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 3:10

3:10 When the builders established the Lord’s temple, the priests, ceremonially attired and with their clarions, ⁷  and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with their cymbals, stood to praise the Lord according to the instructions left by ⁸  King David of Israel. ⁹ 

Ezra 4:2-3

4:2 they came to Zerubbabel and the leaders ¹⁰  and said to them, “Let us help you build, ¹¹  for like you we seek your God and we have been sacrificing to him ¹²  from the time ¹³  of King Esarhaddon ¹⁴  of Assyria, who brought us here.” ¹⁵  4:3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the leaders of Israel said to them, “You have no right ¹⁶  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 ¹⁷  of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, ¹⁸  Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their colleagues ¹⁹  wrote to King Artaxerxes ²⁰  of Persia. This letter ²¹  was first written in Aramaic but then translated.

[Aramaic:] ²² 

Ezra 5:12

5:12 But after our ancestors ²³  angered the God of heaven, he delivered them into the hands ²⁴  of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon. ²⁵ 

Ezra 6:12

6:12 May God who makes his name to reside there overthrow any king or nation ²⁶  who reaches out ²⁷  to cause such change so as to destroy this temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given orders. Let them be carried out with precision!”

Ezra 6:14

6:14 The elders of the Jews continued building and prospering, while at the same time ²⁸  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 6:22

6:22 They observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with joy, for the Lord had given them joy and had changed the opinion ²⁹  of the king of Assyria ³⁰  toward them, so that he assisted ³¹  them in the work on the temple of God, the God of Israel.

[1:2]  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).

[1:2]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:7]  ³ tn Heb “silver.”

[3:7]  ⁴ map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[3:7]  ⁵ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[3:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “to the sea”

[3:10]  ⁵ sn This was a long, straight, metallic instrument used for signal calls, rather than the traditional ram’s horn (both instruments are typically translated “trumpet” by English versions).

[3:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to the hands of.”

[3:10]  ⁷ sn See Ps 107:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1. Cf. 2 Chr 5:13; 7:3; 20:21.

[4:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “the heads of the fathers.” So also in v. 3.

[4:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “Let us build with you.”

[4:2]  ⁹ tc The translation reads with the Qere, a Qumran MS, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Arabic version וְלוֹ (vÿlo, “and him”) rather than the Kethib of the MT, וְלֹא (vÿlo’, “and not”).

[4:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “days.”

[4:2]  ¹¹ sn Esarhaddon was king of Assyria ca. 681-669 b.c.

[4:2]  ¹² sn The Assyrian policy had been to resettle Samaria with peoples from other areas (cf. 2 Kgs 17:24-34). These immigrants acknowledged Yahweh as well as other deities in some cases. The Jews who returned from the Exile regarded them with suspicion and were not hospitable to their offer of help in rebuilding the temple.

[4:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “not to you and to us.”

[4:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And in the days.”

[4:7]  ¹² 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.

[4:7]  ¹³ tc The translation reads the plural with the Qere rather than the singular found in the MT Kethib.

[4:7]  ¹⁴ sn Artaxerxes I ruled in Persia from ca. 465–425 b.c.

[4:7]  ¹⁵ tc It is preferable to delete the MT’s וּכְתָב (ukhÿtav) here.

[4:7]  ¹⁶ 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.

[5:12]  ¹³ tn Aram “fathers.”

[5:12]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “hand” (singular).

[5:12]  ¹⁵ sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.

[6:12]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “people.”

[6:12]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “who sends forth his hand.”

[6:14]  ¹⁷ tn Aram “in” or “by,” in the sense of accompaniment.

[6:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “heart.”

[6:22]  ²⁰ sn The expression “king of Assyria” is anachronistic, since Assyria fell in 612 b.c., long before the events of this chapter. Perhaps the expression is intended subtly to contrast earlier kings of Assyria who were hostile toward Israel with this Persian king who showed them favor.

[6:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “to strengthen their hands.”