Esdras

“ Arise, it is thy part to give orders, and we will be with thee: take courage, and do it.
10:5. So Esdras arose, and made the chiefs of the priests and of the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word, and they swore.
10:6. And Esdras rose up from before the house of God, and went to the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliasib, and entered in thither: he ate no bread, and drank no water: for he mourned for the transgression of them that were come out of the captivity. ”

“ Whatever doubt may be entertained respecting the writings of Esdras, it cannot be denied that in respect to the Ten Tribes and what became of them he is in harmony with the statement made by Jesus to the Nephites, viz: that the Lord had led them away out of the land. The Most High, according to Esdras, showing them signs by staying the springs of the flood of the Euphrates, as he will do when the time comes for them to return. [158] He is also in harmony with the prophets who predict the return of Israel in the last days from the land in which they have been hidden by the Lord. ”

“ So Esdras blessed the Lord God most High, the God of hosts, Almighty.
47 And all the people answered, Amen; and lifting up their hands they fell to the ground, and worshipped the Lord.
48 Also Jesus, Anus, Sarabias, Adinus, Jacubus, Sabateas, Auteas, Maianeas, and Calitas, Azarias, and Joazabdus, and Ananias, Biatas, the Levites, taught the law of the Lord, making them withal to understand it.
49 Then spake Attharates unto Esdras the chief priest and reader, and to the Levites that taught the multitude, even to all, saying,
50 This day is holy unto the Lord ”

“ Truly, I long for nothing now but the death of this malefactor."
Then came Esdras, breathless with haste, crying, "Hail to the high priest. I have seen the fathers who were sent to Judas. All has gone according to your wish. The Galilean is in bonds. I heard it from their mouth, and hurried as fast as I could to bring the joyful news in haste to thee."
Annas cried, "Oh, heavenly message! Auspicious hour! A stone is lifted from my heart; I feel as if I were born again. Now for the first time can I rejoice to call myself high priest of the chosen people." ”

“ The name of Esdras is also attached to one of the apocryphal books of the early Christian Church, the Vision of Esdras, which relates how Esdras was led by Michael, Gabriel, and thirty-four other angels through the realms of darkness, wherein the punishments meted out to the wicked are revealed to him, and then to Paradise, where he sees Enoch and Elias, Peter, Paul, Moses, the Evangelists and Patriarchs, and all the righteous, assembled beneath the Tree of Life. ”

“ It is evident from what he says, and from other sources, that the name Esdras was supposed to have been that of several persons; one authority definitely states that Esdras the prophet, the author of 4 Esdras, and Esdras the scribe, the author of the canonical Ezra, lived about 100 years apart: also, 4 Esdras is dated, in its opening words, in the thirtieth year of the ruin of the city (530 B.C.) , whereas Ezra the scribe belongs to the middle of the next century. The equation of Salathiel with Esdras is based, I believe, upon 1 Chron. iii. ”

“ Now when Esdras was thus praying, and beseeching, and weeping, and lying before the temple of God, there was gathered to him of Israel an exceeding great assembly of men and women and children, and the people wept with much lamentation.
10:2. And Sechenias the son of Jehiel of the sons of Elam answered, and said to Esdras: We have sinned against our God, and have taken strange wives of the people of the land: and now if there be repentance in Israel concerning this,
10:3. ”

“ The apocryphal Book of Esdras, containing portions of the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah; only chaps. iii. and iv. being original. In these it is related how Zerubbabel distinguished himself before King Darius in describing Woman and Truth as the mightiest rulers of mankind, and thus obtained permission to return to Palestine and rebuild the Temple. A second apocryphal Book of Esdras is named, in which Ezra is represented as a prophet addressing his brethren in the name of God, and telling them the visions he had. ”

