Road Trippin With Rachael

One of the things that I enjoy doing is going up to Swedesburg, IA every so often and looking through the archives. Stored there is my family tree on my father’s side. My father’s family is one of the founding families of the town, and they have kept excellent records of births, marriages, and deaths which combined make it easy to see how different people in the town are related. I had the pleasure in 2023 of being in Swedesburg for their Saint Lucia celebration, and learned that I was related to the entire room, sans a few high schoolers there to support their friend representing Saint Lucia.

My point here, is that I know where I came from. I can see pictures of my relatives, see the family tree, and look at the charter members name for the Lutheran church in town and know about some of the things that were important to my relatives.

In the same way, Ezra 2 opens with a rather long list of names. Similar to other list we see sprinkled through the Old Testament, the list in Ezra is like reading the analysis of a census. There are individuals from earlier in Israel’s history who had families, and then a list of their descendants with the number of individuals who are a part of that family group. As we go through chapter 2 we are going to be looking at three concepts on family that will play a significant role in the life of Israel, and in the lives of Christians today.

Identity

As we look at Ezra 2, and the incredibly long list of names and numbers that are included in the chapter, we see something obvious: the list of names was meant to be a way to identify the families that were coming back with the wave of exiles that were returning to Israel, and it specifically accounts for those who would be eligible to work in the temple once it had been rebuilt, and the kinds of jobs their families are responsible for. For example, the Levites had specific jobs based on their family lines. Although all the families of Levites served in some capacity in the temple, it was only the descendants of Aaron who were able to serve in the capacity of high priest. Other family lines were singers, guards, and servants within the temple (Numbers 4, Ezra 2:70). Basically, it provided a census for knowing who was returning to Israel, but also it gave those who would be serving as administrators, Zerubbabel and Joshua (Ezra 2:2, Haggai 1:1), what to expect for their overall workforce for construction, for service in the temple, and what to expect to produce foodwise – as the Levites were provided for by the offerings of the people (Nehemiah 13:10). I tend to give Nehemiah credit for being administrative, but the records kept about the return would indicate that there were others who also had this skill, even if they remain unnamed.

Another important identifying notation is that the other tribes are also indicated. Zerubbabel was of the tribe of Judah, and specifically David (Haggai 2: 23), which would indicate other tribes returned to Israel besides Levites, even through many of their families are recorded here. If we go back through II Chronicles and II Kings, we’ll see that the two tribes whose land was taken by the Babylonians was Judah and Benjamin – both of which made up the kingdom of Judah, along with the Levites who were mixed among them. On a note that I find ironic – both the tribes that survived the Assyrians in II Kings both produced kings (Saul and David), and both were ones that received actual blessings from Jacob in Genesis 49.

Heritage

But it was not only those who were biologically descended from Abraham who were included in the list. As we’ve discussion on various occasions, God did not deny anyone who was a Gentile (non-Israelite) who wished to worship him. Beginning in Ezra 2:61-62, we see that there were families that were not entered into the genealogical records -0 therefore disqualified from the priesthood – but they still came. They were still welcomed; verse 63 just records that they were not to be afforded the same benefits as the priests. Although they were not a part of the family line that they thought they were, they were still able to come back and live amongst God’s people. They were still coming to worship, and although they were not in the Levitical line, there was still a record of their family – which means that God still saw them as being important. We spent a good chunk of our previous Nehemiah study discussing that.

Magnitude

In my mind, the numbers never really compute. I tend to think of the return of the Hebrew people from Babylon in two extremes. Either I think of it as everyone returned – which I know from the reading of scripture that they didn’t. Or, I think of it as only a smallish number returning. Realistically, from Ezra 2 with all the numbers that are recorded for the different family lines, plus the servants who returned with them, we are looking at close to 50,000 people. Fifty. Thousand. People! That is the size of Gallatin, Tennessee. That is 20x the number of people who are in my hometown in Missouri. It’s the size of a decent sized suburb.

Here is what I think: I think that God had the Hebrew people record exact numbers because he wanted the enormity of what was happening to sink in. This was no small feat that took place. This was a mass migration of people. In many ways it really does mirror what took place during the Exodus from Egypt. Although that was an entire people that was moving from one place to another, and this was much smaller by comparison, this was still a monumental undertaking. It shows how God cares for the people, that he didn’t allow them to decrease in number, but that the people during the time they were away lived. They married, had families, had successful occupations, and the children and grandchildren of those taken were many upon the return. It shows that God is faithful. He cares for his people. It says that God makes himself known.

Final Thoughts

God shows us through Ezra 2 the importance of our identity. It helps us to know who we are and we can also look back at our heritage and see how faith has played a part in getting us to where we currently are, to where are families are. Even when things don’t line up the way that they thought that they would, God is still faithful to welcome us into his people and count us as his. Finally, to my way of thinking, the magnitude of what God can do with a group of exiles is out and out amazing. Where down trodden prisoners of war left Israel seventy years prior, now almost 50,000 people return ready to take back and settle the land that had been promised to their forefathers.