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Ezra 3

Ezra 3 records the return of worship and the laying of the temple foundation amid fear, praise, and tears.

The returned exiles gather in Jerusalem in the seventh month. Jeshua and Zerubbabel lead the rebuilding of the altar, and sacrifices resume according to Moses’ law despite fear of surrounding peoples. The temple foundation has yet to be laid. Workers and supplies are secured, and construction begins in the second year after their return. When the foundation is laid, priests and Levites lead praise, while elders who remember the first temple weep amid the shouts of joy.

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1When the seventh month had come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem.
2Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood up with his brothers the priests and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and his relatives, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.
3In spite of their fear because of the peoples of the surrounding lands, they set the altar on its base; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, even burnt offerings morning and evening.
4They kept the feast of booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required;
5and afterward the continual burnt offering, the offerings of the new moons, of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of everyone who willingly offered a free will offering to the LORD.
7They also gave money to the masons and to the carpenters. They also gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus King of Persia.
8Now in the second year of their coming to God’s house at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers the priests and the Levites, and all those who had come out of the captivity to Jerusalem, began the work and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of the LORD’s house.
9Then Jeshua stood with his sons and his brothers, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together to have the oversight of the workmen in God’s house: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brothers the Levites.
10When the builders laid the foundation of the LORD’s temple, they set the priests in their vestments with trumpets, with the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, according to the directions of David king of Israel.
11They sang to one another in praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his loving kindness endures forever toward Israel.” All the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the LORD’s house had been laid.
12But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Many also shouted aloud for joy,
13so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard far away.
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Key verses
Ezra 3:11The people celebrate the foundation by confessing YHWH’s goodness and enduring loving kindness toward Israel.
Ezra 3:10Priests and Levites mark the foundation with worship ordered by David, linking the rebuilding to Israel’s earlier worship.
Ezra 3:7Payments, cedar shipments, and Cyrus’s grant show the material preparations behind the rebuilding of the temple.
Where this chapter reaches

Psalm shares the refrain of God’s goodness and enduring loving kindness, while 1 Chronicles records David’s arrangements for worship with musicians and instruments. Numbers supplies the sacrificial calendar reflected here, and Haggai also addresses temple rebuilding and the memory of the former house.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What do you notice about the people’s worship while they remain afraid and the temple is unfinished?

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How does the mingled sound of weeping and joy shape your response to the foundation being laid?

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Questions people ask about Ezra 3

Why did the older men weep in Ezra 3?

The older priests, Levites, and family heads had seen the first temple. Seeing the new foundation brought tears while others shouted for joy. The text connects their weeping with their memory of the former house, but it does not spell out their thoughts or condemn their response.

Why was the altar rebuilt before the temple in Ezra 3?

The altar enabled the returned exiles to resume burnt offerings according to Moses’ law before the temple foundation was laid. The chapter records morning and evening offerings and the Feast of Booths during this period. It presents restored sacrifice as the first stage of rebuilding worship in Jerusalem.

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What the Bible says about worship →What the Bible says about grief →

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).