Ezra and Nehemiah

Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are the last historical books of the Old Testament. All three are post-captivity. Ezra and Nehemiah consider the remnant of Jews that returned to Judah, while Esther takes place in the land of their exile. This was the “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). God’s sentence of Lo-Ammi (“not my people”, Hosea 1:9) is written upon Israel. The land is under the dominion of the Persians, and all dates are relative to their monarchs. Yet God has not forgotten Israel (Jer. 31:20). He is still to be seen working behind the scenes, using the Gentile rulers as He chooses, and in His time, to execute His will.
The book of Ezra describes the construction of the temple, while in Nehemiah we have the restoration of the city of Jerusalem and its walls. Ezra, the priest and a ready scribe, was concerned with the ecclesiastical state of things, while Nehemiah, the king’s cupbearer and governor of Judah, was occupied with the civil.
In these books we see faith displayed in the day of ruin, a conduct that is not pretentious but acknowledges the condition of things. The very act of establishing the altar again in the midst of the temple ruin only served to highlight the state of things (Ezra 3:2).
The book of Ezra begins in the time of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1) and continues through the reigns of Ahasuerus (Cambyses; Ezra 4:6), Artaxerxes (Smerdis; Ezra 4:7), and Darius (Darius Hystaspis; Ezra 4:24), during the 2nd year of whose reign, Haggai and Zechariah prophesy (Hag. 1:1; Zech. 1:1). The events of Esther follow and take place during the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes), while the latter part of Ezra and the entire book of Nehemiah occur during the reign of his son, Artaxerxes (Artaxerxes Longimanus; Ezra 7; Neh. 2:1).