50 Fun Facts About Book of Ezra

When the new temple's foundation was laid in Ezra 3, how did the old men who had seen the first one react?

They wept aloud while others shouted for joy, and the two sounds mixed so thoroughly that nobody could tell the gladness from the grief.

Which Persian king's proclamation, letting the exiles go home to rebuild God's house, opens the Book of Ezra?

Cyrus not only freed the exiles but handed back the gold and silver vessels that had been looted from Jerusalem and kept in a pagan shrine.

On hearing the princes' report in Ezra 9, Ezra tore his garment and robe and did what else to himself?

Ezra pulled out his hair, from head and beard alike, then sat down confounded while those who trembled at God's words gathered round him.

What weather left the men of Judah trembling as they sat in the open square before God's house in Ezra 10?

Heavy rain soaked the crowd, and the people pleaded that they could not stand outside in such a season while every case was heard.

The Book of Ezra originally shared one scroll with which book, named after a rebuilder of Jerusalem's wall?

Nehemiah and Ezra stayed a single book in Hebrew Bibles until the first printed rabbinic editions split them in the early 16th century.

According to Ezra 3, what did the returned exiles build first in Jerusalem, before the temple foundation was laid?

The altar came first, set on its base despite the builders' fear of the surrounding peoples, so that daily burnt offerings could resume at once.

In Ezra 3, the returned exiles paid the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar trees from where?

Lebanon supplied the cedar, which was brought by sea to Joppa and paid for with food, drink and oil.

What stopped Ezra from asking the Persian king for soldiers and horsemen to guard the caravan to Jerusalem?

He was ashamed to, having already told the king that God protects all who seek him, so a request for an escort would have looked like doubt.

What practice among the returned exiles, reported by the princes in Ezra 9, drove Ezra to mourning and confession?

Marrying foreign women was the charge, and the princes admitted that the leaders and rulers themselves had been foremost in it.

Besides being a priest, what was the profession of Ezra when he came up from Babylon to Jerusalem?

Scribe, skilled in the law of Moses, is how the text introduces Ezra, and the Persian king is said to have granted him everything he requested.

According to Ezra 1, which Babylonian king had carried the temple vessels off from Jerusalem to the house of his gods?

Nebuchadnezzar, who also destroyed the first temple, had taken them, and the exiles carried 5,400 gold and silver pieces back home.

Which governor, the son of Shealtiel, is named first among the exiles who returned from Babylon in Ezra 2?

Zerubbabel was a grandson of Jeconiah, the exiled king of Judah, so an heir of the old dynasty led the first caravan home.

Ezra 1 says the Persian decree to free the exiles fulfilled words spoken by which Hebrew prophet?

Jeremiah had promised that after seventy years in Babylon the exiles would be brought back to their own land.

To which prince of Judah did the Persians count out the returned temple vessels in Ezra 1?

Sheshbazzar received the vessels and is later credited with laying the temple's foundations, yet after that he vanishes from the story.

In Ezra 2, priests who could not prove their ancestry were barred until a priest could consult what?

Urim and Thummim were kept in the high priest's breastplate for seeking God's verdict, and until they could be used these families ate none of the most holy food.

Roughly how many people does Ezra 2 count in the whole assembly that returned from exile in Babylon?

About 42,000 is the scale: the text totals 42,360, then adds 7,337 servants and 200 singers on top.

Ezra 2 counts horses, mules, camels and which far more numerous animal among the returning exiles' livestock?

Donkeys numbered 6,720, nearly five times the horses, mules and camels put together, which shows what really carried the caravan's baggage.

Which seventh-month festival did the returned exiles keep in Ezra 3 before the temple foundation was laid?

Feast of Booths, also called Tabernacles or Sukkot, commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, a fitting festival for people just home from another captivity.

Which instruments did the sons of Asaph play when the temple foundation was laid in Ezra 3?

Cymbals were the Asaphites' part while the priests in their vestments blew trumpets, an arrangement credited to a much earlier ruler.

At the temple foundation ceremony in Ezra 3, the musicians followed directions laid down by which king of Israel?

David had set Asaph and his descendants aside to worship in song and music, so the returned exiles were reviving a tradition far older than the exile.

In Ezra 4, what did the adversaries who approached the family heads in Jerusalem first offer them?

To join the construction was their offer, on the grounds that they too had worshipped Israel's God since being resettled there, but the leaders turned them down flat.

Several official letters quoted in the Book of Ezra switch from Hebrew into which language of Persian administration?

Aramaic had become the main language of public life under Persian rule, and Daniel is the only other Old Testament book with long passages in it.

Which prophet, named alongside Zechariah son of Iddo, stirred the Jews to resume building the temple in Ezra 5?

Haggai has a short book of his own, in which he scolds the people for living in panelled houses while God's house lay in ruins.

In Ezra 5, which governor of the province Beyond the River wrote to Darius questioning the temple builders' authority?

Tattenai is more than a name in a story: a clay tablet dated to 502 BC mentions a servant of a governor of Across-the-River called Tattannu.

After Darius ordered the archives searched in Ezra 6, the scroll of the original decree turned up in which province?

