Ezra 5:11-15

5:11 They responded to us in the following way: ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the temple which was previously built many years ago. A great king ¹  of Israel built it and completed it. 5:12 But after our ancestors ²  angered the God of heaven, he delivered them into the hands ³  of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon. ⁴  5:13 But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon, ⁵  King Cyrus enacted a decree to rebuild this temple of God. 5:14 Even the gold and silver vessels of the temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and had brought to the palace ⁶  of Babylon – even those things King Cyrus brought from the palace of Babylon and presented ⁷  to a man by the name of Sheshbazzar whom he had appointed as governor. 5:15 He said to him, “Take these vessels and go deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt in its proper location.” ⁸ 

[5:11]  ¹ sn This great king of Israel would, of course, be Solomon.

[5:12]  ² tn Aram “fathers.”

[5:12]  ³ tn Aram “hand” (singular).

[5:12]  ⁴ sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.

[5:13]  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.

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Or “temple.”

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Aram “they were given.”

[5:15]  ⁵ tn Aram “upon its place.”