EZRA ____. i.e., help; "Eo-Spas; Esdras), the famous scribe, was a priest of the line of Zadok. According to the genealogy given in Ezra vii. 1-5, his father's name was Seraiah. If we identify this Seraiah with the person men-tioned in Ezra ii. 2, Neh. xii. 1, then the Ezra who is the subject of the present article may well be identified, as has been done by Michaelis and others, with the Ezra named in the last-quoted texts ; and in this case he must have been a very old man even at the beginning of that public work with which his name is chiefly associated. But a careful comparison of the genealogy in 1 Ch. vi. 4-15 with that in Ezra vii. leads rather to the conclusion that the latter has most probably been abridged, so far as the more immediate and less eminent ancestors of our Ezra are concerned. They are omitted probably because, though closely con-nected with Joshua, the son of Josadak, they did not avail themselves of the permission, granted by Cyrus, to : eturn to Jerusalem in 536. They do not seem on that account, however, to have lost much, if any, of the social influence to which their high rank in the priesthood entitled them. Josephus tells us, somewhat mysteriously, that Ezra himself was high-priest of the Jews who were left in Babylon. Be this as it may, we know that when he first appears in history, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (458 B.C.), he is already a man of great learning, zeal, and authority, enjoying the confidence, not only of his own compatriots, but also of the Persian king. It is to be regretted that we should so imperfectly know what was the true condition of the Jews in Babylon during the years that immediately followed the close of the " exile." We have various indications, however, that many of them devoted themselves to the study of the written law, kept up friendly intercourse with their compatriots in Jerusalem, regularly sent free-will offerings to the temple there (Philo, Ad Gaium, 1013), and made occasional pilgrimages thither (Zech. vi. 9). In Judea, on the other hand, the fifty-eight years between 516 and 458, which are passed over in silence in the history, do not seem to have been more prosperous than the twenty preceding years of which the record has been preserved. Whether influenced by un-favourable reports of the condition of affairs at Jeru-salem, or proceeding upon knowledge personally obtained in some previous visit, Ezra, who had " been directing his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments," asked and re-ceived in the above-mentioned year the royal authority to make an official visit to Judea. Erom the terms of his com-mission, which are given in Ezra vii. 12-26, we learn that very considerable powers and privileges were at that time conferred upon him. On the first day of the first month of the Jewish year he set out on his westward journey, carrying with him many valuable offerings, and accompanied by some 1500 of his fellow-countrymen. The first considerable halt was made at " the river of Ahava," a locality which has not been identified as yet (it is called Theras in 1 Esdras

viii. 41) , and here it was found that no Levites had I joined the expedition. A message was accordingly sent to a place (now unknown) called Casiphia, where a large colony of them had settled, inviting their assistance. A considerable number of Levites were thus induced to join the party. A fast was thereafter appointed, the sacred treasures were solemnly entrusted to the keeping of twelve priests and twelve Levites (see Bertheau on Ezra viii. 24), and, deliber-ately dispensing with the usual military escort, the caravan set out on the twelfth day of the first month, arriving in Jerusalem on the first of the fifth. Here, in the course of the investigation which he had been commissioned to make, Ezra very soon found a field for his reforming acti-vities. He learned that the population generally, priests, Levites, and rulers not excepted, had been intermarrying with the surrounding peoples to an extent which seemed to threaten the subversion of the true religion, and the obliteration of the Jewish nationality. The unexpected discovery filled him with amazement and shame. Soon a large number of the inhabitants came to him, and, with Shechaniah for spokesman, assured him that the people at large were willing to dismiss their foreign wives with their children, if only he would take in hand the direction of the matter. With all convenient speed a solemn assembly of all Judah and Jerusalem was then convened, at which, after Ezra had pointed out to the people their transgressions, it was agreed, with only a few dissentient voices (Ezra x. 15, where for "were employed in;: read " stood up against "), to appoint a committee to inquire into and decide on all the cases of mixed marriage. This committee had finished its work by the beginning of the following year, when a complete list was drawn up of those who had " taken strange wives " and now pledged them-selves