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2 Esdras 1: What the Passage Says

156 claims across 40 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 2 Esdras 1 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The book opens with the family line of the prophet Esdras, traced back through many generations to Aaron of the tribe of Levi, and places him as a captive in the land of the Medes under Artaxerxes king of the Persians. The word of the Lord comes to him and tells him to show the people their sinful deeds. The Lord then lists what he did for them in Egypt and in the wilderness, and their complaining and disobedience, and says he will turn to other nations, give their houses to a people who are to come, and give that people leaders whom he names.

Claim by Claim

  1. 1:1
    • This is the second book of the prophet Esdras.
    • Esdras is the son of Saraias.
    • Saraias is the son of Azarias.
    • Azarias is the son of Helchias.
    • Helchias is the son of Sadamias.
    • Sadamias is the son of Sadoc.
    • Sadoc is the son of Achitob.
  2. 1:2
    • Achitob is the son of Achias.
    • Achias is the son of Phinees.
    • Phinees is the son of Heli.
    • Heli is the son of Amarias.
    • Amarias is the son of Aziei.
    • Aziei is the son of Marimoth.
    • Marimoth is the son of Arna.
    • Arna is the son of Ozias.
    • Ozias is the son of Borith.
    • Borith is the son of Abisei.
    • Abisei is the son of Phinees.
    • Phinees is the son of Eleazar.
  3. 1:3
    • Eleazar is the son of Aaron.
    • Aaron was of the tribe of Levi.
    • Esdras was a captive in the land of the Medes.
    • This happened during the reign of Artexerxes, king of the Persians.
  4. 1:4
    • The word of the Lord came to the speaker.
    • The word of the Lord spoke to him.
  5. 1:5
    • The Lord told him to go.
    • The Lord told him to show his people their sinful deeds.
    • The Lord told him to show the people's children the wickedness those children had done against the Lord.
    • The purpose was that they might tell their children's children.
  6. 1:6
    • The sins of their fathers have increased in them.
    • They have forgotten the Lord.
    • They have offered sacrifices to foreign gods.
  7. 1:7
    • The Lord asks whether he is not the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt.
    • Egypt is called a house of bondage.
    • They provoked the Lord to wrath.
    • They despised the Lord's counsels.
  8. 1:8
    • The Lord commands him to pull the hair off his head.
    • The Lord commands him to cast all evil upon them.
    • They have not been obedient to the Lord's law.
    • They are a rebellious, undisciplined people.
  9. 1:9
    • The Lord asks how long he will endure them.
    • The Lord has done so much good to them.
  10. 1:10
    • The Lord has overthrown many kings for their sakes.
    • The Lord struck down Pharaoh together with his servants and his whole army.
  11. 1:11
    • The Lord destroyed all the nations before them.
    • In the east the Lord scattered the people of two provinces, Tyre and Sidon.
    • The Lord slew all their adversaries.
  12. 1:12
    • The Lord commands him to speak to them.
    • What he is to say is introduced as the words of the Lord.
  13. 1:13
    • The Lord brought them through the sea.
    • Where there was no path the Lord provided them broad, secured roads.
    • The Lord gave them Moses as a leader.
    • The Lord gave them Aaron as a priest.
  14. 1:14
    • The Lord gave them light by a pillar of fire.
    • The Lord did great wonders among them.
    • They have forgotten the Lord.
    • The Lord says this.
  15. 1:15
    • These are the words of the Lord Almighty.
    • The quails were a sign to them.
    • The Lord gave them a camp for their protection.
    • They murmured there.
  16. 1:16
    • They did not triumph in the Lord's name over the destruction of their enemies.
    • They still murmur to this day.
  17. 1:17
    • The Lord asks where the benefits are that he gave them.
    • They were hungry and thirsty in the wilderness.
    • The Lord asks whether they did not cry out to him then.
  18. 1:18
    • They asked why he had brought them into that wilderness to kill them.
    • They said it would have been better for them to serve the Egyptians than to die in that wilderness.
  19. 1:19
    • The Lord had pity on their groaning.
    • The Lord gave them manna to eat.
    • They ate the bread of angels.
  20. 1:20
    • The Lord asks whether, when they were thirsty, he did not split the rock.
    • Water flowed out enough to satisfy them.
    • Because of the heat the Lord covered them with the leaves of the trees.
  21. 1:21
    • The Lord divided fruitful lands among them.
    • The Lord cast out the Canaanites before them.
    • The Lord cast out the Pherezites before them.
    • The Lord cast out the Philistines before them.
    • The Lord asks what more he should do for them.
    • The Lord says this.
  22. 1:22
    • These are the words of the Lord Almighty.
    • They were in the wilderness at the river of the Amorites.
    • They were thirsty there.
    • They were blaspheming the Lord's name.
  23. 1:23
    • The Lord did not give them fire for their blasphemies.
