God uses foreign powers to defeat Israel and then Judah for their persistent rebellions against His law. After Judah’s seventy years in exile, new rulers allow the Jews to return to their land and reestablish their temple and religion. How are they to go about this restoration? By returning to God and His ways as revealed by Moses and David. Providentially, King Artaxerxes of Persia recognizes Ezra’s qualification and sends him to guide the restoration.
This Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him (Ezra 7:6 cf. Ezra 7:10-11).
Not surprisingly, leadership structures largely replicate those established by Moses and David. Ezra, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Eliashib and other leaders are men. They include the princes of Judah, the Levites and “the heads of the fathers’ houses” (Ezra 1:5, 8; 3:8-9; 8:29; Nehemiah 7:7; 8:9, 16-20; 10:1-27). The genealogies and immigrant groups list sons (Ezra 2:2-58; 8:1-20; Nehemiah 11:3-36; 12:1-25). References to wives and daughters relate mainly to motivation, mixed marriages and debts (Ezra 9:2, 12; 10:3, 11; Nehemiah 4:14; 5:5; 6:18; 13:35). The list of builders along the extensive wall of Jerusalem seems entirely male (Nehemiah 3:1-32), with this one exception:
Next to him Shallum the son of Hallohesh, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired, he and his daughters (Nehemiah 3:12).