Whoever among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him! The Church starts reading today from the book of Ezra. It tells the story of the return of the Jewish people from exile. The background: in 721BC the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians and the population deported. This was a common practice by ancient kingdoms to disperse any pockets of resistance to the new regime. These “ten tribes” lost their identity after they left Israel. Several years later the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by the new rising empire, that of Bablyon (modern day Iraq.) Over a period of years of tighening the screws the city of Jerusalem was taken in 586BC and the temple was destroyed. Again, the population was deported but this time they maintained their identity in exile. Ezra’s account begins with the Persians (modern day Iran) conquering the Babylonians and they allowed the exiled Jews to return back to the Promised Land. As we read the book of Ezra we’ll see that the return from exile was a struggle to find the new identity as the People of God of the returning exile.