Media held the scroll, in the palace at Achmetha, better known as Ecbatana, the old Median capital that Persian rulers used as a summer seat.

In Ezra 6, anyone who altered Darius's temple edict was to be fastened to what?

A beam from his house was to be torn out for the purpose, and the house itself was then to be turned into a dunghill.

Under Darius's decree in Ezra 6, who had to cover the expenses of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem?

The royal treasury paid, out of the tribute collected beyond the River, so the very officials who had queried the work ended up funding it.

The letter of accusation sent to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4 described Jerusalem as what kind of city?

A rebellious one, the writers claimed, urging the king to search his fathers' records and warning that he would lose everything west of the River.

In Ezra 4, which official wrote to Artaxerxes against Jerusalem and then hurried there to halt the Jews by force?

Rehum got the answer he wanted: the king ordered the city's rebuilding stopped, and Rehum and Shimshai went to enforce the ban in person.

The adversaries in Ezra 4 claimed they had sacrificed to Israel's God since the days of which Assyrian king?

Esarhaddon, the Assyrian conqueror of Egypt, was the ruler who had brought their ancestors into the land, by their own account.

At the temple dedication in Ezra 6, twelve male goats were sacrificed to match the number of what?

The tribes of Israel were all represented in the sin offering, although those who had come back were chiefly from Judah and Benjamin.

In Ezra 6, which festival did the returned exiles keep on the fourteenth day of the first month?

Passover fell only weeks after the new sanctuary was finished, and it was followed by seven joyful days of unleavened bread.

In which month of the Hebrew calendar was the temple finished, in the sixth year of Darius, according to Ezra 6?

Adar is the twelfth and last month of the Hebrew religious year, so the builders finished only weeks before the spring festival of the new year.

The Book of Ezra traces Ezra's own family line back through Phinehas and Eleazar to which first chief priest?

Aaron, the brother of Moses, stands at the head of a line of sixteen ancestors that gave Ezra his priestly standing.

Roughly how long did Ezra's journey from Babylon to Jerusalem take, setting out in the first month?

Four months passed between leaving on the first day of the first month and reaching the city on the first day of the fifth.

Ezra set his heart to seek God's law, to do it, and what else?

To teach it in Israel completed an order that mattered to him: study first, then practice, and only then the instruction of others.

By what grand title does Artaxerxes style himself at the opening of the letter he gave to Ezra?

King of kings was a title closely tied to Persia's rulers, and its last users, the shahs of Iran, kept it until 1979.

The letter Artaxerxes gave Ezra freed priests, singers, gatekeepers and other temple staff from what?

Paying taxes of any kind, whether tribute, custom or toll, could not lawfully be demanded from anyone who served the house of God.

The letter Artaxerxes gave Ezra capped silver, wheat, wine and oil but set no limit on which supply?

Salt was to be given without measure, while the silver stopped at a hundred talents and the wheat, wine and oil at a hundred measures each.

The house of God completed in Ezra 6 is known to historians by what name?

Second Temple is the name for the sanctuary that replaced Solomon's, and it stood for almost six centuries until Roman forces destroyed it in AD 70.

Beside which river did Ezra gather the returning families and camp for three days before leaving for Jerusalem?

Ahava was the mustering point where Ezra weighed out the silver and gold to twelve leading priests before the caravan set off.

Reviewing the camp before the journey to Jerusalem, Ezra found that no members of which group had come with him?

Levites were missing entirely, so Ezra sent a delegation to recruit some, and fewer than forty arrived, along with 220 temple servants.

To which place did Ezra send messengers asking Iddo the chief for ministers for the house of God?

Casiphia answered the call: Iddo and his kin sent Sherebiah, described as a man of discretion, together with his sons and brothers.

Instead of requesting an armed escort, what did Ezra's caravan do at the river to seek a safe journey?

Fasted and prayed is Ezra's own summary, and he reports that God answered by keeping them from enemies and bandits along the way.

Ezra's treasure for Jerusalem included two vessels of which fine polished metal, described as precious as gold?

Bronze of that quality was rare enough to be itemised beside twenty gold bowls and hundreds of talents of silver.

After the princes' report in Ezra 9, Ezra sat stunned until which daily event before falling to his knees?

The evening offering was his cue to rise, still in his torn clothes, kneel and spread out his hands to God in confession.

Which son of Jehiel told Ezra there was still hope for Israel and urged him to be courageous and act?

Shecaniah proposed the covenant that settled the crisis, telling Ezra that the matter was his to lead and that the people stood with him.

Under the proclamation in Ezra 10, what would a returned exile forfeit by failing to reach Jerusalem within three days?

All his property would be confiscated, and the absentee would also be cut off from the assembly of the returned exiles.

In his confession in Ezra 9, Ezra says the people's guilt has grown up as high as what?

The heavens were the measure of the guilt, and Ezra adds that the people's sins had already risen higher than their own heads.

With what does the Book of Ezra end, where a reader might expect a blessing or a closing speech?

A list of names closes the book, grouped by family from the priests downward, with a last line noting that some of the men had children.