    • The Lord cast a piece of wood into the water.
    • The Lord made the river sweet.
  24. 1:24
    • The Lord asks what he shall do to Jacob.
    • Juda would not obey the Lord.
    • The Lord will turn to other nations.
    • The Lord will give his name to those nations.
    • The purpose is that they may keep his statutes.
  25. 1:25
    • They have forsaken the Lord.
    • The Lord will forsake them in turn.
    • When they ask the Lord for mercy, he will not have mercy on them.
  26. 1:26
    • Whenever they call on the Lord, he will not hear them.
    • They have defiled their hands with blood.
    • Their feet are swift to commit manslaughter.
  27. 1:27
    • They have not forsaken the Lord but themselves.
    • The Lord says this.
  28. 1:28
    • These are the words of the Lord Almighty.
    • The Lord asks whether he did not entreat them as a father entreats his sons.
    • The Lord entreated them as a mother entreats her daughters.
    • The Lord entreated them as a nurse entreats her young babes.
  29. 1:29
    • The purpose was that they would be his people.
    • The purpose was that he would be their God.
    • The purpose was that they would be his children.
    • The purpose was that he would be their father.
  30. 1:30
    • The Lord gathered them together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
    • The Lord asks what he should now do to them.
    • The Lord will cast them out from his face.
  31. 1:31
    • When they make offerings to the Lord, he will turn his face from them.
    • The Lord has rejected their solemn feast days.
    • The Lord has rejected their new moons.
    • The Lord has rejected their circumcisions of the flesh.
  32. 1:32
    • The Lord sent his servants the prophets to them.
    • They seized the prophets and killed them.
    • They tore the prophets' bodies in pieces.
    • The Lord will require the prophets' blood at their hands.
    • The Lord says this.
  33. 1:33
    • These are the words of the Lord Almighty.
    • Their house is desolate.
    • The Lord will cast them out as the wind casts stubble.
  34. 1:34
    • Their children will not be fruitful.
    • Their children have despised the Lord's commandment.
    • Their children have done what is evil before the Lord.
  35. 1:35
    • The Lord will give their houses to a people that is coming.
    • That people has not heard of the Lord yet believes him.
    • The Lord has shown that people no signs.
    • That people will do what the Lord has commanded.
  36. 1:36
    • That people has seen no prophets.
    • That people will call their sins to remembrance and acknowledge them.
  37. 1:37
    • The Lord calls to witness the grace of the people who are to come.
    • The little ones of that people rejoice with gladness.
    • That people does not see the Lord with bodily eyes.
    • That people believes in spirit what the Lord says.
  38. 1:38
    • The speaker addresses someone as brother.
    • He tells him to behold the glory.
    • He tells him to see the people coming from the east.
  39. 1:39
    • The Lord will give that people leaders.
    • Abraham is among the leaders.
    • Isaac is among the leaders.
    • Jacob is among the leaders.
    • Oseas is among the leaders.
    • Amos is among the leaders.
    • Micheas is among the leaders.
    • Joel is among the leaders.
    • Abdias is among the leaders.
    • Jonas is among the leaders.
  40. 1:40
    • Nahum is among the leaders.
    • Abacuc is among the leaders.
    • Sophonias is among the leaders.
    • Aggeus is among the leaders.
    • Zachary is among the leaders.
    • Malachy is among the leaders.
    • Malachy is also called a messenger of the Lord.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1
Esdras is the Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew name Ezra. Two books in the King James Apocrypha carry that name, and this is the second of them; it is a different work from the Ezra of the Hebrew Bible. The list of names runs backward, each man named as the father of the one before him, so the chain moves from Esdras up through his ancestors.
1:2
Long family lists like this one show who a person's ancestors were. Each name is the father of the man named just before him.
1:3
The tribe of Levi was the one tribe set apart for service at the sanctuary, and within it the descendants of Aaron were the priests, so this family list is a claim to priestly descent. The Medes were the people of Media, in what is now northwestern Iran, absorbed into the Persian empire; Artaxerxes was a Persian king of the fifth century BC. Readers have long noticed that this opening places Esdras among the Medes, while the Ezra of the Hebrew Bible comes up from Babylon.
1:4
From here the book switches from a third-person introduction about Esdras to Esdras speaking in his own voice, with God addressing him directly.
1:6
"Strange gods" in 1611 English means foreign gods, the gods of other peoples, not gods that are odd. To "offer" to them is to make sacrifices to them.
1:7
"The house of bondage" is the standard older English phrase for Egypt, where the Israelites were held as slaves. The whole speech that follows works through the events of the exodus and the wilderness years.
1:8
Tearing or pulling out the hair was a public gesture of grief and outrage in the ancient world, and a prophet performing it turned his own body into part of the message. "Cast all evil upon them" means announce the disasters that are coming, not inflict them personally.
