Ezra 2:1

Now these are the children of the province,.... Either of the province of Babylon, as Aben Ezra, where they were either born, or had dwelt for many years; or else rather, according to Jarchi, of the

Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came

EZRA CHAPTER 2 The number of the people that returned, ; and of the priests, ; of the Levites, ; of the singers, ; of the porters, ; of the Nethinims, ; and of Solomon’ s servants, . Concerning the priests that could not show their pedigree, :3. The whole number of them and their substance, . Their oblations, . The children of the province, i.e. the Israelites, called the children of the province, either, 1. Of Babylon, of which province we oft read, as ,2,30, called the province by way of eminency; of which they are called children, because of their birth and habitation in it for a long time, it being usual to call the inhabitants of any city or place its children. Or rather, 2. Of Judea, called a province, . And he calls it thus emphatically, to mind himself and his brethren of that sad change which their sins had made among them, that from an illustrious, independent, and formidable kingdom, were fallen to be an obscure, servile, and contemptible province, first under the Chaldeans, and now under the Persians. Every one unto his city; either unto those cities or towns which belonged to their several ancestors; or rather, to those which were now allotted to them, and from this time possessed by them. For their former cities were either demolished. or possessed by other persons, which they were not now in a capacity of disturbing.

Ezra 2:1 Now these [are] the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city;Ver. 1. Now these are the children of the province] That is, of Judaea, now a province, though formerly a princess; now solitary and tributary that was once populous and great among the nations, Lamentations 1:1. Medinah, the word here rendered province, sometimes signifieth Metropolis, aliis ius dicens, a place that giveth laws to other places, and so Judaea in her flourish had been. See Ezra 4:20. But now it was otherwise, and so it is at this day, not only with Judaea, but with other renowned empires and kingdoms not a few, all which (together with most of those Churches and places so much mentioned in Scripture) are swallowed up in, the greatness of Turkish Empire. That Medina, a city in Arabia (where Mahomet lieth buried, and where his sepulchre is no less visited than is Christ’ s sepulchre at Jerusalem), holdeth this Medina in hard subjection; making her children pay for the very heads they wear; and so grievously afflicting them, that they have cause enough to take up anew Jeremiah’ s elegy over their doleful captivity. That went up out of the captivity] That lifted themselves in Babylon, to go up. Which if any failed to do (as by comparing Ezra 2:5 of this chapter with Nehemiah 7:10, it appeareth some did), it was because either they changed their minds or their lives before they came there. When that noble Marquis Galeacius Caracciolus set forward for Geneva, some of his most familiar friends promised and vowed to accompany him there (His Life by Crashaw); but various of them, when they came to the borders of Italy, turned back again, &c.; and so might many of these engagers, magis amantes mundi delicias, quam Christi divitias, et graviorem ducentes iacturam regionis, quam religionis. Which had been carried away] But had God’ s promise that they should return, be built up, planted, and not rooted out, Jeremiah 24:6, and his command to marry and beget children, Jeremiah 29:6, which should inherit the promises: for they are good surehold. Whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon] That Metus Orbis, et Flagellum Dei, as Attilas, king of Huns, proudly styled himself, that is, the terror of the world, and scourge in God’ s hand. See Isaiah 10:5. That Ira Dei et Orbis Vastitas as Tamerlane loved to be called: The wrath of God and ruin of the world (Bucholc.). Had carried away unto Babylon] As to his lions’ den, Nahum 2:11, but God sent from heaven and saved them with such a mighty salvation, as eclipsed that deliverance out of Egypt, Jeremiah 23:7-8. Every one unto his city] Appointed him by the present governors. For during their abode in Babylon Judaea lay utterly waste and uninhabited.

(1) The children of the province that went up out of the captivity.—They came from “the captivity,” which was now as it were a generic name—“Children of the captivity” in Babylon (Daniel 2:2), in Judah (Ezra 4:1)—and became “children of the province,” the Judæan province of Persia. Every one unto his city.—So far, that is, as his city was known. The various cities, or villages, are more distinctly enumerated in Nehemiah.

