The verse consists only of the personal names Hodijah, Hashum, and Bezai and states no expressed promise. The three men are listed among those joined to the people's solemn covenant to keep the law of Moses. In this setting the list belongs to the record of the community's commitment to the law Ezra brought back to Jerusalem.
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. It belongs likewise with the more than fifteen hundred verses in the Bible made up simply of names of persons. It belongs to the record of life in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, whose narrative is confirmed by discoveries in ancient lands adjoining Israel that had dealings with that people. Verses of this kind are not exceeding great and precious promises to God's people and cannot be counted as such. This leaves about thirty thousand verses that could possibly be promises, six thousand fewer than thirty-six thousand.
The verse consists only of the personal names Hodijah, Hashum, and Bezai and states no expressed promise. The three men are listed among those joined to the people's solemn covenant to keep the law of Moses. In this setting the list belongs to the record of the community's commitment to the law Ezra brought back to Jerusalem.
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. It belongs likewise with the more than fifteen hundred verses in the Bible made up simply of names of persons. It belongs to the record of life in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, whose narrative is confirmed by discoveries in ancient lands adjoining Israel that had dealings with that people. Verses of this kind are not exceeding great and precious promises to God's people and cannot be counted as such. This leaves about thirty thousand verses that could possibly be promises, six thousand fewer than thirty-six thousand.