“ There was a light mist rising,—a thin moonlit-colored vapor that crept slowly upward from the ground and remained hovering like a wide, suddenly-spun gossamer web, some two or three inches above it, thus giving a cool, luminous, watery effect to the hot and arid soil.
"According to the Apocrypha, Esdras 'sat among the flowers,'" he idly mused—"Well! ... perhaps there were flowers in those days,—but it is very evident there are none now. A more dreary, utterly desolate place than this famous 'Ardath' I have never seen!" ”

“ O thou wicked people, remember what I did unto Sodom and Gomorrha;
2:9 Whose land lieth in clods of pitch and heaps of ashes: even so also will I do unto them that hear me not, saith the Almighty Lord.
2:10 Thus saith the Lord unto Esdras, Tell my people that I will give them the kingdom of Jerusalem, which I would have given unto Israel.
2:11 Their glory also will I take unto me, and give these the everlasting tabernacles, which I had prepared for them.
2:12 They shall have the tree of life for an ointment of sweet savour; they shall neither labour, nor be weary. ”

“ And Esdras said: [6] Arise, and come hither with me, O Lord, to judgment. And the Lord said: Behold, I give thee my covenant between me and thee, that you may receive it. And Esdras said: Let us plead in Thy hearing. [7] And God said: Ask Abraham your father how a son pleads with his father, [8] and come plead with us. And Esdras said: As the Lord liveth, I will not cease pleading with Thee in behalf of the race of the Christians. Where are Thine ancient compassions, O Lord? Where is Thy long-suffering? And God said: As I have made night and day, I have made the righteous and the sinner ”

“ For it is indeed just as the angel showed Esdras, namely, a city builded upon a broad field, full of all good things; the entrance thereof was narrow and steep, as if there were a fire on the right hand, and on the left a deep water, so that there was only one narrow path between them both, so small that but one man could go there at once; which city no man could or might receive for an inheritance, except he first pass that strait. ”

“ It is quite possible that the Black Sea is the "waters" to which Esdras refers. Also Josephus, in speaking of the return of the Jews under Esdras, says, "Many of them took their effects with them and came to Babylon, as very desirous of going down to Jerusalem, but then the entire body of the people of Israel remained in that country, wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond the Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated by numbers." ”

“ Esdras is a later version in Greek of the events told in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, but it begins further back in the reign of Josiah and carries the story through the exile down to the re-dedication of the Second Temple. The author breathes into it some later religious ideas of his own time. The following story quoted from it is known as the "Dispute of the Courtiers":
"Now King Darius made a great feast unto all his subjects and unto all that were born in his house, and unto all the princes of Medea and of Persia. ”

“ Then Esdras said: I know the most High is called merciful, and he pardoneth; for if he did not so that they which have committed iniquities might be eased of them, the ten thousandth part of men should not remain living; there should be very few left, peradventure, in an innumerable multitude. ”

“ In the Vulgate, however, our author was, through the action of Jerome, degraded into the third place and called 3 Esdras, whereas the canonical books Ezra and Nehemiah (see Ezra and Nehemiah, Books of, below) were called 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Apocalypse of Ezra 4 Esdras. Thus the nomenclature of our book follows, and possibly wrongly, the usage of the Vulgate. [1] In the Ethiopic version a different usage prevails. The Apocalypse is called 1 Esdras, our author 2 Esdras, and Ezra and Nehemiah 3 Esdras, or 3 and 4 Esdras. ”

“ It is not enough to part from Babylon, that is, figuratively from sin, but we must also do works of penance; and therefore Esdras here proclaimed an extraordinary fast to those that were come from captivity. This shews that fasting was commanded and practised from the earliest times.
8:22. For I was ashamed to ask the king for aid and for horsemen, to defend us from the enemy in the way: because we had said to the king: The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him in goodness: and his power and strength, and wrath upon all them that forsake him. ”

