Ezra 5:9

5:9 We inquired of those elders, asking them, ‘Who gave you the authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?’

Ezra 5:13

5:13 But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon, ¹  King Cyrus enacted a decree to rebuild this temple of God.

Ezra 6:1

Darius Issues a Decree

6:1 So Darius the king issued orders, and they searched in the archives ²  of the treasury which were deposited there in Babylon.

Ezra 5:3

5:3 At that time Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues came to them and asked, “Who gave you authority ³  to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?” ⁴ 

Ezra 6:3

6:3 In the first year of his reign, ⁵  King Cyrus gave orders concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem: ⁶  ‘Let the temple be rebuilt as a place where sacrifices are offered. Let its foundations be set in place. ⁷  Its height is to be ninety feet and its width ninety ⁸  feet, ⁹ 

¹ sn Cyrus was actually a Persian king, but when he conquered Babylon in 539 b.c. he apparently appropriated to himself the additional title “king of Babylon.” The Syriac Peshitta substitutes “Persia” for “Babylon” here, but this is probably a hyper-correction.

¹ tn Aram “the house of the archives.”

¹ tn Aram “who placed to you a command?” So also v. 9.

² tn The exact meaning of the Aramaic word אֻשַּׁרְנָא (’ussarna’) here and in v. 9 is uncertain (BDB 1083 s.v.). The LXX and Vulgate understand it to mean “wall.” Here it is used in collocation with בַּיְתָא (bayta’, “house” as the temple of God), while in 5:3, 9 it is used in parallelism with this term. It might be related to the Assyrian noun ashurru (“wall”) or ashru (“sanctuary”; so BDB). F. Rosenthal, who translates the word “furnishings,” thinks that it probably enters Aramaic from Persian (Grammar, 62-63, §189).

¹ tn Aram “In the first year of Cyrus the king.”

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

⁴ 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.

⁵ 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.