Which Ezra?

During our devotions this morning, we were reading in Ezra chapter 7. While reading it, this blog idea popped in my head. If you are a blogger, you understand how ideas “pop into our heads.” 🙂

Before I share those verses, a few questions:

How many times have you been confused while tracing your ancestors, or descendants, with the same first name?
Which Mary or Elizabeth is it?
Which Richard, Robert, or George is it?
Is if the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Jr., or Senior?
Was the person’s name reused because the first one died young?

See what I mean?

Now for Ezra 7:1-6 (NKJV):

“Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia,

Ezra

the son of Seraiah,
the son of Azariah,
the son of Hilkiah,
the son of Shallum,
the son of Zadok,
the son of Ahitub,
the son of Amariah,
the son of Azariah,
the son of Meraioth,
the son of Zerahiah,
the son of Uzzi,
the son of Bukki,
the son of Abishua,
the son of Phinehas,
the son of Eleazar,
the son of Aaron
the chief priest

— this Ezra came up from Babylon; and he was a skilled scribe in the Law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given. The king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the LORD his God upon him.” (Ezra 7:1-6 NKJV)

How would you like to trace out that tree? They didn’t have the internet back then, but they did keep very good records. My husband’s cousin has been a genealogist for years, and she and her husband have traveled this country in search of records. Today, we, at least I, have become spoiled, on the most part. We turn on the computer and become “armchair” genealogists. Both methods are great and useful.

There were several other searches made in Ezra:

Ezra 4:15a – “That search may be made in the book of the records of thy fathers: so shalt thou find in the book of the records,…”
Ezra 5:17a – “Now therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king’s treasure house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build…”
Ezra 6:1 – “Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon.”