Ye are holy unto the Lord

Lighthouse Bible Church

Sunday, November 16, 2025

Ye are holy unto the Lord

Ezr 8:1-36

Remember from last week:

Artaxerxes gave full support to the work

Ezra is coming to Babylon to set things in order

Ezra is part of a second group leaving Babylon for Jerusalem

Ezr 8:1-13 lists the families that went up with Ezra in the second wave to Jerusalem.

No Levites in the group (Ezr 8:15) is a big deal. Ezra, as a reminder, was a part of the Levitical priesthood.

Neh 12:1-7

Levites alone had the responsibility of maintaining temple operations. All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.

Num 1:47-54

Deu 18:1-7

God referred in another OT book to this covenant with Levi and how it applies to priests.

Mal 2:1-9

Remember that Ezra was intimately familiar with the Law of Moses and what it required: Ezr 7:10

God providence is clear in Ezr 8:15-20. This was a difficult job and the Lord again turned people’s hearts to do it after having not volunteered the first time.

Ezra proclaimed a fast to figure out if what he is doing is right (Ezr 8:21-24) given what he had just said to the king.

Fasting:

Neh 1:1-6,

Act 13:1-4

The full weight of what the Israelites moved was around 56,000 pounds, or 28 tons. Quite a bit to move without a security detail of horses and soldiers.

Notice that Ezra uses the phrase the hand of our God (Ezr 8:31) again. They made this trip in four months (Ezr 8:31-34), a trip that spanned around 900 miles.

Ezr 7:9-10

This group made a litany of offerings to their God once they arrived, same as the first group did (Ezra 6:17-18).

Ezr 8:35-36

Ezra took special care to make sure he and the others in the group had safe passage — they sought the Lord about doing so.

The Lord made sure his people had Levites to do the tasks he asked of them, yet another sign of His provision.

Remember the 58 year gap? Chapter 9 will detail the fate of mixed marriages the Israelites had and how Ezra approached them.