The children of Azgad, a thousand two hundred twenty and two.
Ezra 2:12 is one entry in the account in Ezra 1-2 of the returned exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem and to their own land for the rebuilding of the temple. Those listed were the first group to return, going up with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus in response to Cyrus's decree and offer of freedom to go. Cyrus's decree was broad enough to include all Israel. The verse records 1,222 children of Azgad among the names and numbers of the Israelites who returned.
That return is numbered at 42,360 people. Taken together, the listed returnees numbered nearly fifty thousand, reckoned as 49,897 people in all. The return ended the captivity in the sense that the Jews were free to return, though many remained in exile.
The return provides the historical setting for Haggai's work, with the rebuilding of the temple taking place around 520 B.C., about fifteen years after the temple foundations were laid. The temple work in this record was begun under the decree of Cyrus, not the work begun in B.C. 457. B.C. 457 marks the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, which was the commandment of God carried out through Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes and complete only when the last king acted, with the decree of Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign.
Ezra 2:12 is one entry in the account in Ezra 1-2 of the returned exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem and to their own land for the rebuilding of the temple. Those listed were the first group to return, going up with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus in response to Cyrus's decree and offer of freedom to go. Cyrus's decree was broad enough to include all Israel. The verse records 1,222 children of Azgad among the names and numbers of the Israelites who returned.
That return is numbered at 42,360 people. Taken together, the listed returnees numbered nearly fifty thousand, reckoned as 49,897 people in all. The return ended the captivity in the sense that the Jews were free to return, though many remained in exile.
The return provides the historical setting for Haggai's work, with the rebuilding of the temple taking place around 520 B.C., about fifteen years after the temple foundations were laid. The temple work in this record was begun under the decree of Cyrus, not the work begun in B.C. 457. B.C. 457 marks the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, which was the commandment of God carried out through Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes and complete only when the last king acted, with the decree of Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign.