Bible Character Explorer
Persian Period, Post-Exilic Return • c. 480 to 440 BC
Ezra
The Scribe of the LawThe priest-scribe who led a second return from exile and taught Israel to love God's word again
"For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments."
Ezra 7:10 (KJV)
Overview
Ezra was a priest and skilled scribe living in Persia who led a second wave of exiles back to Jerusalem roughly eighty years after the first return under Zerubbabel. He is remembered for his deep devotion to studying, obeying, and teaching the Law of Moses, for his bold public confession of the people's sin regarding intermarriage with pagan nations, and for standing alongside Nehemiah in the public reading of the law that sparked covenant renewal.
Gospel Connection
Ezra's devotion to seeking, obeying, and teaching God's word models the response every believer owes to Scripture, but it is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who perfectly embodies and fulfills everything Ezra taught from the written law. Ezra's grief-filled identification with a sinful people's guilt, though he was personally innocent of their specific sin, foreshadows the far deeper substitutionary identification of Christ, who was entirely innocent yet bore the full weight of his people's sin as his own.
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See how this life points to Christ in the Gospel Connection section above.
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