The sons of Israel who returned from exile and all those who had separated themselves from the impurity of the nations of the land to join them, to seek the LORD God of Israel, ate the Passover.It almost sounds like there are two groups here. First, there are those who returned from exile. These we know about, from earlier in the book. They left their homes and came back when the king allowed them to. But there's also this group who had separated themselves from foreign impurity. How this is phrased, this sounds like another group, maybe one that had snuck back in and formed some kind of hidden colony, until the exiles returned and they could join them.
But is this really talking about one group in two ways, or two different groups come together? I'd always thought it was one group, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Perhaps it was two waves of exiles returning, one once there was a start to construction so they had somewhere to go to. Maybe they were really two groups, merged in purpose if not in passion. But whichever it is, the important thing was that they had followed God's call, and were finally able to celebrate His first ceremony again.
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