two stories

Week 20  Ezra

There are about 280 verses in Ezra (the book). Ezra (the person) doesn’t appear until the 158th – about 56% of the way through.
That’s because a bunch of stuff happens between Cyrus’ original temple-rebuilding-project in chapters one-to-six, and Ezra suddenly appearing in chapter seven.
I read the first six chapters at one time since they’re really their own separate story. Which is this: the Babylonian exiles went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, and what happened was: the project started well, stalled for a bit, then was completed. That’s the condensed version. It turns out that Ezra 1-6 is really the story of a guy named Zerubbabel – not Ezra.
I think the tricky thing is getting lulled to sleep between 6:22 and 7:1. I’m reading along supposing that 6:22 happened and then, maybe the next day, 7:1 happened. That’s completely not the case. 7:1 starts with the phrase: now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia… That innocent comment – after these things – doesn’t mean the next day. It’s more like six decades later. Ezra didn’t need to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. It was already built. Ezra’s story is a brand new independent chapter in the story.

Note: personally I kind of like the idea of splitting Ezra into two separate books: Zerubbabel (Ezra 1-6), and Ezra (Ezra 7-10). That won’t happen any time soon so I won’t hold my breath waiting. I’ll just have to stay vigilant and avoid goofy assumptions.