Sermons By Ed

Ed Underwood Study Notes   Return from Exile: Zerubbabel and Ezra “I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you” (Jeremiah 29:14). The fifth major unit within the seventeen Historical Books is referred to as the Post Exilic Period. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther record Israel’s “second exodus,” this one from exile in Babylonia. This mini-exodus that only involved a returning remnant came in three waves. Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple in the first wave of 50,000. After God foiled a Satanic plot to exterminate God’s people in Persia, godly Esther reigns as Queen of Persia. Eighty-one years after Zerubbabel’s return, Ezra brings 5,000 Jews to Jerusalem to rebuild their godly culture. Finally, Nehemiah leads the third and last return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. This was the time when the prophets Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi spoke. The chronology of Ezra’s time is important: 538-515 BC 483-473 BC 457 BC 444-425 BC Zerubbabel Ezra