The Crucial Role of Ezra
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Ezra was the priest and scribe who gathered all the books and made the final canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Some of the historical background of that time will be covered shortly, but first we should focus upon some of the editing that Ezra and others made to clarify certain portions of Scripture.
Ezra inserted some editorial notes to clarify to the Jews of his time the current names of certain towns mentioned in the Law. Some of the editorial notes attributed to Ezra are Genesis 14:7, 17; 23:2, 19; 36:31-39.
Moses also inserted some editorial remarks. Some of those attributed to him are Genesis 2:13-14; 12:8. (This was the location where Bethel was yet to be settled.)
Samuel added some important parts to the Law. In I Samuel 10:25, which states, “Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord,” the term “a book” should be “the book.” This indicates that Samuel wrote in a book that already existed. The only book that was laid up before the Lord at that time was the law of Moses.
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 is the part that Samuel added, dealing with instructions concerning a king over Israel. Ezra later inserted editorial comments in Deuteronomy 34:5-6, and 10 pertaining to Moses after the time of his death.
As stated above, Ezra was responsible for the final canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures. It was understood in the first century that the prophetic spirit in that era had ended with Ezra.
Ezra came to Jerusalem and Judea after the Babylonian captivity, where over 40,000 Jews had returned to rebuild Jerusalem and other cities. The Temple had been rebuilt by about 515 B.C. Most of these returning exiles were not zealous to obey God. Many had intermarried with the surrounding idolatrous gentiles. In about 457 B.C., God sent Ezra to rectify the situation.
Ezra 7:10 summarizes: “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”
Ezra came with 2,000 priests, Levites, and servants of the Temple to restore the worship of God. This process of turning the Jews back to God took about 13 years.
Nehemiah, who was sent to be governor over Judea, assisted Ezra in restoring the true worship in Judea. Ezra and Nehemiah summoned all the Jewish leaders together to sign a special covenant that they would henceforth obey the laws of God (Neh. 10:28-39). However, the high priest Eliashib was not present at this gathering.
This meeting established the governing assembly in Judea known as the Great Assembly. It was headed by Ezra, Nehemiah and all the principle priests and elders of Judea. This 120-member assembly also convened to establish which books were to be canonized. They assisted Ezra in his responsibility of final canonization during the years that followed. After Ezra’s death, the high priest was to preside over the Great Assembly.
Eliashib, who never met with the assembly, disagreed with Ezra and the assembly. Eliashib had other allegiances (Neh. 13:4-7). His grandson, Manasseh, was married to a Samaritan princess. This represented a political-religious alliance between the top families of Samaria and Judea.
Manasseh was excommunicated from Judea. He relocated to Samaria, where Samballat (his wife’s father) made him high priest of the Samaritans. One of the points of the above-mentioned covenant was for those who married gentile wives to put them away.
Manasseh refused to give up his Samaritan wife. This event was the real beginning of the Samaritan form of religion in Israel, and the beginning of reasons for later antagonism that developed between Samaritans and Jews. Manasseh had a temple built on Mt. Gerizim (a counterfeit of the Temple on Mt. Zion). He also rejected all the Hebrew Scriptures except the Pentateuch—the five books of the Law.
Ezra and the Great Assembly later divided the Hebrew Scriptures into the 3 major divisions and 22 individual books. Ezra changed the Jewish script to square script, as had been used in Babylon, in order for Jews to recognize Samaritan schemes to pass their counterfeit writings as canonized Scripture. The Temple Scriptures and eventually all copies of it were changed to square script.
Since the Samaritans had also corrupted the Sacred Calendar, Ezra changed the names of the months to the names of those the Jews learned in Babylon. Thus, Abib became Nisan, Zif became Iyar, etc. The Babylonian names for the months of the calendar have been retained to this day.
Chronicles was written by Ezra. Isaiah had long since written the Book of the Kingdoms (Samuel/Kings). The outlook of the book of Chronicles was from a priestly perspective. Ezra emphasizes throughout this book that Jerusalem has always been the headquarters of God’s government. This was emphasized to show that the Samaritans were falsely claiming they were the center of God’s religion.
Ezra references 15 secular sources to validate his claim, while the Book of the Kingdoms gave hardly any outside secular sources. Ezra, along with Nehemiah, took careful measures to counter the deceitful tactics of the Samaritans by canonizing the Hebrew Scriptures (source of the Old Testament). Likewise, the Samaritans’ descendants, under Simon Magus, counterfeited the New Testament, and attempted to have it canonized—without success.
How do we know that we have the same Hebrew Scriptures that Ezra canonized? After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, preservation became the responsibility of Jewish religious leaders instead of the state. Several Jewish sects made sure that the others did not change the text.
In the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., some of the Jews tried to replace the official text with illegitimate ones. To stop this effort, the officials restored the old authoritative manuscripts handed down since pre-Roman days. These were made the standard text—the Masoretic Text. This is the same one followed today and the set of scriptures that Ezra canonized.