The Expositor's Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther

Though in close contact with the most perplexing problems of Old Testament literature, the main history recorded in the books of 'Ezra' and 'Nehemiah' is fixed securely above th...

The remarkable words with which the Second Book of Chronicles closes, and which are repeated in the opening verses of the Book of Ezra, afford the most striking instance on reco...

It has been asserted that the Scripture version of the edict of Cyrus cannot be an exact rendering of the original, because it ascribes to the Great King some knowledge of the G...

The journey of the returning exiles from Babylon has some points of resemblance to the exodus of their fathers from Egypt. On both occasions the Israelites had been suffering op...

Unlike the historian of the exodus from Egypt, our chronicler gives no account of adventures of the pilgrims on the road to Palestine, although much of their way led them throug...

The fourth chapter of the Book of Ezra introduces the vexed question of the limits of comprehension in religion by affording a concrete illustration of it in a very acute form....

The work of building the temple at Jerusalem, which had been but nominally commenced in the reign of Cyrus, when it was suddenly arrested before the death of that king, and whic...

It is in keeping with the character of his story of the returned Jews throughout, that no sooner has the chronicler let a ray of sunshine fall on his page--in his brief notice o...

The chronicler's version of the edict in which Darius replies to the application of the Satrap Tattenai is so very friendly to the Jews that questions have been raised as to its...

Although the seventh chapter of "Ezra" begins with no other indication of time than the vague phrase "Now after these things," nearly sixty years had elapsed between the events...

Like the earlier pilgrimage of Zerubbabel and his companions, Ezra's great expedition was carried out under a commission from the Persian monarch of his day. The chronicler simp...

The successful issue of Ezra's undertaking was speedily followed by a bitter disappointment on the part of its leader, the experience of which urged him to make a drastic reform...

Ezra's narrative, written in the first person, ceases with his prayer, the conclusion of which brings us to the end of the ninth chapter of our Book of Ezra; at the tenth chapte...

The fourth chapter of the Book of Ezra contains an account of a correspondence between the Samaritan colonists and two kings of Persia, which follows sharply on the first mentio...

The Book of Nehemiah is the last part of the chronicler's narrative. Although it was not originally a separate work, we can easily see why the editor, who broke up the original...

Nehemiah records the twofold effect of the melancholy news which his brother and the other travellers from Jerusalem brought him. Its first consequence was grief; its second pra...

Nehemiah's prayer had commenced on celestial heights of meditation among thoughts of Divine grace and glory, and when it had stooped to earth it had swept over the wide course o...

involved the fiction of infallibility, and this was maintained by a rule making it unconstitutional for him to withdraw any command that he had once issued. How then could Artax...

Nehemiah's journey up to Jerusalem differed in many respects from Ezra's great expedition, with a host of emigrants, rich stores, and all the accompaniments of a large caravan....

The third chapter of the Book of Nehemiah supplies a striking illustration of the constructive character of the history of the Jews in the Persian period. Nor is that all. A mec...

The Book of Nehemiah is our principal authority for the ancient topography of Jerusalem. But, as we have been already reminded, the sieges from which the city has suffered, and...

All his arrangements for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem show that Nehemiah was awake to the dangers with which he was surrounded. The secrecy of his night ride was evidently...

We open the fifth chapter of "Nehemiah" with a shock of pain. The previous chapter described a scene of patriotic devotion in which nearly all the people were united for the pro...

Open opposition had totally failed. The watchful garrison had not once permitted a surprise. In spite of the persistent malignity of his enemies, Nehemiah had raised the walls a...

The fragmentary nature of the chronicler's work is nowhere more apparent than in that portion of it which treats of the events immediately following on the completion of the for...

"All the people wept when they heard the words of the law." Was it for this mournful end that Ezra had studied the sacred law and guarded it through the long years of political...

After the carnival--Lent. This Catholic procedure was anticipated by the Jews in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The merry feast of Tabernacles was scarcely over, when, permittin...

The tenth chapter of "Nehemiah" introduces us to one of the most vital crises in the History of Israel. It shows us how the secret cult of the priests of Jehovah became a popula...

We have seen that though the two passages that deal with the sparsity of the population of Jerusalem are separated in our Bibles by the insertion of the section on the reading o...

A curious feature of the history of the restoration of Israel already met with several times is postponement. Thus in the days of Cyrus Zerubbabel leads up an expedition for the...

There is no finality in history. The chapter that seems to be rounded on with a perfect conclusion always leaves room for an appendix, which in its turn may serve as an introduc...

opens seems to point back to the previous chapter. If so it cannot be taken literally, because what it describes must be assigned to a later period than the contents of the para...

There is a striking contrast between the high estimation in which the Book of Esther is now cherished among the Jews and the slighting treatment that is often meted out to it in...

The character of Ahasuerus illustrates the Nemesis of absolutism, by showing how unlimited power is crushed and dissolved beneath the weight of its own immensity. The very vastn...

Haman is the Judas of Israel. Not that his conduct or his place in history would bring him into comparison with the traitor apostle, for he was an open foe and a foreigner. But...

The young Jewess who wins the admiration of the Persian king above all the chosen maidens of his realm, and who then delivers her people in the crisis of supreme danger at the r...

The hectic enthusiast who inspires Daniel Deronda with his passionate ideas is evidently a reflection in modern literature of the Mordecai of Scripture. It must be admitted that...