to put them away. Thus far the Scripture narrative has carried us; but at this point, after detailing the events of precisely one year of Ezra's public life, it abruptly breaks off: nor do we read of him again for the next thirteen years. Modern writers are by no means at one in the conjectures they make as to what occurred during the interval. Ewald thinks that he remained in Jerusalem during all the intervening time ; others (such as Kuenen) are of the opinion that he very soon left the city, and that during his absence occurred those relapses and disasters which were the occasion of his subsequent activities, and also of those of Nehemiah Hitzig thinks that he never re-appeared at all, and corrects Nehemiah accordingly. Ac-cording to the existing text, in the twentieth (twenty-first 1) year of Artaxerxes, on the first day of the seventh month, we find him " in the open space that was before the water-gate," solemnly reading, by public request, in the hearing of all the people, the " book of the law of Moses." One of the immediate effects of this fresh publication of the Mosaic law was that straightway the feast of tabernacles was observed as it had not been " since the days of Joshua the son of Nun;" and very soon afterwards a solemn fast was proclaimed, during which a written covenant was drawn up and confirmed by all the people, with Nehemiah at then-head, by which they became bound " to walk in God's law which was given by Moses the servant of God," special prominence being given to the following points,—separation from the people of the land, strict observance of the Sabbath day and the sabbatic year, punctual payment of the third part of a shekel for the service of the temple, of the first fruits for the priests, and of the tithes for the Levites. And now, once more, after a second period of .public activity, which in this case seems to have lasted for little more than a month, the name of Ezra abruptly disappears from the Scripture narrative. We have no authentic information from any source as to the events of his subsequent life, or as to the time, place, and manner of his death. According to Josephus, " he died an old man, and was buried in a magnificent manner at Jerusalem;" but several palpable blunders with reference to Ezra in other parts of this historian's narrative warn us to be cautious in receiving this statement. Other traditions relate that he died in Babylon, or at Zamzumu on the Tigris, while on a journey from Jerusalem to Susa. Ac-cording to the best texts of the Apocryphal work known to English readers as 2 Esdras, he did not die at all, but was translated (xiv. 49).
Tradition is somewhat inconsistent with itself also in the account it gives of Ezra's relation to the Pentateuch. At one time it speaks of him as a mere copyist or transcriber; at another time it speaks of him as a voluminous author, a prophet, an independent legislator. Modern criticism in like manner has not as yet reached a unanimous finding on the position occupied by him with reference to previous oral and written enactments. While Ewald, on the one hand, maintains that the last editor of the Pentateuch lived when the kingdom of Judah was still standing, Graf and Kuenen, on the other hand, assign to Ezra a very large share in the production of that law-book as we now have it. Between the two extremes there is room for an inter-mediate view, akin to that of ecclesiastical tradition, which, without determining the extent of Ezra's work, admits that, having before him an earlier work, he added and perhaps also altered some things in an editorial capacity.
It cannot be doubted that Ezra was successful in at least giving to the law as written a prominence and an influence which it had never before possessed. Under him it became the exclusive rule of public and private life in a way that had never before been known. The rise of the order of " scribes," that is, of those whose business it was to know the law, to interpret it, and " make a Mage " round it, can be traced directly to him. If he thus was i" a sense the founder of that pharisaism which in later ages degenerated into the well-known forms which were so abhorrent to Christ and to the spirit of Christianity, it ought to be remembered, on the other hand, that the synagogue services,-—those assemblies throughout the towns and villages of the land in which the written word was weekly read and expounded with praise and prayer,—are most probably to be traced to his influence. The synagogue worship passed directly over from Judaism into the Christian church; and in this way Ezra, so far as he originated it, has exercised an incalcul-able influence on the religious culture of the race.
For much valuable information on the life and times of Ezra,
and also for references to the older authorities, the histories of
Israel by Ewald, Hitzig, Jost, Herzfeld, Graetz, and Kuenen may
be consulted. See also Stanley's Lectures on the History of the
Jewish Church, vol. iii. (J. S. BL.)
