Ezra 2:64 - Meaning and Application

Here, I. We see the total number of the people who returned from Babylon. The smaller groups named before add up to just under 30,000, about 29,818. That means more than 12,000 others were not listed in those family records. It is likely that many of them came from the other tribes of Israel, beyond Judah and Benjamin, but they could not identify their exact clan or city, only that they were Israelites.

This number was more than twice the number Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, carried away captive. So, as in Egypt, the time of their suffering was also the time of their growth. They were only a small group to start a nation again, yet God had given an old promise to their fathers, and they grew into a very large people. Before their final destruction by the Romans about 500 years later, they had multiplied greatly. When God says, "Increase and multiply," even a little group can become a thousand.

II. Their attendants were few. They themselves were little more than servants, so it is no surprise that their own servants were not many (Ezra 2:65), and their pack animals were also about the same number (Ezra 2:66, Ezra 2:67). Their situation was very different from earlier days. Still, the text notes that they had 200 singing men and women with them, who were likely meant, as in (2 Chronicles 35:25), to stir up their mourning, since it had been foretold that they would go out weeping on this occasion (Jeremiah 50:4), with songs of sorrow.

III. Their gifts are also recorded (Ezra 2:68, Ezra 2:69). First, they came to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, though that house, once holy and beautiful, was now only ruins and rubble. Even so, like their father Abraham, when the altar was gone, they still came with devotion to the place where the altar had stood (Genesis 13:4). True children of Zion care even for its dust (Psalm 102:14).

Second, they gave freely toward rebuilding the temple in its proper place. It seems this was the first great work they had in mind. Though they had just made a long journey and were starting life again, both costly burdens, they still gave willingly for the house of God. No one should complain about the needed expense of religion. In the end, they will find that true worship pays its own way. Their gift was small compared with the offerings of David’s princes in earlier days, when they gave by talents (1 Chronicles 29:7). Now they gave by smaller amounts, yet their gifts, given according to what they had, were just as acceptable to God, like the widow’s two mites.

Third, they settled in their own cities (Ezra 2:70). Their towns were still in poor shape, but they were their towns, the places God had assigned them, and that was enough. They were content with freedom and ownership, even though they had little wealth, comfort, or power. Their poverty was a bad condition, but it did produce something good, unity among them. There was room for all of them and all they had, so there was no quarrel, only harmony. That was a hopeful sign of their settlement, just as the later divisions in that nation would later point toward its ruin.