Ezra

Lore & Background

In the Hebrew Bible, Ezra is an important figure in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which he is traditionally held to have written and edited, respectively. According to tradition, Ezra was also the author of the Books of Chronicles and the Book of Malachi. He is depicted as instrumental in restoring the Jewish scriptures and religion to the people after the return from the Babylonian captivity and is a highly respected figure in Judaism. He is regarded as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, though it does not have a universal feast day for him; July 13 is observed in some Eastern traditions, not the Roman Rite. He is also venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which sets his feast day on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. There is no historical consensus on Ezra's existence or mission due to a lack of extrabiblical evidence and conflicting scholarly interpretations.

Reader's Guide

According to the Hebrew Bible, Ezra was a descendant of Seraiah, the last High Priest of Israel to serve in Solomon's Temple, as well as a close relative of Joshua, the first High Priest of the Second Temple. He returned from the Babylonian captivity and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem. According to 1 Esdras, he was also a High Priest. Rabbinic Judaism supports the positions that Ezra was an ordinary member of the priesthood and that he served as a High Priest of Israel.

In the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes I, the Achaemenid emperor sent Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem to teach the laws of God. The Book of Ezra describes how he led a group of Judean exiles to Jerusalem, enforced observance of the Torah, and purified the community by enforcing the dissolution of sinful marriages with foreign pagan women. Some years later, Nehemiah was sent to be governor of Jerusalem, and after the city walls were rebuilt, Nehemiah had Ezra read the Torah to the assembled Israelites, and the people entered into a covenant to keep the Torah's laws and separate themselves from all other peoples.