The Seed of Babylon who was King without a Crown

Ezra 2:2

If the cardinals who will soon assemble to elect a new pople look up to the Sistine Chapel they will notice, in the corner, an ancient king without a crown.

He shows up in today’s chapter of Ezra, a leader chosen for his lineage but not known for his charisma or impact. Some leaders are chosen, some are born, some matter more than most. Zerubabel is on the ceiling of the Vatican not because of his role during the Return to Zion but because in the New Testament he will be another link from King David - to Jesus.

Who’s who? Who’s not? And who gets to decide?

The ledger opens and the scribes begin to list all those who are the first to make the journey back from Babylon to Zion.

Who are these 46,360 post-exilic pioneers?

Chapter 2 is long and while deceptively reads like just some sort of census it hides, as most lists do, much more important information about this moment and its social implications which indicates a major shift.

Ezra 2 is a ledger of legacy, a roll call of rebirth. And right at the start, Ezra 2:2, we get a glimpse of the new leadership including this king without a crown:

אֲשֶׁר־בָּאוּ עִם־זְרֻבָּבֶל יֵשׁוּעַ נְחֶמְיָה שְׂרָיָה רְעֵלָיָה מׇרְדֳּכַי בִּלְשָׁן מִסְפָּר בִּגְוַי רְחוּם בַּעֲנָה מִסְפַּר אַנְשֵׁי עַם

יִשְׂרָאֵל׃}

These are… who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. The list of participants from among the people of Israel:

Ezra.2.2

Zerubbabel leads the list, echoing the echoes of royalty. But who was he? The grandson of the last king of Judah is the heir to the Davidic throne but in this new reality he enjoys the lineage of leadership but not the title of king. Those days are over. He is perhaps some sort of assigned governor - although another one was already named.

In the previous chapter, the Persian king Cyrus entrusts the sacred Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar, "the prince of Judah." Later, in Ezra 5:14-16, this Sheshbazzar is called governor, charged with laying the foundation of the Temple. By Ezra 2 and onward, Zerubbabel takes center stage. Are they two different leaders - or the same person?

Most scholars suggest that Sheshbazzar was likely Zerubbabel's Persian name, and Zerubbabel his Hebrew one. Like Daniel/Belteshazzar, he straddled two identities—exilic Babylonian and returning Judean.

A double name, a doubled role. A leader both appointed by empire and beloved by his people.

Zerubbabel means ‘Seed of Babylon’, showing how quickly the elites integrated into the Babylonian social structure. Perhaps it also indicates that he is the seed of hope for the continuity of the Davidic lineage even if not holding on to the actual crown.

Lineage matters a lot in the new reality of Zion. Not just for the leadership.

While the debate over the leaders’ names is compelling, what’s more fascinating in this ledger is what it tells us about the social architecture of return.

Beyond this list of 42,360 souls and households, it’s a blueprint of belonging listing leaders, lay Israelites, priests, levites, temple singers (or poets) , gatekeepers, temple servants (known as Nethinim - likely non-Judean), other servants who are known as descendants of ‘King Solomon’s staff’, and even those of uncertain lineage.

The Talmud (Kiddushin 69b) will later codify this social stratification of class status:

"Ten genealogical classes returned from Babylon: priests, Levites, Israelites, chalalim, converts, freed slaves, mamzerim, Nethinim, shetukim, and asufim."

Some of these are clear to us, and were understood by the Talmud - and some were and are not. Each category was marked not only by their history, but by their eligibility—who they could marry, how they could serve in the new society, whether they could enter the Temple precincts.

The return to Zion was not a blank slate. It was a restoration but also a re-inscription of hierarchy.

Perhaps the trauma of the destruction and exile demanded an adherence to some sort of previous order and the assumption of new status roles.

Genealogy became everything. Priests had to prove their descent or be disqualified from sacred service.

People with priestly claims who could not prove their precise ancestry (Ezra 2:61–63) were excluded from service and status until a new High Priest could confirm their status by use of the original Urim V’Thummin - the breastplate oracle. But did that still exist?

The Talmud notes - this might as well have meant: until the messiah.

The return of the exiles signals a new social era for the Jewish people: No longer divided by ancient tribal ties - Rueben, Simon, etc., no longer associated with the Northern Kingdom of Israel or the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The new keyword is lineage. This new ledger list mostly matters for the sake of who can marry who and who can or can’t serve in the rebuilt temple will also divide the House of Israel from now on to those who are legitimate and those who are not, those with worthy lineage for the sake of marriage and those who are on the doubt list - if on the list at all.

This obsession with lineage reflects a people trying to rebuild identity from ruin. But it also creates new fractures. The Books of Ezra-Nehemiah describe an era that hardens boundaries, emphasizing who’s in and who’s out. The society that they will slowly build and the temple that will be rebuilt will introduce a class/caste system that will impact Jewish life, for better, and for worse until today.

In our own contemporary journeys of return—whether to tradition, to community, or to the holy land—we must ask: Who gets listed? Who gets left out? What counts as legitimate heritage, and who decides?

Today, the descendants of the disqualified in the Book of Ezra may be among those seeking to rejoin the Jewish people—Ethiopian or Russian Jews without the so-called proper practice or paperwork, converts facing suspicion by an increasingly Orthodox rabbinate in Israel , patrilineal Jews demanding recognition, many of those living with Jewish partners and raising Jewish families who are not Jewish themselves.

Is our inheritance only valid if we can prove it? Though lineage and clear lines of affinity matter - the rigidity of lineage that this return to Zion era establishes deserves a closer examination.

If Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar were one—navigating empire and exile, rebuilding sacred space, Persian and Hebrew loyalty and dual identities —then maybe our leaders and ledges today also need and call for more fluency: in tradition and in the world as it is.

From reaching the second chapter of Ezra 2 we begin to discern that the first wave of return was not just a physical journey but also a new chapter with social, political implications, linked to status and structure. The temple and town that will be rebuilt will be both strong and weak because of these conditions. And echoes of this can be still seen and felt in today’s fractured Jewish reality both in Israel - and around the world.

And yet, at least on some level, with all these distinctions and tensions, the chapter ends with sigh of relief: The journey ends with the exiles resettled back home - each in their respective territorial claims and previous settlements:

וַיֵּשְׁבוּ הַכֹּהֲנִים וְהַלְוִיִּם וּמִן־הָעָם וְהַמְשֹׁרְרִים וְהַשּׁוֹעֲרִים וְהַנְּתִינִים בְּעָרֵיהֶם וְכׇל־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּעָרֵיהֶם׃

The priests, the Levites and some of the people, and the singers, gatekeepers, and the temple servants took up residence in their towns and all Israel in their towns.

Ezra 2:70

We begin to read Ezra this week, as the world wrestles with a brutal war in this same holy land and its consequences, and as the State of Israel marks 77 years since its founding and this modern return and rebuilding. The links between what happened and who mattered 2,500 years ago and the rough reality we are living through are important and can teach us a lot about how the paths to peace within and beyond.

Perhaps a closer look at who we are and where we come from can help us pave a more inclusive and expansive path forward, so that more of us can be safe, feel welcomed and at home, not because of lineage and what loyal lines and ties we can prove, but because of what we choose to rebuild together for the greater good.

The saga continues. Notice who is so far absent from this list? The man for whom this book is named. Ezra won’t appear on the stage for another few decades. Yet the story of the Return to Zion that he - not Zerubabel - will be famous for, has just begun. Welcome home.

Image: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, 1511-1512

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