Ezra continues the history of Israel, picking up after seventy years in Babylonian captivity. We see them take their first steps toward reclaiming their nation and their place as God's chosen people. As you can imagine, things are a little shaky. This generation doesn't know much more about living as God's people than that first generation of Israelites who left Egypt. In fact, there are a lot of similarities between the two. Just like in Exodus, we find:- The institution of God's law
- The establishment of a worship center
- Hostility from enemy nations
And like Exodus there are occasional lengthy passages of genealogies or other details.
Some things to watch for as you read:
Watch how God sovereignly directs all the events. The phrase "the hand of the Lord" is used a few times. We'll see it again in Nehemiah.
Notice the problems caused by compromise.
List Ezra's character traits. These are summarized in 7:10.
How are the principles in Ezra relevant to us?
1 & 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles detail the history of Israel from the end of David's reign until the Babylonian captivity. If history isn't your thing, these may be difficult books to study. The unfamiliar (but often similar) names and different spellings for those names add an extra challenge. But don't get discouraged. We are used to names changes- When I was a kid the capital of China was Peking. Now it's Beijing. The names in Kings reflect that same cultural shift in spelling between the generations of historians.
Last week, we looked at Ezra's example of 
