Ezra, a captive in Babylon, was described as "the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and of his statutes to Israel." (Ezra 7:11.)
In Jesus the Christ, Elder James E. Talmage wrote:"Long before the birth of Christ, the Jews had ceased to be a united people even in matters of the law, though the law was their chief reliance as a means of maintaining national solidarity. As early as four score years after the return from the Babylonian exile . . . there had come to be recognized, as men having authority, certain scholars afterward known as scribes, and honored as rabbis or teachers.
"In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah these specialists in the law constituted a titled class, to whom deference and honor were paid. . . . The scribes of those days did valuable service under Ezra, and later under Nehemiah, in compiling the sacred writings then extant; . . ."
In Jerusalem, Ezra learned of the lax state of affairs in the city, and the villages of Judah. The "holy seed" had "mingled themselves with the people of those lands," and "the hand of the princes and rulers" had "been chief in this trespass." (Ezra 9:2.)
Ezra, in the presence of a large assembly, brought about drastic reform measures. Among those measures, Ezra instructed the people by instituting an open reading of the law. Until then, only priests had access to what the law stated.
