Context No. 3994 of 4322 · Ezra
Context · Reflection
Ezra 2:17-32: in context
17The children of Bezai, three hundred twenty-three. 18The children of Jorah, one hundred twelve. 19The children of Hashum, two hundred twenty-three. 20The children of Gibbar, ninety-five. 21The children of Bethlehem, one hundred twenty-three. 22The men of Netophah, fifty-six. 23The men of Anathoth, one hundred twenty-eight. 24The children of Azmaveth, forty-two. 25The children of Kiriath Arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred forty-three. 26The children of Ramah and Geba, six hundred twenty-one. 27The men of Michmas, one hundred twenty-two. 28The men of Bethel and Ai, two hundred twenty-three. 29The children of Nebo, fifty-two. 30The children of Magbish, one hundred fifty-six. 31The children of the other Elam, one thousand two hundred fifty-four. 32The children of Harim, three hundred twenty.
This portion of the register lists the returning exiles not only by family but by their ancestral towns, the people of Bethlehem, of Anathoth, of Bethel and Ai, of Ramah and Geba, each community numbered as they came home. Behind the plain list of place-names lies something moving.
These were people returning to the towns of their fathers, to the homes their families had been torn from generations before. The exile had scattered them, but now God was bringing them back, not as a faceless mass, but to their own places, their own inheritances, their own roots. There is a picture here of God's care for restoration, and of the particular way he restores. He did not merely rescue a crowd; he brought families back to their own towns, restoring people to their proper places. There is comfort in this for anyone who has been scattered or displaced, whether physically or in the losses of life. The God who brought the exiles home to the towns of their fathers is a God who restores, and he does not deal in anonymous crowds but in named people and particular homes.
Do I trust the God who restores his scattered people to their proper places, knowing each of us by name and bringing us home to where we belong, however far we have been displaced?