Bringing Glory to the Temple: Ezra was given two mandates in chapter 7. The first was to lead a party of immigrants back to the homeland and to take along the sacred contributions of the Persian court, the Babylon satrapy, and Jews remaining in exile, and deliver them to the temple authorities in Jerusalem. This first assignment is accomplished here. Apart from the conclusion in verses 35–36, this section comes from the Ezra memoirs and falls into three parts: 7:28b–8:20; 21–30; and 31–34. Each part has a double theme. The first part lists the members of the party that accompanied Ezra and tells of the search for a missing element. The second part details preparations for the people’s journey and for transporting the temple contributions. The third describes their safe arrival and arrangem…