The New Man in Christ

1 When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.   As one man Is a hebrew idiom meaning they were united. Just like in luke the people of Judah returned to their ancestral homes. 2 Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, burnt offerings morning and evening.  “and offered burnt offerings on it.” The Jews started offering sacrifices on the altar long before the Temple was finished. It is always nice to do God’s work in exactly the way He prescribes, but sometimes, such as here, the right thing to do is to do the best you can even if t...

Before we start I want to mention that the books of the Bible are not in chronological order. For instance Esra, Esther, and  Nehemiah come before Psalms yet David wrote the Psalms hundreds of years before those three books were written and took place. Esra picks up where 2 Chronicles stops. Commentary for the REV “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia.” Ezra 1:1 -3a is almost identical to the last two verses of 2 Chronicles. From a chronological point of view, Ezra takes over where Chronicles stops. This first year of Cyrus refers to his first year reigning over Babylon, which he conquered in 538 BC, not his first year reigning in Persia (559 BC). Babylon was captured in October, 539 BC ( Dan. 5:30-31 ), but Cyrus did not get there and start to reign over Babylon until March of 538 BC. Quite a lot is known about Cyrus from the Persian records. Also, “Cyrus” is an actual name, not a title, whereas in other parts of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, the “names” Dar...