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Today we are looking at Ezra 2. Rather than type out the entire chapter, I thought I’d share an audio version for you. 🙂
Do you remember that Cyrus, king of Persia had issued a proclamation that a house was to be built for the Lord in Jerusalem? And those of the people who wished to return could and there were those who did so. They were sent on their way with “30 basins of gold, 1,000 basins of silver, 29 censers, 30 bowls of gold, 410 bowls of silver, and 1,000 other vessels; all the vessels of gold and of silver were 5,400“.
In today’s chapter we learn about the people who went. There were a lot of them. 🙂 I’m seriously not going to go through all the numbers. The people who came didn’t just go generally to Jerusalem, but to the towns they came out of. The men came (assuming with their families), the Levites came, the temple workers, Solomon’s servants, the priests, the singers, and the gatekeepers. All these people answered the call, the proclamation that the house of the Lord be built.
I am sure that if I knew the houses and lines of the people of Israel intimately all these names would make sense and would mean something. Kinda like I can talk with mom about dutch people in the reformed church and she’ll go “oh, I know them and that one and… that’s interesting.” but if I talk about the same people with someone outside of the Dutch tradition and I get blank stares. KNOWING family history, KNOWING a people’s history, helps you to know the intimate details which helps lists like this make more sense.
In lieu of me understanding these intimate details, all I can say is …that’s a goodly amount of people. I wonder what percentage that was of the entire group. But all these people, they heard God’s Call through Cyrus’ proclamation and they up and left. Taking with them needed supplies, including animals.
