I_. TH~ KIND OF MEN THAT CAME UP. They appear to have been men, in the m:1m,_ loving the old state of things. They were conservatives, e. g., in politics 1 keeping still, m the _person of Zerubbabel as their chief civil r~ler, to the ancient dynasty, that of David. They are also thought by some, companng the names in ver. 2 with the probably correcter account in Neh. vii. 7, and with Ezra vi. 17; 1 Kings xviii. 31 to have shown the same spirit touching the ancient twelve-fold" constitution" of Isr~el. In Church matters, again, so to call them, the returning exiles showed their strong respect for precedents and the past by submitting to Jeshua as chief priest (see 2 Kings xxv. 18-21; 1 Chron. vi. 15; Haggai i. 1, 14). Also we see another branch of this Church conservatism of theirs in the especial importance attached by them to the question of genealo&'Y· While, further yet, on !his last-mentioned matter, the only proposal made for settlmg the doubts that beset 1t was by an ancient method again (ver. 63). Nor is it altogethe: unworthy of remark in this connection that they also appear to have been men showmg great attachment to race and place, and assembling together for their proposed return to Jerusalem in family groups. In most cases these groups ~re described as "the children" of some one man. This is the case of vers. 1-17, and agarn of vers. 33-35. In other cases (vers. 18-33) the groups are described as lwictg connected with particular towns, which, considering how necessarily near of kin all Israeliti~h fellow-~ownsm~n had formerly b_een, comes to much the same thing (see N um. XXXVI. 7 ; 1 Kmgs xx1. 3). All the pnests also who returned amongst them are in similar groups, being all described as belonging to four " courses " or family lines (vers. 36-39). The same kind of thing, again, is true of the Levites (vers. 40- 42), and even of those Nethinims and children of Solomon's servants who appear to ha,e been the "hewers of wood" and "drawers of water" for the congregation at large. .A strong " clannish " spirit, a great desire to be and do as in " the old times before them," seems to have prevailed among all; the same spirit which afterwards degenerated into that false conservatism, the conservatism of mere human traditions (comp. Jer. vi. 16 and xviii. 15), found in Pharisaism and Rabbinism. Meanwhile, however, and while still uncorrupted, it made them just the men for their work: returned refugees, not colonists; men called upon merely to rebuild and restore, and not. like Moses before and the apostles of Christ after them, to devise and create. II. The NUMBER of those who returned is also worthy of note. They were only a fp"·, all told; some 50;000, of all sorts, including, so it would seem from: comparing rhe items, about 10,000 souls of some kind not mentioned in the detailed catalogue. How different from the 600,000 "that were men," beside women and children and many others, that had come up out of Egypt so many generations previously I How many others must have been left behind (as some indication of the state of things on this point, see Esther ix. 16) I Counting also by the number of families or groups that returned, what are thirty-five, the whole number mentioned here, out of the many thousands of Israel I Moreover, a comparison of this chapter with what we read in eh. viii of such names as Pharosh, Pahath-Moab, .Adin, Shephatiah, and others, shows that all the members even of these thirty-five families did not come back at the first. So also, although the proportion of priests returning was very considerable (about one tenth of the whole), only four courses out of the twenty-four (vers. 36- 39 ; 1 Chron. xxiv.) were represented among them; whilst some 341 Levites of all three descriptions, as against 38,000 in David's time, and some 392 Nethinims and others comprised in forty-five groups, complete the catalogue given, except of cases of do~bt. Yet even these few appear to be many, viewed from a different point. Of beast.a of burden of all kinds they had rather more than 9000 amongst them (about one to every six travellers); but of these only 736 were horses; and of camels, the animals so especially required by them in the desert journey before them, there were only 435-a very di1ferent proportion indeed to that which we read of in Gen. xxiv. 10, where ten camels appear to have been provided for one traveller's use . .Altogether it may well be questioned whether caravans of greater ap1;>arent imp~rt- ance in every way do not annually cross the deserts of the East without_ leavmg any visible trace behind them on the history of the day. The Beere~ of the d1fferenuo waR in the'' blessing" that went with them. In those holy vessels, m the dnty before them and in the presence among them of the prophets and priests of Jehovah, and of the a~cestor of t4e coming SaYiour, they were in<lced "heuring precious seed" (f11, oa. u. 1-67.J TlIE BOOK OF EZttA. 21
o:uvi. 6). That being so, their small number was just the proper one for God's use; sufficient to form a. nucleus and make a beginning, but not sufficient to give them the appeara.nce of being more than instruments in his hands (comp. Judges vii. 21 4; and in connection with the very people and time we are speaking of, Zech. iv. 6). III. A word or two may be added, finally, as to the special NAMES we find here. It cannot surely be a mere coincidence that we find this second entrance into Canaan, this return from Babylonian captivity, headed (ecclesiastically) by one bearing the greatest of Jewish names. Are not such truths as we find in Ps. lxviii. 18; Acts vii. 45 • Col. ii. 15, &c. pointed to here by this name of Jeshua? See further, as to the typical relation between this "Jeshua" and the man Christ" Jesus," Isa. xi. 1; Jer. :uiii. 5; Zech. iii. 8; vi. 11-13, &c. Also let the name of Bethlehem in ver. 21 of this chapter be noted. Was not the fact there recorded, the return, viz., of certain Bethlehemites to their ancestral home in Judah, one step in the many steps taken to fulfil the prophecy of Micah v. 2, and to make this town of Bethlehem in after ages the exact spot where heaven came nearest to earth? When we remember, indeed, yet further, as before noted, that we have in the name of Zerubbabel the name of a direct ancestor of Messiah himself (Matt. i. 13-16), as also what we read in Heb. vii. 9, 10, can we not, in these three names of Jeshua, Zerubbabel, and Bethle- hem, prophetically see the Lord Jesus himself leading his people back to their land? And can we not also, in the march of that little company, as it were, hear the very sound of his feet? How true, therefore, and how much to be remembered by us, what we read of as declared on this subject by apostles, by angels, by himself (John v. 39, 46 ; Acts x. 43 ; Rev. xix. 10).