If you go to Trinity College, you will see a list of 400 names in the chapel, of students who died in World War II. Except for this guy who I think made it back OK so they rubbed off his name or something.
In Ezra Chapter 2, we get a long list of family names who travel to Jerusalem after 70 years in Babylon.
It’s like BBC’s travelling back to China after three generations of eating fish and chips in the UK. These kids are essentially going back to rebuild their grandfather’s temple.
We’re talking about 42,000+ people making a one-way trip to Jerusalem. This is not a church plant, it’s a church transplant.
Hence, the long list of names. Sons of this guy, that guy - numbering hundreds and thousands - describing whole families committing their lives to God.
Half the page is filled with priests and Levites even though there are not that many of them. That’s because they are essential to the worship of the temple.
Finally, if you couldn’t prove you were an Israelite, you were in trouble - you were considered unclean - and a priest had to check your status with God using the Umim and Thummim.
I know reading Ezra 2 is like reading the credits of a Marvel movie. Nobody pays attention.
Well, God pays attention because God knows each one of us by name and he writes it in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain.
