Ezra 2:68-70

Ezra 2:68-70

[68] And some of the chief  of the fathers,  when they came  to the house  of the LORD  which is at Jerusalem,  offered freely  for the house  of God  to set it up  in his place:  [69] They gave  after their ability  unto the treasure  of the work  threescore  and one thousand  drams  of gold,  and five  thousand  pound  of silver,  and one hundred  priests'  garments.  [70] So the priests,  and the Levites,  and some of the people,  and the singers,  and the porters,  and the Nethinims,  dwelt  in their cities,  and all Israel  in their cities. 

What does Ezra 2:68-70 Mean?

Contextual Meaning

The Israelites contributed to the rebuilding of the temple as they had toward the construction of the Mosaic tabernacle ( Exodus 25:3-7; Exodus 35:2-9). Probably the Greek gold drachma is in view and the Babylonian silver mina ( Ezra 2:69). [1] If this is Song of Solomon , one Greek drachma was equivalent to one Roman denarius. [2] In the ancient world, this was one day"s wage for a working man (cf. Matthew 20:1-16). Obviously the exiles made a substantial contribution to the rebuilding of the temple that supplemented what Cyrus and the friends of the immigrants had previously donated ( Ezra 1:4; Ezra 1:6-11; cf. Exodus 25:4-7; Exodus 35:2-9; 2 Corinthians 8:3; 2 Corinthians 9:7).
When this group of Jews returned to the Promised Land in537 B.C, they went first to Jerusalem ( Ezra 2:68). Later they settled in the towns where their ancestors had lived and where some of them had property rights ( Ezra 2:70; cf. Ezra 2:21-35).
The record of those who returned that God preserved in this chapter shows His faithfulness in bringing a remnant of His people back to Palestine as He had promised.
"One of the chief objectives of Ezra -Nehemiah was to show the Jews that they constituted the continuation of the preexilic Jewish community, the Israelite community that God had chosen." [3]