EZRA (PERSON) [Heb ʿezrāʾ (עֶזְרָא)]. “Nehemiah and Ezra, the creators of the post-exilic Jewish community in Palestine, are two of the greatest figures in Jewish history”; so concludes a recent (far from conservative) volume (Widengren IJH, 538). Does this dictum, even apart from notably putting Ezra
Ezra (Person). 1. Religious reformer following Israel’s return from exile. Ezra’s genealogy (Ezr 7:1–5; cf. 1 Chr 6:3–15) places him in the high priestly Aaron-Zadok family line, which accounts for the importance of his scribal and priestly activities. He is called “priest” (Ezr 10:10, 16; Neh 8:2),
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised
EZRA (Person)1. Religious reformer following Israel’s return from exile. Ezra’s genealogy (Ezr 7:1–5; cf. 1 Chr 6:3–15) places him in the high priestly Aaron-Zadok family line, which accounts for the importance of his scribal and priestly activities. He is called “priest” (Ezr 10:10, 16; Neh 8:2), “scribe” (Ezr
EZRA1. A priest who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel (Neh 12:1, 13).2. A priest in Nehemiah’s time (Neh 12:33).3. A priest-scribe, son of Seraiah (Ezr 7:1), who led a group of exiles back to Jerusalem. Best known from the book which bears his name, Ezra was designated in several ways: as priest
EZRA. According to the record in Ezr. 7, Ezra was sent to Jerusalem by Artaxerxes I in 458 bc. It would seem probable that he held a position in Persia comparable to Secretary of State for Jewish affairs. His task was to enforce the uniform observance of the Jewish law, and to this end he had authority
Ezra (Heb. ʿezrāʾ)1. A scribe and priest sent with religious and political powers by the Persian king Artaxerxes to lead a group of Jewish exiles from Babylonia to Jerusalem (Ezra 7–8). Ezra condemned mixed marriages (Ezra 9), encouraging Jews to divorce and banish their foreign wives (ch. 10). He
Ezra. The Jewish priest and scribe, who played a central part in the reform of *Judaism in the 5th or 4th cent. bc. His activities are recorded in the Books of *Ezra and Nehemiah, and of 1 *Esdras. On his arrival in *Jerusalem from Persia ‘in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king’ (Ez. 7:7), he
Ez´ra (help), called Esdras in the Apocrypha, the famous scribe and priest. He was a learned and pious priest residing at Babylon in the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The origin of his influence with the king does not appear, but in the seventh year of his reign he obtained leave to go to Jerusalem,
EZ´RA (ezʹra; “help”). The name of two persons connected with the return of the Jews from Babylon.1. The priest who led the second expedition of Jews back from Babylonian exile into Palestine, and the author of the book bearing his name (see the last four chapters, in which he speaks in the first person).