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF. The two canoni-cal books entitled Ezra and Nehemiah in our English Bibles correspond to the 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate, to the 2 Esdras and Nehemiah of the LXX., and to the Ezra and Nehemiah of the Massoretic text. Though for many centuries they have thus been treated as separate compositions, we have abundant evidence that they were anciently regarded as forming but one book. Thus, Origen (Euseb., H. E., vi. 25), expressly enumerating the twenty-two books of the old covenant as acknowledged by the Jews and accepted by the Christian church, gives as one of
them ''Eo"8pas xpoJTOS Kai Seirrepos iv iv\ 'E£pa. Melito of
Sardis (Euseb., H. E., iv. 26) in like manner mentions the book of Esdras only. So also the Talmud (in Baba baihra, 14, 2), nor can it be supposed that Josephus in his enumera-

tion (C. Ap. i. 8) reckoned Nehemiah as apart from Ezra. Some of the oldest copies of the LXX. make no division between 2 Esdras and Nehemiah; and that the Massoretes themselves recognized no real separation is shown by their epicrisis on Nehemiah.
If the external evidence for the unity of the book of Ezra-Nehemiah is strong, the internal evidence is decisive. As the result of long-continued careful examination, modern criticism, with practical unanimity (Havernick and Keil are hardly exceptions), has reached the conclusion that Ezra and Nehemiah, so far from being separate compositions, together constitute but a section of a larger historical work, the origin, authorship, and plan of which have already been discussed in the article CHRONICLES, to which the reader is referred. Comparatively little remains to be said here on the special questions that arise in connexion with the Ezra-Nehemiah portion of the work.
Contents.—-Resuming the abruptly broken off narrative of Chronicles, the first six chapters of Ezra relate how, in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia (537-6), Zerubbabel (called Sheshbazzar in chap, i.), along with Joshua and some 50,000 others who are enumerated accord-ing to their families, returned to Jerusalem, set up the altar of burnt-offering there, and in face of many difficulties and discouragements succeeded in rebuilding the temple, which was finally dedicated in the sixth year of Darius Hystaspis (516). An interval of fifty-eight years is then passed over in silence. The next chapters (Ezra vii.-x.) tell of Ezra's mission to Jerusalem in 458, and the dissolution of the heathen marriages there the one result of a period of eight months' activity. Another blank of thirteen years occurs in the history. Then we read (Neh. i. 1-vii. 73a) of Nehemiah's expedition to Jerusalem, of the difficulties he encountered on his arrival there (445-4), and how, notwithstanding all the opposition of the Samaritans, the building of the walls was successfully completed in fifty-two days. The list of those who had returned under Zerubbabel is given as in Ezra, chap. ii. The narrative then goes on to relate (Neh. vii. 736-x. 39) how in the same year the law of Moses was anew promulgated by Ezra, being solemnly read by him in the presence of a national assembly ; how the feast of the tabernacles was then observed with a strictness that had been unknown since the days of Joshua the son of Nun ; and how a written covenant was drawn up and signed by which the people pledged themselves to observe the whole law. After some genealogies and other lists have been given (Neh. xi.-xii. 26), we next have an account of the ceremonial which took place at the dedication of the walls (440); also further particulars of arrangements for due support of the temple-worship, and of steps taken for the exclusion of aliens from the congregation of Israel. Finally, after an interval of not less than twelve years, we read of a second visit of Nehemiah to Jerusalem (probably in 432). This visit was the occasion of renewed efforts to-wards religious and social reformation. Special mention is made of a collision withEliashib the high-priest, and also with Joiada his son, which resulted in the expulsion of the latter.
Authorship.—The abstract given above shows very clearly that Ezra-Nehemiah cannot claim to be a continuous chronicle of all the important events of the 110 years of Jewish history over which it extends. Indeed, of the 110 years only some twenty are referred to at all. This want of continuity cannot be attributed to lack of materials ; but rather to the specific purpose by which the author was guided in the selection of his facts. That purpose mani-festly was to give an account of the progress of the restored theocracy in Judah and Jerusalem, particularly in what re-lated to the temple, and to the share of the priests and Levites in the temple-worship. The striking literary peculiarities which are here displayed in all that is not
R A
merely copied from earlier documents, and even in the manner in which these documents themselves are handled, all indicate one and the same author for Chronicles and for Ezra-Nehemiah.
