The children of Hashum, two hundred twenty and three.
The children of Hashum numbered two hundred twenty-three among those who returned with the Jews to Jerusalem after Cyrus's proclamation. Their return was in response to Cyrus's decree, which began the work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. The account to which the number belongs is the return under Cyrus.
It is part of the register in Ezra 2 of the Jews already returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus. That company numbered 42,360 persons. They are distinct from the Jews who still remained in Babylon and were then being invited to return. The wider list is the register of Jews who returned from captivity to their own land, recording nearly fifty thousand people who accepted Cyrus's offer to return.
The return under Cyrus began the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The returned exiles were rebuilding the temple after the foundation had been laid and the work had languished. That situation provides the historical setting for Haggai's message. The verse belongs to the narrative about the people of Israel in the time of Ezra, a period whose Babylonian life and historical setting is illuminated by archaeological discoveries.
It stands in the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah of the leading ones who went up from the captivity, consisting simply of names of persons with numbers and not an expressed precious promise to God's people. It is one of more than fifteen hundred such verses of names in both Testaments. Together with threatenings of God's wrath against sin and denunciations of evil, such verses show that not every verse is a promise. The thirty-one thousand five hundred thirteen verses of the Bible, twenty-three thousand five hundred fifty-six in the Old Testament and seven thousand nine hundred fifty-seven in the New, are thereby reduced to about thirty thousand possible promises, and the claim of thirty-six thousand distinct promises is false.
The children of Hashum numbered two hundred twenty-three among those who returned with the Jews to Jerusalem after Cyrus's proclamation. Their return was in response to Cyrus's decree, which began the work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. The account to which the number belongs is the return under Cyrus.
It is part of the register in Ezra 2 of the Jews already returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus. That company numbered 42,360 persons. They are distinct from the Jews who still remained in Babylon and were then being invited to return. The wider list is the register of Jews who returned from captivity to their own land, recording nearly fifty thousand people who accepted Cyrus's offer to return.
The return under Cyrus began the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The returned exiles were rebuilding the temple after the foundation had been laid and the work had languished. That situation provides the historical setting for Haggai's message. The verse belongs to the narrative about the people of Israel in the time of Ezra, a period whose Babylonian life and historical setting is illuminated by archaeological discoveries.
It stands in the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah of the leading ones who went up from the captivity, consisting simply of names of persons with numbers and not an expressed precious promise to God's people. It is one of more than fifteen hundred such verses of names in both Testaments. Together with threatenings of God's wrath against sin and denunciations of evil, such verses show that not every verse is a promise. The thirty-one thousand five hundred thirteen verses of the Bible, twenty-three thousand five hundred fifty-six in the Old Testament and seven thousand nine hundred fifty-seven in the New, are thereby reduced to about thirty thousand possible promises, and the claim of thirty-six thousand distinct promises is false.