Ezra–Nehemiah עזרא ונחמיה
The book of the return from Babylon: rebuilding the Temple, the walls of Jerusalem and communal life.
After Cyrus's decree in 3390 some forty-two thousand people return to Jerusalem with Zerubavel. They set up an altar and lay the Temple's foundation—and the work stops for nearly twenty years under denunciations and local opposition. Only under Darius, after the prophecies of Chaggai and Zecharia, does it resume, and in 3412 the Second Temple is dedicated; the old men who remembered the first one wept.
Ezra comes up from Babylon in 3413 and takes on people rather than stones: he reads the Torah to the whole nation in the square, institutes public reading on Mondays and Thursdays, and establishes the square script for scrolls.
Nehemia, cupbearer to the Persian king, arrives thirteen years later and rebuilds the walls in fifty-two days, working under threat of attack. The book ends with a written covenant to keep the Torah.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Ezra 1–10 — the decree of Cyrus, the return, and the Temple
- Nechemiah 1–13 — the walls of Jerusalem and the public covenant
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Sanhedrin 21b — Ezra and the change of script
- Bava Batra 15a — Ezra wrote his own book; Nechemiah completed it
- Seder Olam Rabbah 29–30 — the chronology of the return
Basis: tradition.