Sources.—It lies open to the most superficial observation that the work of the Chronicler is a compilation derived from many sources. The authorities for this portion of it may be classified as follows : (1) Statistics derived from official records. The list contained in Ezra ii., and repeated with some variations in Neh. vii., may be taken as a specimen. It was already old in Nehemiah's day (Nèh. vii. 5). The author mentions also a book of chronicles ((libre hajjànnm, Neh. xii. 23), from which the information in Neh. xii. 1-26 was derived. Neh. xi. 3-36 and 1 Ch
ix. 3-33 are also probably drawn from a common source of
an official character. (2) A history of the building of the
temple and of the obstacles that had to be overcome, written
in Chaldee. This history seems to have furnished the
section Ezra v. 1-vi. 18, and also to have been the
source of the document given in Ezra iv. 8-23, (3) Ezra's
personal memoirs. These have been directly transcribed in
Ezra vii. 27-ix. 15 ; and they have been drawn upon for
Ezra vii. 1-11, for chap, x., and also for Neh. vii. 735-x..
(4) Nehemiah's personal memoirs. These have been ex*
tracted from in Neh. i. 1-vii. 5, xi. 1, 2, xii. 31-42,
xiii. 4-30, and they have been combined with those of Ezra
in Neh. vii. 736-x.
Date.—In the article CHRONICLES it has been shown that the genealogies there given (1 Ch. iii. 19 sq.), when fairly interpreted, must be taken as reckoning the descendants of Zerubbabel to six generations, thus bringing the history down to near the close of the Persian monarchy. In Ezra-Nehemiah all the indications of date which are given go to support the same conclusion. Neh. xii. 11, 22 brings the list of high-priests down to Jaddua, the contemporary of Alexander the Great. In verse 22 there is a reference, more-over, to Darius Codomannus, the opponent of Alexander. The kings of Persia are throughout alluded to in a manner which is fitted to suggest that the Persian empire had already passed away. Ezra and Nehemiah themselves are occasionally spoken of, not as contemporaries, but as vanished heroes of the venerable past (see, for example, Neh. xii. 26, 47). But the same data which forbid us to fix a date for Ezra-Nehemiah earlier than 350 B.C., manifestly also forbid the conclusion of Spinoza (Tract. Theol. Polit.,
x. 28) who placed the work later than the Maccabees.
Credibility.—The doubts raised by Graf and others with
reference to the historical value of the earlier portion of the work of the Chronicler do not extend to the Ezra-Nehemiah section. There is general concurrence in the conviction that the sources he had access to fully guarantee the trustworthiness of his narrative. A question has, indeed, been raised as to the measure of sagacity he has shown in his employment of some of the materials he had at his dis-posal, Bertheau and others believing (in opposition to Ewald) that he has inappropriately introduced into the narrative of Ezra iv. certain documents which really refer to the later period of Nehemiah.
The text of Ezra-Nehemiah has reached us in a somewhat impure state. Great caution requires to be exercised, especially as regards the numerals and proper names. Some help may be got from the LXX. translator, who has been faithfully literal " almost to unintelligibility."
Literature.—In addition to the works referred to under CHRO-NICLES, the following may be consulted :—Zunz, Gotlcsdienstliche Vortrdgc (1832) p. 18 sq. ; Bertheau's admirable commentary in the Excgetisches Handbuch (1862) ; his article "Ohronik" in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexicon ; Dillmann on "Chronik " in Herzog's Real-Encyclo-padie; Niigelsbach on " Ezra" in the same work ; Keil, Commentar (Engl.tr. 1873); Schultz, in Ltmge's Bibelwerk (1876; Eng. tr. 1877);. Rawlinson in the Speaker's Commentary, vol. iii. (J. S. BL.)



Footnotes

Hit, anciently called Ihi or Ihi-da-Kira, "the well-known spot where caravans make their plunge into the desert," has been suggested. Stanley, Lectures on Jewish Church, in. 116. See p. 670 of tlie pre-sent volume (art. EUPHRATES).