Ezra 4:13

4:13 Let the king also be aware that if this city is built and its walls are completed, no more tax, custom, or toll will be paid, and the royal treasury ¹  will suffer loss.

Ezra 4:17

4:17 The king sent the following response:

“To Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues who live in Samaria and other parts of Trans-Euphrates: Greetings! ² 

Ezra 5:8

5:8 Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the temple of the great God. It is being built with large stones, ³  and timbers are being placed in the walls. This work is being done with all diligence and is prospering in their hands.

Ezra 5:12

5:12 But after our ancestors ⁴  angered the God of heaven, he delivered them into the hands ⁵  of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon. ⁶ 

Ezra 6:3

6:3 In the first year of his reign, ⁷  King Cyrus gave orders concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem: ⁸  ‘Let the temple be rebuilt as a place where sacrifices are offered. Let its foundations be set in place. ⁹  Its height is to be ninety feet and its width ninety ¹⁰  feet, ¹¹ 

Ezra 7:22

7:22 up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of olive oil, ¹²  and unlimited ¹³  salt.

Ezra 7:24

7:24 Furthermore, be aware of the fact ¹⁴  that you have no authority to impose tax, tribute, or toll on any of the priests, the Levites, the musicians, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or the attendants at the temple of this God.

¹ tn Aram “the treasury of kings.” The plural “kings” is Hebrew, not Aramaic. If the plural is intended in a numerical sense the reference is not just to Artaxerxes but to his successors as well. Some scholars understand this to be the plural of majesty, referring to Artaxerxes. See F. C. Fensham, Ezra and Nehemiah (NICOT), 74.

² tn Aram “peace.”

³ tn Aram “stones of rolling.” The reference is apparently to stones too large to carry.

⁴ tn Aram “fathers.”

⁵ tn Aram “hand” (singular).

⁶ sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.

⁵ tn Aram “In the first year of Cyrus the king.”

⁶ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁷ tn Aram “raised”; or perhaps “retained” (so NASB; cf. NLT), referring to the original foundations of Solomon’s temple.

⁸ tc The Syriac Peshitta reads “twenty cubits” here, a measurement probably derived from dimensions given elsewhere for Solomon’s temple. According to 1 Kgs 6:2 the dimensions of the Solomonic temple were as follows: length, 60 cubits; width, 20 cubits; height, 30 cubits. Since one would expect the dimensions cited in Ezra 6:3 to correspond to those of Solomon’s temple, it is odd that no dimension for length is provided. The Syriac has apparently harmonized the width dimension provided here (“twenty cubits”) to that given in 1 Kgs 6:2.

⁹ tn Aram “Its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

⁶ tc The translation reads מְשַׁח בַּתִּין (mÿshakh battin) rather than מְשַׁח בַּתִּין (battin mÿshakh) of the MT.

⁷ tn Aram “he did not write.”

⁷ tn Aram “we are making known to you.”