CHAPTER II An account of those who returned from Babylon, 1-35. The children of the priests who returned, 36-39. Of the Levites, 40. Of the singers, 41. Of the porters, 42. Of the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's servants, 43-58. Others who could not find out their registers, 59-62. The number of the whole congregation, 63, 64. Of their servants, maids, and singers, 65. Their horses and mules, 66. Their camels and asses, 67. The offerings of the chief men when they came to Jerusalem, 68, 69. The priests, Levites, singers, porters, and Nethinim, betake themselves to their respective cities, 70. NOTES ON CHAP. II Verse 1. These are the children of the province] That is, of Judea; once a kingdom, and a flourishing nation; now a province, subdued, tributary, and ruined! Behold the goodness and severity of God! Some think Babylon is meant by the province; and that the children of the province means those Jews who were born in Babylon. But the first is most likely to be the meaning, for thus we find Judea styled, Ezra 5:8. Besides, the province is contradistinguished from Babylon even in this first verse, The children of the province-that had been carried away unto Babylon.

1. Now these are the children of the province] ‘Now’, as in chap. Ezra 1:1 : the beginning of a new document. ‘The province’ here and in Nehemiah 1:3; Nehemiah 11:3, is the same as ‘the province of Judah’ (Ezra 5:8), i.e. the particular district of which Jerusalem was the centre and of which Zerubbabel was governor or ‘pekhah’. ‘The children of the province’ are the Jews inhabiting Jerusalem and its vicinity as distinct from the Jews that were left in Babylon. The phrase is perhaps an indication of the register having been transcribed at Babylon. out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away] The comma in the A.V. tends to confuse the meaning. The R.V. better, out of the captivity of those which had been carried away. The English fails to give the sense of the passage. The words ‘those which had been carried away’ translate the one Hebrew word rendered in chap. Ezra 1:11 and elsewhere ‘the captivity’ (hag-gτlah). This was the technical abstract noun used to designate the Jews that had been carried away into foreign lands. The words here used are more nearly reproduced in the Greek version ἀπὸτῆςαἰχμαλωσίαςτῆςἀποικίας. ‘From the captivity of the Gτlah’ means therefore ‘out of the condition and scene of captivity which was the lot of ‘the deportation’, i.e. of those who had been forcibly removed from their homes’. Cf. Ezra 1:11, Ezra 6:20. Nebuchadnezzar] R.V. margin, ‘Heb. Nebuchadnezzor’. This spelling represents the preferable reading of the original in this verse. It again indicates the different origin of this section from chap. Ezra 1:7, where the Hebrew has ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ without any variant spelling. ‘Nebuchadnezzor’ attempts more nearly to reproduce the final syllable of the Assyrian ‘Nabϋ-kudur-uṣ ?ur’ i.e. ‘Nebo, defend the crown’. He is called ‘Nebuchadrezzar’ in several places. Once in Jeremiah 49:28 (C’thib) ‘Nebuchadrezzor’. The great king of Babylon reigned 43 years (605–562). The two chief ‘deportations’ took place (1) in 598, when Nebuchadnezzar carried away king Jehoiachin and all the principal inhabitants of Jerusalem; (2) in 587–6, when the city was destroyed. every one unto his city] It is impossible to take these words as literally applicable to the year of the Return. The Jews on their return to their own land at first only occupied Jerusalem and the country immediately adjacent. The work of settling into their own cities was the work of years. But the process was complete at the time when this heading was attached to the register of names. The writer summarizes the movement, which in his own time was long past, cf. Ezra 2:70, Ezra 3:1.

The province - Judaea was no longer a kingdom, but a mere “province” of Persia. “The children of the province” are the Israelites who returned to Palestine, as distinct from those who remained in Babylonia and Persia.

1. Children of the province — By the province the district of Judah is meant, which had Jerusalem for its capital.