The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two.
The verse belongs to a list of names and numbers of those who returned from the captivity, recording that the descendants of Shephatiah among the returnees numbered 372. That return was the movement from Babylon to Jerusalem, to their land, with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus in response to the decree of Cyrus. The whole returning company numbered 42,360 people in all. The list in Ezra 2:1-65 shows that nearly fifty thousand returned, and that return ended the captivity in the sense that all were free to go, even though many remained in exile.
It stands in Ezra 1-2, within Ezra 1 to Ezra 6, which belongs to the same time as Haggai and records the temple work begun under the decree of Cyrus, with direct reference to building the temple then. It does not belong to the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem dated to B.C. 457. It is an example of a biblical verse that lists people rather than expressing a promise.
The verse belongs to a list of names and numbers of those who returned from the captivity, recording that the descendants of Shephatiah among the returnees numbered 372. That return was the movement from Babylon to Jerusalem, to their land, with Zerubbabel in the first year of Cyrus in response to the decree of Cyrus. The whole returning company numbered 42,360 people in all. The list in Ezra 2:1-65 shows that nearly fifty thousand returned, and that return ended the captivity in the sense that all were free to go, even though many remained in exile.
It stands in Ezra 1-2, within Ezra 1 to Ezra 6, which belongs to the same time as Haggai and records the temple work begun under the decree of Cyrus, with direct reference to building the temple then. It does not belong to the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem dated to B.C. 457. It is an example of a biblical verse that lists people rather than expressing a promise.