2 Esdras

[a][b][2] Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the fifth century BC, whom the book identifies with the sixth-century figure Shealtiel.

[3]: 37 2 Esdras forms a part of the canon of Scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (an Oriental Orthodoxy body), though it is reckoned among the apocrypha by Roman Catholics and Protestants.

[10] The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are found only in the Latin version of the book, and are called 5 Ezra by scholars.

The Ethiopian Church considers 4 Ezra to be canonical, written during the Babylonian captivity, and calls it Izra Sutuel (ዕዝራ ሱቱኤል).

Slightly differing Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Armenian translations have survived in their entirety; the Greek version can be reconstructed, though without absolute certainty, from these different translations, while the Hebrew text remains more elusive.

The archangel Uriel is sent to answer the question, responding that God's ways cannot be understood by the human mind.

Similarly, in the second vision, Ezra asks why Israel was delivered up to the Babylonians, and is again told that man cannot understand this and that the end is near.

45 And it came to pass, when the forty days were filled, that the Highest spake, saying, The first that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy and unworthy may read it: 46 But keep the seventy last, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people: 47 For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the stream of knowledge.

On this pivotal event, one scholar writes that Ezra: is badly frightened, he loses consciousness and calls for his angelic guide.

Its intensity complements the pressure of unrelieved stress evident in the first part of the vision, and it resembles the major orientation of personality usually connected with religious conversion.

[3]: 31 The following verses (10:28–59) reveal that Ezra had a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, the true city of Zion, which the angel of the Lord invites him to explore.

10:55–59).The last two chapters, also called 6 Ezra by scholars,[11] and found in the Latin, but not in the Eastern texts, predict wars and rebuke sinners.

Many assume that they probably date from a much later period (perhaps late third century) and may be Christian in origin; though not certain, they possibly were added at the same time as the first two chapters of the Latin version.

The main body of the book appears to be written for consolation in a period of great distress (one scholarly hypothesis is that it dates to Titus' destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE).

Critics question whether even the main body of the book, not counting the chapters that exist only in the Latin version and in Greek fragments, has a single author.

The scholarly interpretation of the eagle being the Roman Empire (the eagle in the fifth vision, whose heads might be Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian if such is the case) and the destruction of the temple would indicate that the probable date of composition lies toward the end of the first century, perhaps 90–96, though some suggest a date as late as 218.

[22] The chapters corresponding to 4 Ezra, i.e. 2 Esdras 3–14, make up the Book of II Izra, aka Izra Sutuel, canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; it was also widely cited by early Fathers of the Church, particularly Ambrose of Milan, as the 'third book of Esdras'.

[a] The introitus of the traditional Requiem Mass of the Extraordinary Form of the 1962 Missal in the Catholic Church is loosely based on 2:34–35: "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them."

77 Attendite, popule meus, legem meam: inclinate aurem vestram in verba oris mei.

[25] The book is appointed as a scripture reading in the Ordinariate’s Evensong service for All Hallows' Eve.