One of my final seminary courses was a study on the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. My pastor suggested that the church should make use of that work, and set me to preach a sermon series on Ezra and write a set of studies on Nehemiah. And I loved it.
There are two basic reasons for putting all this online. The first is that these books are neglected, and resources are thin on the ground. And the second is that, for whatever reason, this is my best work. My twelve sermons on Ezra are, taken as a whole, easily the best sermon series I’ve preached; my thirteen studies on Nehemiah are the best series of studies I’ve written. I’ve had a lot of good feedback on this stuff, and been encouraged to make the work more widely available. I hope it’s a blessing.
This page contains three things:
1. My own work on Ezra-Nehemiah
2. An annotated bibliography (book recommendations and not-so-recommendations)
3. Links to good online writing by others.
I have no definite plans to do further work on these books, but I expect I will keep returning to them. As and when I do, I’ll keep this page updated.
1. My own work
You can watch the Ezra series on Youtube here.
I wrote full scripts for those sermons, and I’ve put them together in one place if you prefer the same material in writing:
Meanwhile, I’ve collected all the Nehemiah studies into one document here:
Finally, as part of my seminary studies I wrote two papers which explore the controversial divorce ruling in Ezra 9-10. The first touches on it fairly briefly as part of a wider argument; the latter is a more detailed treatment.
2. Annotated Bibliography
First of all, my top five resources for preachers on Ezra-Nehemiah, roughly in order:
Bede, On Ezra and Nehemiah (translated by Scott DeGregorio. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006). Available from the publisher and elsewhere.
This was the only complete Christian commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah written until the Reformation. And it’s good stuff! Plenty of allegory, and tastes vary on that. But his different emphases mean he spots genuine details in the text that modern commentaries miss (did you know that the initial group collected around Ezra at the Ahava canal numbered 1440? Seems significant!) and he’s relentless about application, which is good for the soul.
You’d struggle with this as your only commentary, since he doesn’t cover every verse. But for total gold collected, he’s my top pick.
Schnittjer, Old Testament Use of Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2021), p630-692. Available here.
This is not a traditional commentary. Schnittjer doesn’t attempt to cover every verse, just those ones which more or less explicitly pick up previous OT texts. But there are a lot of places where Ezra-Nehemiah picks up OT texts (it gets one of Schnittjer’s longest entries, after only Chronicles, Deuteronomy and Psalms). And in those places, Schnittjer’s careful and patient exploration of the links is enormously helpful.
Kidner, Ezra & Nehemiah (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Leicester: IVP, 1979). Available here.
As traditional commentaries go, this one was my favourite. Pithy, evangelical, some good insights and generally dependable.
(=3) Alastair Roberts, audio commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah. Here.
Roberts has spent a couple of years going through nearly every chapter of the Bible and producing an audio commentary on it, which he has provided on his website for free. His comments tend to run for 10-15 minutes per chapter. It’s very solid! Kidner and Roberts were my two foundational read/listens for each Ezra sermon; while Bede and Schnittjer sometimes provided greater value, it was value added on this base.
Levering, Ezra & Nehemiah (Brazos Theological Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007). Available here.
This is theological commentary in the mould of Bede, but modern. Which means, sadly, not quite as good (and not quite as anchored to the detail of the text). But still plenty of insight that didn’t show up elsewhere, and the push towards application tended to get the right cogs going in my brain even when I didn’t end up where he did. He also likes Bede and is the reason I ended up buying Bede, so credit where it’s due.
And then some others:
Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Available to borrow online here or buy here.
I read this for my course. And I liked it! It didn’t make my resources for preachers (or my own desk in sermon preparation) essentially because I felt like it gave little value added over Kidner. It’s longer: that means you get more detail, but also you take more time. Swings and roundabouts.
Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary. Waco: Word Books, 1985). Available to borrow online here or buy here.
This is the third commentary I read for my course (along with Kidner and Fensham). Again, I didn’t return to it for my weekly sermon prep. Although I learned plenty, I didn’t much like it. If the section above was my top five resources for academics rather than preachers, this would have made the list; but it isn’t, so it didn’t. Historical-critical, which is the pits. Rarely seems to be asking “why did the Holy Spirit give us this text?”, and if your commentary is not at least trying to help with answering that, then I don’t know what the point is.
Ulrich, Now and Not Yet (New Studies in Biblical Theology. Downers Grove: IVP, 2021). Available here.
This is not a good book. You can read my complaints about it in my Goodreads review. But thinking about it for too long makes me cross all over again, so I won’t.
I will say, though: someone needs to write the book this could have been. Something which isn’t a commentary, but an exploration of Ezra-Nehemiah’s themes, allusions, intrabiblical resonances… there’s a great book to be written there, or a whole shelf of them. If you write such a book, I won’t lie to you: it’s unlikely to be a bestseller. But I would read it with gratitude.
3. Links
I’m always happy to read more material on Ezra-Nehemiah, so if you find good articles out there, do pass them on. I may or may not include them here, but I’ll be grateful for the input.
In the books section I included books I dislike. Not so here: this is all good stuff.
Rhys Laverty argues that Ezra is introduced in chapter 7 as the new Aaron who comes to give rest to the people. This was very helpful when I came to preach this chapter myself.
James Bejon has a mind-bending suggestion about what’s going on in the massive list in Ezra 2: it’s all about Jubilee.
James Jordan has a series on the chronology of Ezra (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) in which he pushes back against the modern consensus that (a) Ezra 4-6 are out of order chronologically and (b) Ezra 7 happens decades after Ezra 6.
I don’t know if he’s actually right - I’d have to do a lot more work to be sure of that. But I found his arguments compelling enough that I didn’t bother confusing everyone with out-of-sequence letters when I preached Ezra 4.