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Ezra 3

Ezra book home•Chapter 3 of 10•13 verses

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REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Ezra 3 Overview

The returned Jews rebuild the altar, resume sacrifices, keep the feast of tabernacles, and begin preparations for the temple. When the foundation is laid, priests and Levites praise the LORD, but the crowd contains both loud joy and loud weeping as older people remember the former temple. Restoration has truly begun, but it is not emotionally simple.

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Before you read Ezra 3

Coming from

Chapter 2 identified the returned community and recorded their gifts toward rebuilding the house of God.

In this chapter

Worship resumes at the altar before the temple building is complete, and the laying of the temple foundation produces both praise and grief.

Leads into

Chapter 4 introduces sustained opposition that will hinder the rebuilding work and eventually stop it for a time.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The altar is rebuilt before the temple structure because sacrificial worship can resume at the appointed place even while construction remains unfinished. The mixed reaction at the foundation reflects generational memory: some see a major beginning; others remember the lost glory of Solomon’s temple.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Truth 1

The returned community gives priority to worship even while living under fear and unfinished conditions.

Truth 2

Biblical restoration can produce joy and grief at the same time; gratitude for a new beginning does not erase sorrow over what was lost.

Truth 3

The rebuilt foundation is a real advance, but the chapter does not pretend that restoration has already reached its final form.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Connection 1

Haggai 2:3 later addresses people who had seen the former house and compares that memory with the new temple.

Connection 2

Leviticus 23 gives the law of the feast of tabernacles observed here.

Connection 3

Psalm 136 uses the same enduring-mercy theme heard in the praise when the foundation is laid.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Keep this clear 1

Do not treat the older people’s weeping as simple unbelief; the text reports the mixed response without reducing it to one motive.

Keep this clear 2

The second temple should not be described as identical to Solomon’s temple merely because both are called the house of God.

Keep this clear 3

Resumed sacrifices belong to the Mosaic covenant order; they are not conditions for receiving eternal life.

Read Ezra 3 watching for…

Why the altar is rebuilt before the temple itself.

The feasts and sacrifices that resume.

How materials and workers are arranged for the temple.

The organized praise at the laying of the foundation.

The striking mixture of shouting and weeping.

Chapter outline2 sections

1-7The people rebuild the altar, offer sacrifices, keep the feast, and obtain building materials 8-13The temple foundation is laid with praise, shouting, and weeping

And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.

Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.

And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the LORD, even burnt offerings morning and evening.

They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required;

And afterward offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the LORD.

From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the LORD. But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.

They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.

Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the remnant of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem; and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to set forward the work of the house of the LORD.

Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites.

And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, after the ordinance of David king of Israel.

And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:

So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.

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Ezra 3:4

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