Ezra · chapter 1 of 10
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Ezra 1 tells how the Lord stirs the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to issue a decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of the Lord. Their neighbors help them with silver, gold and goods, and Cyrus returns the temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried off, handing them to Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah.
The book of Ezra picks up Israel's story where Chronicles ends: after about seventy years of exile in Babylon. This first chapter shows that the return does not come from Israel's strength but from the Lord's faithfulness to his word, and it opens the account of the rebuilding of the temple and the spiritual renewal of the people.
In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord stirs his spirit to fulfill what he had announced through Jeremiah. Cyrus sends a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and puts it in writing, saying that the Lord, the God of heaven, has given him all the kingdoms of the earth and has charged him to build a house for him in Jerusalem in Judah.
The decree invites everyone who belongs to God's people to go up to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, and it asks the neighbors of those who stay behind to help them with silver, gold, goods and livestock, along with freewill offerings for the house of God.
Then the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin rise up, together with the priests and Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred. Their neighbors strengthen them with every kind of gift. Cyrus also brings out the temple vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had carried from Jerusalem to the house of his gods, and Mithredath the treasurer counts them out to Sheshbazzar, prince of Judah. The chapter records a total of five thousand four hundred articles of gold and silver that go up with him from Babylon.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The Lord stirs the spirit of Cyrus so that the word spoken through Jeremiah is fulfilled. The return from exile is not a political accident: it is God keeping his promise through a king who does not know him.
Cyrus invites anyone of God's people to go up to Jerusalem and rebuild the house of the Lord, and he asks that God be with them. Rebuilding the temple is the central purpose of the book.
Those who go up are the ones whose spirits God stirred. Not everyone returns, but those who do are responding to a prompting that comes from the Lord, not merely to a political opportunity.
Cyrus brings out the vessels Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple and hands them to Sheshbazzar. The return of what is holy to its place signals that worship of God in Jerusalem will be restored.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: The Lord, so that the word spoken through Jeremiah would be fulfilled. — Ezra 1:1
Answer: The house of the Lord, the God of heaven. — Ezra 1:2
Answer: With silver, gold, goods and livestock, besides freewill offerings for the temple. — Ezra 1:4
Answer: The heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred. — Ezra 1:5
Answer: The vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem. — Ezra 1:7
Answer: To Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah, counted out by the treasurer Mithredath. — Ezra 1:8
Ezra 1 reminds us that God governs history, even when decisions seem to rest in the hands of rulers who do not know him. In Sunday school you can ask which situations today seem closed, and how prayer changes when we remember that the hearts of rulers are in the Lord's hand.
The chapter also shows that God stirs hearts, but people still have to rise. Some returned and others supported them with their goods. Ask what your role in God's work is today: going, giving, praying or encouraging, and how you can respond when you sense the Lord moving you.
Ezra 1 ends with the sacred vessels in the hands of Sheshbazzar, ready to return to Jerusalem. The next chapter lists the people who made that journey, showing that God's promise was fulfilled in real people with names and families.
Cyrus was the king of Persia who conquered Babylon around 539 BC. The Bible says the Lord stirred his spirit, and the prophet Isaiah had already named him as someone God would use. His policy was to let exiled peoples go home and restore their worship.
Sheshbazzar was the prince of Judah to whom the temple vessels were handed over, and the book presents him as leader of the first group to return. Some scholars identify him with Zerubbabel and others treat them as two different men; the text does not settle it.