Week 20 Ezra
While I’m reading through an easy tendency is to read the text as a bunch of stand-alone stories – like biblical free-radicals just floating around unattached to anything.
It’s easy to forget that events happen inside the envelope of the material world.
Ezra reminds me about this when he starts naming known historical world rulers. He uses three Persian kings – Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes – to date events.
Which means I’ll have to step outside the bible to find out when things happened. So I do that:
Cyrus (559-530 BC)
Darius (522-486 BC)
Artaxerxes (465-424 BC)
This is useful info because Ezra says: in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia…he sent a proclamation. Ezra doesn’t say Cyrus’ public announcement happened in 559 BC. I have to figure that out for myself.
Ezra says that opposition to the temple-project lasted: even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. So…that’s in the long period of 522-486 BC – which is a bit better than nothing.
Later Ezra says that more exiles left for Jerusalem: in the reign of Artaxerxes. But then a couple of verses later he adds that they left: in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, which is more helpful. So that looks like about 459 BC.
Mostly I don’t have enough time to go outside. But when I do it can be a help.
Notes: quotes are from Ezra 1:1, 4:5, 7:1 & 7:7 (NASB version). Disclosure: some dates are a bit uncertain; others are not disputed. So that’s part of the mix.