Scripture Daily

Context No. 1210 of 4322 · Ezra

Context · Reflection

Ezra 2:33-39: in context

33The children of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hundred twenty-five. 34The children of Jericho, three hundred forty-five. 35The children of Senaah, three thousand six hundred thirty. 36The priests: the children of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua, nine hundred seventy-three. 37The children of Immer, one thousand fifty-two. 38The children of Pashhur, one thousand two hundred forty-seven. 39The children of Harim, one thousand seventeen.

This is part of the register of those who came back from exile, listed by their towns and clans: the men of Lod, Hadid, and Ono; the men of Jericho; the men of Senaah; then the priestly families, Jedaiah, Immer, Pashhur, Harim, each with its count. It is a plain roster of the returnees, grouped by where they came from.

A list of place-names and numbers seems unpromising, but there is something worth seeing in who is counted. These are ordinary people from ordinary towns, the men of Jericho, of Lod, of Ono, small places most readers have never heard of, and they are the ones who actually made the long journey back to rebuild Jerusalem. Not heroes, not famous names, just families from scattered towns who answered the call to return and were counted. The great work of rebuilding the city and the temple was not done by a handful of celebrated leaders but by hundreds of anonymous households from places like these, each family a small entry in a long list. There is dignity in that. The register preserves them not because any one of them was remarkable but because together they were the people of God returning, and every town's contingent mattered enough to record. It is a quiet reminder that God's great works are usually accomplished by ordinary people from ordinary places, whose names make no story on their own but who together answered the call. The men of Jericho and Lod are in the book because they came back.

Do I discount myself and my ordinary place as too unremarkable for God's work, when his great restorations are usually built by anonymous families from towns no one has heard of, each counted because they came?

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