Ezra 6:2

6:2 A scroll was found in the citadel ¹  of Ecbatana which is in the province of Media, and it was inscribed as follows:

“Memorandum:

Ezra 4:8

4:8 Rehum the commander ²  and Shimshai the scribe ³  wrote a letter concerning ⁴  Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:

Ezra 5:13

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

Ezra 6:3

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

¹ tc The translation reads בִירְתָא (birta’, citadel”) rather than the reading בְּבִירְתָא (bÿvireta’, “in the citadel”) found in the MT. The MT probably experienced dittography here.

² tn Aram “lord of the command.” So also in vv. 9, 17.

³ sn Like Rehum, Shimshai was apparently a fairly high-ranking official charged with overseeing Persian interests in this part of the empire. His title was “scribe” or “secretary,” but in a more elevated political sense than that word sometimes has elsewhere. American governmental titles such as “Secretary of State” perhaps provide an analogy in that the word “secretary” can have a broad range of meaning.

⁴ tn Or perhaps “against.”

³ 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.

⁴ tn Aram “In the first year of Cyrus the king.”

⁵ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁶ tn Aram “raised”; or perhaps “retained” (so NASB; cf. NLT), referring to the original foundations of Solomon’s temple.

⁷ 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.

⁸ 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.