“ Apocalypse of Esdras.—This Greek production resembles the more ancient fourth book of Esdras in some respects. The prophet is perplexed about the mysteries of life, and questions God respecting them. The punishment of the wicked especially occupies his thoughts. Since they have sinned in consequence of Adam’s fall, their fate is considered worse than that of the irrational creation. The description of the tortures suffered in the infernal regions is tolerably minute. At last the prophet consents to give up his spirit to God, who has prepared for him a crown of immortality. ”

“ The matter is of some little importance, because, if my view is correct, it does away with the only formidable argument in favour of the dissection of 4 Esdras into a congeries of documents.
The first two and last two chapters of the Latin version of 4 Esdras as they stand in our Apocrypha are later accretions. Chapters i., ii. are an independent Christian Apocalypse, surviving only in Latin. Chapters xv., xvi. are prophecies of woes conceived in the spirit of the Old Testament prophets and the Sibylline Oracles. ”

“ Like the Apocalypse of Esdras it deals with the subject of intercession for sinners and the reluctance of the seer to die. The parallel passages in 4 Esdras and the Apocalypse of Esdras are pointed out in the margin of the translation. ”

“ After these three prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, during the same period of the liberation of the people from the Babylonian servitude Esdras also wrote, who is historical rather than prophetical, as is also the book called Esther, which is found to relate, for the praise of God, events not far from those times ”

“ Thus out of the eater comes forth meat. The apocryphal Esdras (or Ezra) , Book I. ch. iii. and iv., gives another account of this decree in favour of the Jews, that Darius had vowed that if ever he came to the kingdom he would build the temple at Jerusalem, and that Zerubbabel, who was one of his attendants (whereas it is plain here that he was now at Jerusalem) , for making an ingenious discourse before him on that subject ( Great is the truth and will prevail) , was told to ask what recompence he would, and asked only for this order, in pursuance of the king's vow. ”

“ He is called by the Hebrews Ezra."
(b) Nehemiah—Catholic form of name, "Nehemias:" "This book takes its name from the writer, who was cup-bearer to Artaxerxes (surnamed Longimanus) king of Persia, and was sent by him with a commission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It is also called the Second Book of Esdras; because it is a continuation of the history, begun by Esdras, of the state of the people of God after their return from captivity." (Introductions in Douay Bible to First and Second Book of Esdras.) ”

“ For it is certainly a fact of history, based on the confessions of the Jews themselves, and of Christians likewise, that:
The Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonozar, Esdras, the Levite, the priest, in the times of Artaxerxes, king of the Persians, having become inspired, in the exercise of prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures.331
[pg 174] One must have a strong belief in “Esdras,” and especially in his good faith, to accept the now-existing copies as genuine Mosaic Books ”

“ As Also Concerning Esdras And Nehemiah.
1. Upon the death of Darius, Xerxes his son took the kingdom, who, as he inherited his father's kingdom, so did he inherit his piety towards God, and honor of him; for he did all things suitably to his father relating to Divine worship, and he was exceeding friendly to the Jews. Now about this time a son of Jeshua, whose name was Joacim, was the high priest. Moreover, there was now in Babylon a righteous man, and one that enjoyed a great reputation among the multitude. He was the principal priest of the people, and his name was Esdras. ”

“ In the writings of Esdras or Ezra, which, however, are not included among the canonical books of the Bible, but are known as apocryphal, we find references to the north-bound migration of the ten tribes, which they undertook in accordance with a plan to escape the heathen by going to "a further country where never man dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes which they never kept in their own land." ”

“ I represent the diphthong οὐ at the beginning of a word by “w.”↑ The first and second books of Esdras here referred to are not the apocryphal books known by that name, but Ezra and Nehemiah, which in the Hebrew canon formed but one book, as Origen says here, but which in the LXX were separated (see above, Bk. III. chap. 10, note 4) . Esdras is simply the form which the word Ezra assumes in Greek.↑ Whether this sentence closed Origen’s discussion of the Hebrew canon, or whether he went on to mention the other apocryphal books, we cannot tell. ”