Writer: Ezra

4. (a) What is the setting of the book of Ezra, and who wrote it? (b) When was Ezra written, and what period does it cover?

⁴ Restoration! This provides the setting of the book of Ezra. The use of the first person in the narration from chapter 7 verse 27 through chapter 9 verse 15 clearly shows that the writer was Ezra. As “a skilled copyist in the law of Moses” and a man of practical faith who “prepared his heart to consult the law of Jehovah and to do it and to teach” it, Ezra was well qualified to record this history, even as he had recorded Chronicles. (Ezra 7:6, 10) Since the book of Ezra is a continuation of Chronicles, it is generally believed that it was written at the same time, about 460 B.C.E. It covers 70 years, from the time that the Jews were a broken, scattered nation marked as “the sons of death” to the completion of the second temple and the cleansing of the priesthood after Ezra’s return to Jerusalem.​—Ezra 1:1; 7:7; 10:17; Ps. 102:20, footnote.

5. What relation has the book of Ezra to the book of Nehemiah, and in what languages was it written?

⁵ The Hebrew name Ezra means “Help.” The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one scroll. (Neh. 3:32, footnote) Later the Jews divided this scroll and called it First and Second Ezra. Modern Hebrew Bibles call the two books Ezra and Nehemiah, as do other modern Bibles. Part of the book of Ezra (4:8 to 6:18 and; 7:12-26) was written in Aramaic and the remainder in Hebrew, Ezra being skilled in both languages.

6. What testifies to the accuracy of the book of Ezra?

⁶ Today the majority of scholars accept the accuracy of the book of Ezra. Concerning the canonicity of Ezra, W. F. Albright writes in his treatise The Bible After Twenty Years of Archaeology: “Archaeological data have thus demonstrated the substantial originality of the Books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, of Ezra and Nehemiah beyond doubt; they have confirmed the traditional picture of events, as well as their order.”