Ezra
In the Hebrew Bible

The canonical Book of Ezra and Book of Nehemiah are the oldest sources for the activity of Ezra, whereas many of the other books ascribed to Ezra (First Esdras, 3–6 Ezra) are later literary works dependent on the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The book of Ezra–Nehemiah was always written as one scroll. In late medieval Christian bibles, the single book was divided in two, as First and Second Ezra; and this division became Jewish practice in the first printed Hebrew bibles. Modern Hebrew Bibles call the two books Ezra and Nehemiah, as do other modern Bible translations. A few parts of the Book of Ezra (4:8 to 6:18 and 7:12–26) were written in Aramaic, and the majority in Hebrew, Ezra himself being skilled in both languages.

According to the Hebrew Bible he was a descendant of Seraiah, the last High Priest to serve in Solomon's Temple, and a close relative of Joshua, the first High Priest of the Second Temple. He returned from Babylonian captivity and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem. According to 1 Esdras, a Greek translation of the Book of Ezra still in use in Eastern Orthodox Church, he was also a High Priest. Rabbinic tradition supports the positions that Ezra was an ordinary member of the priesthood, and that he actually served as a Kohen Gadol. Ezra was living in Babylon when in the seventh year of Artaxerxes I, the Achaemenid emperor (c. 457 BCE), the emperor sent him to Jerusalem to teach the laws of God to any who did not know them. The Book of Ezra describes how he led a group of Judean exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem where he is said to have enforced observance of the Torah.

When Ezra discovered that Jewish men had been marrying foreign pagan women, he tore his garments in despair and confessed the sins of Israel before God, then braved the opposition of some of his countrymen to purify the community by enforcing the dissolution of the sinful marriages. He was described as exhorting the Israelite people to be sure to follow the Torah Law so as not to intermarry with people of foreign blood, a set of commandments described in the Torah. Some years later, Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah, a Jewish noble in his service, as governor in Jerusalem with the task of rebuilding the city walls. Once this task was completed, Nehemiah had Ezra read the Torah to the assembled Israelites and the people and priests entered into a covenant to keep the law and separate themselves from all other peoples.
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