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zra was not just a priest and prophet. He was a scribe.
Scribes were men of education and papers. It would make perfect sense that he
would have kept careful records of what was going on as he and over 1500 other
Jews transitioned from Babylon to Jerusalem. As such, this chapter commences
with a listing of the chief men who went with Ezra on that westward journey.
Now, there were a couple of significant things that happened
at the outset of Ezra trip. First, he recognized that despite the
tax-exempt-status offered by Artaxerxes to the Levites who would go to work in
the temple (Ezra 7:24), they did not have any of the common Levites going with
him (Ezra 8:15). It was essential to have them going along since the task which
they were setting out to accomplish was specifically a holy mission dedicated
to the temple of God: Levites were necessary.
The
second important thing that Ezra had to deal with was the danger of the long
journey. Depending on their route, their trek may have been well over 700
miles. And, according to Ezra 8:31 there would be plenty of threats to
their safety along the way. But, the problem for Ezra was that he had stuck his
neck out by boldly proclaiming to the king that "God would take care of them." Since he had declared his
faith so openly, he felt unable to
then ask for human protection from the king's guard (Ezra 8:22). So, he didn’t.
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