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The Upper Register

Introduction to Ezra–Nehemiah

Ezra and Nehemiah are now separate books in our English Bibles but they were originally a single book and are treated here as such. It is not as though Nehemiah is only about Nehemiah; it contains a critically important section, Neh 8–10, that is about Ezra—the famous passage where Ezra reads the Torah, the people confess their sin, and make a covenant committing themselves to support the temple cultus.

On authorship, see the Introduction to Chronicles. Ezra and Nehemiah have been traditionally viewed as authored by “Ezra the scribe” (Ezra 7:1, 6, 11-12, 21; 8:1, 4, 13; 12:36), and I have no reason to question that ancient rabbinic and Christian tradition (while recognizing the possibility that later editors after Ezra may have given these books their final canonical shape).

“These books record the last events of the Old Testament period … Later tradition marks Ezra as the culmination of the Old Testament era and describes him as the one who completes the canon” — Dillard & Longman, Introduction to the OT, 179 (however, Dillard and Longman themselves are more persuaded by a modern theory of the sources, composition, and authorship of Ezra-Nehemiah).

Outline of Ezra–Nehemiah

Section titled “Outline of Ezra–Nehemiah”
  1. A Historical Review (Ezra 1–6)
  2. Ezra’s Memoirs, Part 1 (Ezra 7–10)
  3. Nehemiah’s Memoirs, Part 1 (Neh 1–7)
  4. Ezra’s Memoirs, Part 2 (Neh 8–10)
  5. Nehemiah’s Memoirs, Part 2 (Neh 11–13)

— From D. M. Howard, Jr., Introduction to the Historical Books (Moody, 1993), 278.

Themes and Typology of Ezra–Nehemiah

Section titled “Themes and Typology of Ezra–Nehemiah”

The New Testament does not quote Ezra-Nehemiah directly, but much of Acts and the letters of Paul presuppose it. Without Ezra-Nehemiah it is hard to understand why some early Jewish Christians would have been opposed to welcoming Gentiles into the covenant community without conversion to Judaism, circumcision, and Torah-observance. The narrowly ethnic exclusivism of Judaism was established in the post-exilic period as narrated in Ezra-Nehemiah (no intermarriage with Gentiles; the small embattled community constantly attacked by opponents; intensified insider-vs-outsider boundary; call to Torah-observance to demarcate the Jews from Gentiles). Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 2:11-22; 3:6 (Christ has broken down “the dividing wall of hostility” making Gentiles “members of the same body”) makes sense against this background.