Darius and Xerxes, Kings of Persia

The books of Kings and Chronicles end with the exile of Judah, although Chronicles adds the proclamation of Cyrus as an epilogue. Although the theme of exile is prominent throughout the narratives, and indeed throughout the Bible as a whole, the long narrative sequence from Genesis through Kings, and also Chronicles, contains nothing about life in the Babylonian exile. (Diaspora life is the setting for the Short Prose Narrative Books of Esther and Daniel.) Israel’s story resumes in the book of Ezra-Nehemiah with the return of some of the exiles to Judah under the leadership of Ezra, a priest and scribe, and Nehemiah, the governor of Yehud (as the Persians called Judah). The style of this book differs from the earlier narrative books in that it contains memoirs in the first and third person as well as letters and proclamations by various officials and Persian kings. Parts are written in Aramaic. The main tasks that occupied the returnees were the rebuilding of the Temple, the reconstruction of walls to protect Jerusalem, and their commitment to follow the laws of the Torah. Matters of Jewish identity loomed large and needed to be redefined. In Ezra-Nehemiah, the “real” Jews were those who had been exiled and had returned, not the people whom the returnees found in Judah upon their return. The book is concerned with the genealogical “purity” of the Jews and is especially careful about the priestly line, given that priests will need to serve in the rebuilt Temple. It stresses the continuity between the returnees and pre-exilic Israel, and views the returnee community as heirs to the land promised by God to Abraham.