and two thousand three hundred and threescore
14. How many male and female servants did they have? vs. 65 seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven
15. How many singing men and women were there? vs. 65 two hundred
16. They had a lot of livestock with them as well. Give the amount that came with them (vs.66,67): horses: _736____ mules:__245___camels: __435___ donkeys:__6720___
17. What did some of the heads of the father's households do when they arrived at the house of the Lord in Jerusalem? vs. 68 , offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place
18. How did they give this? vs. 69 after their ability
19. What was given to the treasury for the work? (vs.69) _threescore and one thousand ndrams ____ gold drachmas; __ five thousand opound___ silver minas; and _one hundred____ priestly garments.
20. Where did the priests, the Levites, the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants live? vs. 70 t in their cities
Application
21. How were the Jews feeling when they were in the Babylonian captivity? Comment on the following Scriptures to set up what it must have been like for them to be told they could follow their heart's desires to return and rebuild their homeland:
- Psalm 137:1-6 -he mournful posture they were in as to their affairs and as to their spirits. 1. They were posted by the rivers of Babylon, in a strange land, a great way from their own country, whence they were brought as prisoners of war. The land of Babylon was now a house of bondage to that people, as Egypt had been in their beginning. Their conquerors quartered them by the rivers, with design to employ them there, and keep them to work in their galleys; or perhaps they chose it as the most melancholy place, and therefore most suitable to their sorrowful spirits. If they must build houses there (Jer. 29:5), it shall not be in the cities, the places of concourse, but by the rivers, the places of solitude, where they might mingle their tears with the streams. We find some of them by the river Chebar(Eze. 1:3), others by the river Ulai, Dan. 8:2. 2. There they sat down to indulge their grief by poring on their miseries. Jeremiah had taught them under this yoke to sit alone, andkeep silence, and put their mouths in the dust, Lam. 3:28, 29. "We sat down, as those that expected to stay, and were content, since it was the will of God that it must be so.' 3. Thoughts of Zion drew tears from their eyes; and it was not a sudden passion of weeping, such as we are sometimes put into by a trouble that surprises us, but they were deliberate tears (we sat down and wept), tears with consideration-we wept when we remembered Zion,the holy hill on which the temple was built. Their affection to God's house swallowed up their concern for their own houses. They remembered Zion's former glory and the satisfaction they had had in Zion's courts, Lam. 1:7. Jerusalem remembered, in the days of her misery, all her pleasant things which she had in the days of old, Ps. 42:4. They remembered Zion's present desolations, and favoured the dust thereof, which was a good sign that the time for God to favour it was not far off, Ps. 102:13, 14. 4. They laid by their instruments of music (v. 2): We hung our harps upon the willows. (1.) The harps they used for their own diversion and entertainment. These they laid aside, both because it was their judgment that they ought not to use them now that God called to weeping and mourning (Isa. 22:12), and their spirits were so sad that they had no hearts to use them; they brought their harps with them, designing perhaps to use them for the alleviating of their grief, but it proved so great that it would not admit the experiment. Music makes some people melancholy. As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that sings songs to a heavy heart. (2.) The harps they used in God's worship, the Levites' harps. These they did not throw away, hoping they might yet again have occasion to use them, but they laid them aside because they had no present use for them; God had cut them out other work by turning their feasting into mourning and their songs into lamentations, Amos 8:10. Every thing is beautiful in its season. They did not hide their harps in the bushes, or the hollows of the rocks; but hung them up in view, that the sight of them might affect them with this deplorable change. Yet perhaps they were faulty in doing this; for praising God is never out of season; it is his will that we should in every thing give thanks, Isa. 24:15, 16.
