Ezra & Nehemiah

By The Navigators

Over 3 million LifeChange studies sold

Rediscover God’s Presence
When life is a shambles, we wonder what went wrong and long to see things put right. And often we long for the sense of God’s presence to return to our lives. The city of Jerusalem was a shambles—both its walls and its worship were crumbling. Ezra and Nehemiah longed to see their city restored with God’s presence, and each one pursued that goal in his own God-given way. Ezra the scholar restored Israel’s worship. Nehemiah the architect resurrected Jerusalem’s walls. Together, they helped God’s people rediscover God’s presence, and their stories will help you, too.

LifeChange
LifeChange Bible studies will help you grow in Christlikeness through a life-changing encounter with God’s Word. Filled with a wealth of ideas for going deeper so you can return to this study again and again.

Features

• Cover the books of Ezra & Nehemiah in 8 lessons
• Equip yourself to lead a Bible study
• Imagine the Bible’s historical world
• Study word origins and definitions
• Explore thoughtful questions on key themes
• Go deeper with optional projects
• Add your notes with extra space and wide margins
• Find the flexibility to fit the time you have

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Release date: Feb 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781612911342

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

THE BOOK OF EZRA

A People Restored, a Temple Rebuilt

The book of Ezra brings us welcome good news after the tragic destruction of Jerusalem and the exile into captivity of the Jews, as recorded in the final pages of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. The story in Ezra is told not as a mere historical record but as a testimony to God’s sovereignty, love, and wisdom. His presence is strongly felt in this account. The Book of Ezra reveals the providential intervention of the God of heaven on behalf of his people.¹

An Inevitable Story

The story we find in Ezra is, in a sense, inevitable. God Himself had promised a restoration for His people, and the faithful ones among them had clung to this hope. So the book of Ezra sprang forth not as a detached account of events but as a worshipful portrait of God’s ever-continuing faithfulness.

"The object of Ezra was not to give a history of the resettlement in Judah and Jerusalem…. It is evident that the object and plan … must have been to collect only such facts and documents as might show the manner in which the Lord God, after the lapse of the seventy years of exile, fulfilled His promise announced by the prophets—by the deliverance of His people from Babylon, the building of the temple at Jerusalem, and the restoration of the temple worship according to the law—and preserved the reassembled community from fresh relapses into heathen customs and idolatrous worship by the dissolution of the marriages with Gentile