Synopsis: Ezra is described in the seventh chapter of this book as a “scribe in the law of Moses” and he records his genealogy as going back to Aaron, the brother of Moses and the first chief priest of the Hebrew nation. He records the first return of the Jews to their land from their captivity in Babylon and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Ezra and the following Old Testament book Nehemiah are companion books dealing with the same historical time frame and events and are often read together.
Key Verse: For we were bondmen, yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem. Ezra 9:9