22. Every person that returned was registered. This shows the importance of every individual who is part of the family of God. It takes everyone working together, but each person is known by God and cared for by Him. How does God see each one of us? Comment on the following Scriptures:
- Psalm 139:13-18 -He acknowledges, with wonder and thankfulness, the care God had taken of him all his days, v. 17, 18. God, who knew him, thought of him, and his thoughts towards him were thoughts of love, thought of good, and not of evil, Jer. 29:11. God's omniscience, which might justly have watched over us to do us hurt, has been employed for us, and has watched over us to do us good, Jer. 31:28. God's counsels concerning us and our welfare have been
- Luke 12:7 -To encourage us in times of difficulty and danger, we must have recourse to our first principles, and build upon them. Now a firm belief of the doctrine of God's universal providence, and the extent of it, will be satisfying to us when at any time we are in peril, and will encourage us to trust God in the way of duty
- Luke 12:24 -Our Lord Jesus is here inculcating some needful useful lessons upon his disciples, which he had before taught them, and had occasion afterwards to press upon them; for they need to have precept upon precept, and line upon line: "Therefore, because there are so many that are ruined by covetousness, and an inordinate affection to the wealth of this world, I say unto you, my disciples, take heed of it.' Thou, O man of God, flee these things,as well as thou, O man of the world, 1 Tim. 6:11.
- John 10:27-30 -A weighty question put to him by the Jews, v. 24. They came round about him, to tease him; he was waiting for an opportunity to do them a kindness, and they took the opportunity to do him a mischief. Ill-will for good-will is no rare and uncommon return. He could not enjoy himself, no, not in the temple, his Father's house, without disturbance. They came about him, as it were, to lay siege to him: encompassed him about like bees. They came about him as if they had a joint and unanimous desire to be satisfied; came as one man, pretending an impartial and importunate enquiry after truth, but intending a general assault upon our Lord Jesus; and they seemed to speak the sense of their nation, as if they were the mouth of all the Jews: How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ tell us.
23. Some gave freewill offering for the foundation of the house to be built. We should love our places of worship and give with a cheerful heart for the ministries that take place there. How does the Lord direct us in our giving responsibilities? Comment on the following Scriptures:
- Malachi 3:10 -
- 2 Corninthians 9:7 -
- Deuteronomy 15:10 -
- 2 Corinthians 8:12 -
24. Summarize this lesson and post a prayer if you would like: . That they are called children of the province. Judah, which had been an illustrious kingdom, to which other kingdoms had been made provinces, subject to it and dependent on it, was now itself made a province, to receive laws and commissions from the king of Persia and to be accountable to him. See how sin diminishes and debases a nation, which righteousness would exalt. But by thus being made servants (as the patriarchs by being sojourners in a country which was theirs by promise) they were reminded of the better country, that is, the heavenly (Heb. 11:16), akingdom which cannot be moved, or changed into a province. 3. That they are said to come every one to his city, that is, the city appointed them, in which appointment an eye, no doubt, was had to their former settlement by Joshua; and to that, as near as might be, they returned: for it does not appear that any others, at least any that were able to oppose them, had possessed them in their absence. 4. That the leaders are first mentioned, v. 2. Zerubbabel and Jeshua were their Moses and Aaron, the former their chief prince, the latter their chief priest. Nehemiah and Mordecai are mentioned here; some think not the same with the famous men we afterwards meet with of those names: probably they were the same, but afterwards returned to court for the service of their country. 5. Some of these several families are named from the persons that were their ancestors, others from the places in which they had formerly resided; as with us many surnames are the proper names of persons, others of places. 6. Some little difference there is between the numbers of some of the families here and in Neh. 7, where this catalogue is repeated, which might arise from this, that some who had given in their names at first to come afterwards drew back-said, I go, Sir, but went not, which would lessen the number of the families they belonged to; others that declined, at first, afterwards repented and went, and so increased the number. 7. Here are two families that are called the children of Elam (one v. 7, another v. 31), and, which is strange, the number of both is the same, 1254. 8. The children of Adonikam, which signifies a high lord, were 666, just the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18), which is there said to be the number of a man, which, Mr. Hugh Broughton thinks, has reference to this man. 9. The children of Bethlehem (v. 21) were but 123, though it was David's city; for Bethlehem was little among the thousands of Judah, yet there must the Messiah arise, Mic. 5:2. 10. Anathoth had been a famous place in the tribe of Benjamin and yet here it numbered but 128 (v. 23), which is to be imputed to the divine curse which the men of Anathoth brought upon themselves by persecuting Jeremiah, who was of their city.Jer. 11:21, 23, There shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evil upon the men ofAnathoth. And see Isa. 10:30, O poor Anathoth! Nothing brings ruin on a people sooner than persecution.
