Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

Today we finished our 36th book of the Bible, and it took us 7 chapters but we finally met

Ezra, the man who this book was named after.

He's a scribe descended from Aaron the High Priest.

He lived in Babylon turn Persia until he left to return to Jerusalem during the reign of

King Artisercces of Persia.

Remember King A from the book of Esther?

His full name was Ahashuerus but he was also known as Xerxes, and Artisercces is the

King who came after Xerxes.

So this is all happening after Esther's husband dies.

But a quick sidebar, this new King is almost certainly not Esther's son.

Most scholars don't attribute any children to Esther.

The events starting in chapter 7 are taking place roughly 60 years after the first six chapters

of this book. Today opens with a letter to Ezra from King Artisercces of Persia.

He's sending Ezra and a bunch of other Jews in Persia back to Jerusalem, but he's not sending

them back dismissively. He's sending back anyone who wants to go and he's sending them with massive

blessings and provisions. He says he'll take care of basically everything Ezra needs.

He also tells Ezra to appoint magistrates and judges who will teach and enact the laws of

Yahweh. And as if all this weren't enough, the King tells him that the temple gets a pass on

paying taxes. This is a really exciting commissioning for Ezra because he's a Torah scholar and he's

going to get to teach the scriptures to all the exiles in Jerusalem. And by most accounts,

this will be Ezra's first time in Jerusalem. He's probably only about 22 years old at this point,

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