Here we find a record of all the people who responded to Cyrus' decree and returned to Israel. The list is of families and the towns in Babylon they came from. Almost all of these people could demonstrate their Jewish ancestry. As such, this list records those who belonged to the faith community divided into several subgroups: lay people, the regular citizens; priests; Levites who assisted in the Temple function rites; singers; gatekeepers; the Nethinim, which literally means those given, those dedicated to God, servants who assisted the Levites; and finally those who could not demonstrate their ancestry. This last group had to wait until the priests could later identify them properly.
Although the listing may seem dull and pointless because it is just a list of names, there seems to be a very good reason for its inclusion in the scripture. It reminds us of the importance of the purity of the community of faith. Those who say they belong to Jesus become members of His royal household. They must be able, however, to verify that relationship with evidence. What is required is not a genealogy of course, but the evidence of a changed life, one that has renounced the world completely and is marked by tangible acts of love and self-sacrifice.
We Christians are often called on to provide the required proof, usually in the form of a testimony that gives evidence of a changed life. Once we were sinners. Now we are not. Once we valued all the world deems important. Now everything in the world, no matter how grand or glorious, no matter how heroic or noble, lofty or exalted, popular and fashionable, beautiful and talented, pales into insignificance before the love, mercy and righteousness of the Kingdom of God.
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