The verse is part of a list naming the Israelites, families and towns who returned from the Babylonian captivity and recording their numbers. It belongs with the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah of the leading ones who went up from the captivity and of those who had married strange wives. The record to which it belongs shows that 42,360 persons had already returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus.
Nearly fifty thousand Jews returned in response to the offer of Cyrus, which ended the captivity by making return possible. Many Jews still remained in Babylon after that return and were invited to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem, an invitation many afterward answered by going with Ezra to Jerusalem. The verse stands in the first two chapters of Ezra, which record the decree of Cyrus under which the rebuilding of the temple began, and it does not give the date 457 B.C., which marks the later commandment to restore and build Jerusalem.
The verse is simply a record of names of persons, not an expressed precious promise to God's people. As one of more than fifteen hundred such verses of names among the thirty-one thousand five hundred and thirteen verses of the Bible, it shows that not every verse is a promise. This leaves about thirty thousand verses at most that could be promises and disproves the claim of thirty-six thousand distinct promises.
The verse is part of a list naming the Israelites, families and towns who returned from the Babylonian captivity and recording their numbers. It belongs with the lists in Ezra and Nehemiah of the leading ones who went up from the captivity and of those who had married strange wives. The record to which it belongs shows that 42,360 persons had already returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus.
Nearly fifty thousand Jews returned in response to the offer of Cyrus, which ended the captivity by making return possible. Many Jews still remained in Babylon after that return and were invited to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem, an invitation many afterward answered by going with Ezra to Jerusalem. The verse stands in the first two chapters of Ezra, which record the decree of Cyrus under which the rebuilding of the temple began, and it does not give the date 457 B.C., which marks the later commandment to restore and build Jerusalem.
The verse is simply a record of names of persons, not an expressed precious promise to God's people. As one of more than fifteen hundred such verses of names among the thirty-one thousand five hundred and thirteen verses of the Bible, it shows that not every verse is a promise. This leaves about thirty thousand verses at most that could be promises and disproves the claim of thirty-six thousand distinct promises.