As they left, so they returned, in three waves: under Jeshua (538 BC), Ezra (458 BC), and Nehemiah (444 BC).
Ezra did not come home alone. “Some of the children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the Nethinim came up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes” (Ezra 7:7). Why was he returning? “Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel” (v 10). That’s always the winning combination: seek, do, teach—in that order. You can see the gap between the reign of Darius (6:12) and this point in the narrative, during the reign of Artaxerxes. It spanned the years from 516–458 BC. Only a man like Ezra, guided by the Spirit and interested more in God’s story than his own, would write a biography where he doesn’t show up until half-way through! Remember, however, that Ezra described—from extant records—two events that occurred during these gap years. In chapter 4, he listed two letters written during the reigns of Ahasuerus (c 485 BC) and Artaxerxes (c 465 BC), attempts to stop God’s work in Jerusalem. But now this same Artaxerxes has written a letter for Ezra (7:11-26), one that thrills the heart just reading it! What a God, who could move a Gentile king to so thoughtfully and thoroughly provide for this vital work! Surely this prefigures a greater day and a more glorious Jerusalem when “the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it” (Rev 21:24). Away with pessimism! Doesn’t the Scripture say, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations” (Ps 22:27-28)? Lord, be exalted among the nations! And bring Your people Home!