Ezra 1:2

1:2 “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia:

“‘The Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has instructed me to build a temple ¹  for him in Jerusalem, ²  which is in Judah.

Ezra 3:7

Preparations for Rebuilding the Temple

3:7 So they provided money ³  for the masons and carpenters, and food, beverages, and olive oil for the people of Sidon ⁴  and Tyre, ⁵  so that they would bring cedar timber from Lebanon to the seaport ⁶  at Joppa, in accord with the edict of King Cyrus of Persia.

Ezra 4:3

4:3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the leaders of Israel said to them, “You have no right ⁷  to help us build the temple of our God. We will build it by ourselves for the Lord God of Israel, just as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, has commanded us.”

Ezra 4:7

4:7 And during the reign ⁸  of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, ⁹  Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their colleagues ¹⁰  wrote to King Artaxerxes ¹¹  of Persia. This letter ¹²  was first written in Aramaic but then translated.

[Aramaic:] ¹³ 

Ezra 6:14

6:14 The elders of the Jews continued building and prospering, while at the same time ¹⁴  Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo continued prophesying. They built and brought it to completion by the command of the God of Israel and by the command of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia.

Ezra 9:9

9:9 Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us ¹⁵  to restore the temple of our God and to raise ¹⁶  up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “house.” The Hebrew noun בַּיִת (bayit, “house”) is often used in reference to the temple of Yahweh (BDB 108 s.v. 1.a). This is also frequent elsewhere in Ezra and Nehemiah (e.g., Ezra 1:3, 4, 5, 7; 2:68; 3:8, 9, 11, 12; 4:3; 6:22; 7:27; 8:17, 25, 29, 30, 33, 36; 9:9; 10:1, 6, 9).

² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

³ tn Heb “silver.”

⁴ map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.

⁵ map For location see Map1-A2; Map2-G2; Map4-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.

⁶ tn Heb “to the sea”

⁵ tn Heb “not to you and to us.”

⁷ tn Heb “And in the days.”

⁸ tn The LXX understands this word as a prepositional phrase (“in peace”) rather than as a proper name (“Bishlam”). Taken this way it would suggest that Mithredath was “in agreement with” the contents of Tabeel’s letter. Some scholars regard the word in the MT to be a corruption of either “in Jerusalem” (i.e., “in the matter of Jerusalem”) or “in the name of Jerusalem.” The translation adopted above follows the traditional understanding of the word as a name.

⁹ tc The translation reads the plural with the Qere rather than the singular found in the MT Kethib.

¹⁰ sn Artaxerxes I ruled in Persia from ca. 465–425 b.c.

¹¹ tc It is preferable to delete the MT’s וּכְתָב (ukhÿtav) here.

¹² sn The double reference in v. 7 to the Aramaic language is difficult. It would not make sense to say that the letter was written in Aramaic and then translated into Aramaic. Some interpreters understand the verse to mean that the letter was written in the Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language, but this does not seem to give sufficient attention to the participle “translated” at the end of the verse. The second reference to Aramaic in the verse is more probably a gloss that calls attention to the fact that the following verses retain the Aramaic language of the letter in its original linguistic form. A similar reference to Aramaic occurs in Dan 2:4b, where the language of that book shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic. Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12-26 are written in Aramaic, whereas the rest of the book is written in Hebrew.

⁹ tn Aram “in” or “by,” in the sense of accompaniment.

¹¹ tn Heb “has granted us reviving.”

¹² tn Heb “to cause to stand.”

¹³ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.