1:10
Pharaoh was the title for the king of Egypt, the way we say king or president.
1:11
Tyre and Sidon were wealthy Phoenician port cities on the Mediterranean coast, in what is now Lebanon. Calling them eastern provinces is unexpected, since they lie to the north and west of Israel, and the phrase has puzzled readers of this book for centuries.
1:13
The sea is the Red Sea, crossed on dry ground as the Israelites escaped from Egypt. Aaron was Moses' brother and the first priest.
1:14
In the exodus story a pillar of cloud went ahead of the people by day and a pillar of fire by night, giving both light and a visible sign of God's presence.
1:15
Quails are small migratory game birds; flocks of them settled on the camp in the wilderness and were eaten when the people complained about having no meat. "Token" means sign. The "tents" are the camp the people lived in during the wilderness years; some copies of this book read "a camp for your protection" rather than tents.
1:17
The wilderness was dry, empty land with almost no people, food, or water. Israel traveled through it for forty years.
1:19
Manna was the flaky food that appeared on the ground each morning during the wilderness years. "Angels' bread" comes from a line in the Psalms describing manna as food from heaven's own household.
1:20
In the wilderness stories Moses strikes a rock and water pours out for the thirsty people. The shade of leaves here stands in for the sheltering cloud of the exodus accounts.
1:21
Canaanites and Pherezites (usually spelled Perizzites) were peoples living in the land before Israel settled there. The Philistines were a separate people of the southern coastal plain, known from the stories of Samson, Samuel and David; they are not normally counted among the peoples driven out at the settlement, and their appearance in this list is loose.
1:22
The King James "river of the Amorites" renders a phrase that elsewhere reads "the bitter stream." The reference is to Marah in the exodus story, where the water was too bitter to drink. "Blaspheming my name" means speaking against God, insulting him openly.
1:23
In the exodus account Moses throws a piece of wood into the bitter water at Marah and the water becomes drinkable. "Fire" is a standard image for punishment falling from heaven.
1:24
Jacob and Judah are both used here as names for the whole people: Jacob was the ancestor whose twelve sons gave their names to the tribes, and Judah was the southern kingdom and the tribe that survived to give the word "Jew" its name.
1:25
Mercy means being kind to someone even when they have done wrong.
1:26
"Manslaughter" in 1611 English simply means the killing of a person, with no suggestion of the lesser modern legal charge. The picture of bloodstained hands and feet that run to kill is borrowed from the prophets and from Proverbs.
1:28
A nurse here is not a hospital worker. She was a woman hired to feed and care for someone else's baby, which was common in ancient homes.
1:30
"Chickens" in 1611 English means chicks, the young birds themselves. The same image of a hen sheltering her brood appears in the Gospels.
1:31
The solemn feast days are the fixed annual festivals; the new moons were monthly observances beginning when the new moon was first sighted, marked with sacrifices; circumcision was the physical mark, cut on every male infant, that identified a person as belonging to the covenant people. To reject all three is to reject the entire visible apparatus of worship.
1:32
The charge that Israel killed the prophets sent to it is a stock accusation in later Jewish and Christian writing, drawing on stories such as the murder of Zechariah and the traditions about Jeremiah and Isaiah. "Require their blood from your hands" is legal language: to demand payment for a death from those responsible.
1:33
Stubble is the short dry stalk left standing in a field after the grain is cut, light enough for a gust of wind to carry off. "Your house is desolate" carries both senses of house at once, the building left empty and the family line left with no one in it.
1:34
Fruitful here means having children and grandchildren of your own.
1:35
The King James "shewed" is simply the older spelling of showed. "Signs" here means the miracles and wonders of the exodus and wilderness stories, the public proofs given to Israel and not given to this coming people.
1:36
Some copies of this book read that the coming people will remember their former condition rather than call their sins to mind; the two readings pull the line in noticeably different directions.
1:37
"Grace" here translates a Latin word that means gratitude or thankfulness, not divine favor. God is calling the thankfulness of a future people as a witness in the case against the present one.
1:38
The King James reads "brother" here, but other copies read "father," which is how Esdras is addressed elsewhere in the book. The speaker is God, addressing Esdras.
1:39
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the three ancestors of the nation, in order. The names that follow are the Greek and Latin spellings of Hebrew prophets: Oseas is Hosea, Micheas is Micah, Abdias is Obadiah, Jonas is Jonah.
1:40
Abacuc is Habakkuk, Sophonias is Zephaniah, Aggeus is Haggai, Zachary is Zechariah, Malachy is Malachi. With the names in the previous verse these are the twelve shorter prophetic books, listed in their traditional order. The name Malachi means "my messenger" in Hebrew, which is why he is said to be called a messenger of the Lord; the Greek word behind "angel" simply means messenger, so the King James "an angel of the Lord" and the plainer "a messenger of the Lord" are the same phrase.

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