Ezra assembled the Jews who accompanied him on the banks of the river Ahava, where they halted three days in tents. Here Ezra proclaimed a fast, as an act of humiliation before God, and a season of prayer for divine direction and safe conduct ; for, on setting out, he " was ashamed to require a band of soldiers and horsemen to help them against the enemy by the way," because he had asserted to the king that the hand of his God is upon all them that seek him for good. Ezra next committed the care of the treasures which he carried with him to twelve of the chief priests, assisted by ten of their brethren, appointing these to take charge of the treasures bj' the wa}', and deliver them safel}' in the house of the Lord at Jeru, salem. On the twelfth day from their first setting out Ezra and his companions left the river Ahava, anC arrived safelj' at Jerusalem in the fifth month, having been delivered from the hand of the enemy and c( such as lay in wait by the way. Three da3's aftef their arrival the treasures were weighed and delivered
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into tlie custody of some Levites. The returning ex- iles offered burnt-offerings to the Lord. Thej' deliv- ered also the king's commissions to the viceroys and governors, and gave needful help to the people and the ministers of the Temjile.
Ezra's ample commission had been granted him at his own request (ver. C ), and it appears that his great design was to effect a religious reformation among the ralestinian Jews, and to bring them back to the obser- vance of the law of Jloses, from which thej'^ had griev- ously declined. His tirst care, accordingly, was to enforce a separation from their wives of all who had made heathen nuirriages, in which number were manj' priests and Levites, as well»as other Israelites. For this an opportunity soon presented itself. When he had discharged the various trusts committed to him, the princes of the Jews came to him and complained that the Jewish people generally who had returned from the captivity, and also the priests and Levites, but especiallj' the rulers and princes, had not kept themselves separate from the people of the land, but had done according to the abominations of the rem- nant of the nations whom their forefathers had driven out, and married their daughters, and allowed their children to intermarry with them. On this report Ezra evinced his deep affliction, according to the Jew- ish custom, by rending his mantle and tearing the hair of his head and beard. There gathered round him all those -who still feared God, and dreaded his wrath for the transgression of those whom he had brought back from captivit}'. Having waited till the time of the evening sacrifice, Ezra rose up, and, having again rent his hair and his garments, made public prayer and confession of sin. The assembled people wept bitterl_y, and Shechaniah, one of the sons of Elam, came forward to propose a general covenant to put away the foreign wives and their children. Ezra then arose and administered an oath to the people that they ■would do accordingly. Proclamation was also made that all those who had returned from the captivitj' should within three days gather themselves together to Jerusalem, under pain of excommunication and for- feiture of their goods. The people assembled at the time appointed, trembling on account of their sin and of the heavy rain that fell. Ezra addressed them, dechiring to them their sin, and exhorting them to amend their lives by dissolving their illegal connec- tions. The people acknowledged the justice of his reljukes, and promised obedience. They then request- ed that, as the rain fell heavily, and the number of transgressors was great, he v/ould appoint times at vliich they might severally come to be examined re- specting this matter, accompanied by the judges and ciders of every cit}'. A commission was therefore formed, consisting of Ezra and some others, to investi- gate the extent of the evil. This investigation occu- pied three months. Josephus relates the affecting scene which occurred on the reading of the law by Ezra (A7if. xi, 5, 5). The account given by Josephus agrees with that of Neliemiah in all leading particu- lars, except that Joseplms places the date and occa- sion in the reign of Xerxes (Anf. xi, 5, 1).
"With the detailed account of this important transac- tion Ezra's autobiography ends al)rnptly, and we hear nothing more of him till, thirteen years afterwards, in tlie twentieth of Artaxerxes, we find him again at Je- rusalem with Nehemiah tlie "Tirshatha." B.C. 446. It is generally assumed that Ezra had continued gov- ernor till Nehemiah superseded him ; but as Ezra's commission was only of a temporary nature, "to in- quire concerning Judah and Jerusalem" (Ezra vii, 14), and to carrj' thither "the silver and gold which the king and his counsellors had freely offered unto the God of Israel" (ver. lo), and as there is no trace whatever of his presence at -Jerusalem between the eighth and the twentieth of Artaxerxes, it seems prob- able that after he had effected the above-named refor-
mation, and had appointed competent judges and mag« istrates, with authority to maintain it, he himself re turned to the king of Persia. This is in itself what one would expect, and what is borne out b}' the paral- lel case of Nehemiah, and it also accounts for the ab- rupt termination of Ezra's narrative, and for that re- lajise of tlie Jews into their former irregularities which is apparent in the book of Nehemiah. Such a relapse, and such a state of affairs at Jerusalem in general, could scarcely have occurred if Ezra had continued there. Whether he returned to Jerusalem with Nehe- miah, or separatelj', docs not appear certainly, l>ut as he is not mentioned in Nehemiah's narrative till after the completion of the wall (Neh. viii, 1), it is perhaps probable that he followed the latter some months later, having, perhaps, been sent for to aid him in his work. The functions he executed under Nehemiah's govern- ment were purely of a priestly and ecclesiastical char- acter, such as reading and interpreting the law of Mo- ses to the people during the eight days of the feast of Tabernacles, praying in the congregation, and assist- ing at the dedication of the wall, and in promoting the religious reformation so liappih' effected by the Tir- shatha. But in such he filled the first place, being re- peatedly coupled with Nehemiah the Tirshatha (viii, 9 ; xii, 26), while Eliashih the high-priest is not men- tioned as taking any part in the reformation at all. In the sealing to the covenant described in Neh. x, Ezra perhaps sealed under the patronjmiic Seraiah or Aza- riah (v, 2). In Neh. viii we read that, on the occasion of the celebration of the feast of the seventli month, subsequently to Nehemiah's numbering the people, Ezra was requested to bring the liook of the law of Jloses ; and that he read therein standing upon a pul- pit of wood, which raised him above all the people. As Ezra is not mentioned after Nehemiah's departure for Babylon in the thirty-second of Artaxerxes, and as everytiiing fell into confusion during Nehemiah's ab- sence (Neh. xiii), it is not unlikeh- that Ezra may have again returned to Babylon before that year. See Nehejiiah.