Ezra appears in this section as a major figure among the people of God, during te reign of King Artaxerxes I of Persia. With that king's blessing and support, Ezra leads a band of believers back to Jerusalem to settle there in order to worship God. Ezra is a strong and influential religious leader, holding the people strictly to the law handed down from God to Moses.
Although this book is generally attributed to the Chronicler, he is believed to have drawn from something called the Memoir of Ezra as one of his sources. This would explain why part of this book is written in the first person voice. Ezra's zeal for obedience to the Law of Moses is understandable. And the fact that he is trying to, in effect, rebuild a once great and numerous people from a small surviving remnant makes clear why he has such a strong aversion to the widespread practice of intermarriage between the Israelites and other peoples. But I must say that I find his own description of his very dramatic reaction to this situation to border on the comical:
When I heard this thing, I tore my cloak and my mantle, plucked hair from my head and beard, and sat there stupefied. . . . I sat there motionless until the evening sacrifice. Then at the time of the evening sacrifice I rose in my wretchedness, and with cloak and mantle torn I fell on my knees, stretching out my hands to the Lord my God.
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