Ezra 6

Translator Notes

1. The Aramaic beit sifrayya ('house of books/scrolls') is the Persian imperial archive. The word ginzayya ('treasures, deposits') indicates that official decrees were stored alongside valuables. The search begins in Babylon, the primary administrative center, but the document will be found elsewhere.

Translator Notes

1. Ecbatana (Aramaic: Achmetha; modern Hamadan, Iran) was the Median capital and served as the Persian kings' summer residence. Cyrus may have issued the decree there, or the document may have been transferred from Babylon for archival purposes. The word dikhrona ('memorandum, record') indicates an internal administrative document, distinct from a public proclamation. This explains why it differs from the edict in chapter 1.

Translator Notes

1. The dimensions specified — 60 cubits (about 90 feet) high and 60 cubits wide — differ from Solomon's Temple, which was 30 cubits high, 20 cubits wide, and 60 cubits long (1 Kings 6:2). The discrepancy may indicate that Cyrus authorized a larger structure, that the numbers are rounded, or that the length was inadvertently omitted from this copy. A cubit is approximately 18 inches (45 cm).

Translator Notes

1. The construction specification — three stone courses topped by one timber course — matches the technique described for Solomon's inner court (1 Kings 6:36, 'three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams'). The funding provision (nifqeta min beit malka, 'expenditure from the king's house') means the Persian treasury bore the cost. Imperial sponsorship of local temple rebuilding was standard Persian policy, confirmed by the Cyrus Cylinder and other documents.

Translator Notes

1. The decree specifies le-atreh ('to its place') — each vessel must return to its original liturgical position within the Temple. This insistence on exact restoration reflects the Persian respect for cultic continuity. The phrase tachet be-beit Elaha ('deposit in the house of God') uses tachet in the sense of 'place down, deposit,' indicating formal installation.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase rachiqin havu min tammah ('be far from there') is a blunt directive — stay out of the way. Darius not only confirms the building permit but orders the very officials who questioned it to stand down. Tattenai's neutral inquiry has resulted in an outcome far more favorable to the Jews than the status quo.

Translator Notes

1. The imperative shevuqu ('leave alone, let be') orders non-interference. The phrase pechat Yehudaye ('governor of the Jews') recognizes the Jewish leadership as a legitimate provincial authority. Darius addresses the Jewish governor and elders as competent administrators of their own religious project.

Translator Notes

1. Darius goes beyond confirming Cyrus's decree — he orders Tattenai's own provincial taxes to fund the Temple construction. The phrase osparna nifqeta teheve mityahava ('promptly/diligently let expenses be given') uses osparna (the Persian loanword for 'diligently') to demand urgency. The irony is complete: the officials who questioned the project must now finance it.

Translator Notes

1. Darius provides not just building funds but ongoing sacrificial supplies. The list — bulls, rams, lambs, wheat, salt, wine, oil — covers the full range of Temple offerings as prescribed in the Torah (Numbers 28-29). The phrase yom be-yom di la shalu ('day by day without ceasing') mandates continuous supply. A Persian king is now underwriting Israel's daily worship.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase nichohin ('pleasing aroma') is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew nicho'ach — the 'soothing aroma' of sacrifice that ascends to God (Genesis 8:21; Leviticus 1:9). Darius's motive is partly political: the Jews are to pray for the king's life and dynasty. Imperial sponsorship of subject peoples' temples was a standard Persian strategy for securing loyalty. Yet the narrator presents this arrangement without cynicism — God works through political self-interest.

Translator Notes

1. The punishment is characteristically Persian in its brutal creativity: the criminal's own house provides the instrument of his execution. The verb yitmache ('be struck/impaled') likely refers to impalement, a standard Persian form of execution attested in Herodotus and Persian inscriptions. The final indignity — converting the house to a nevalu ('refuse heap, latrine') — ensures that the offender's legacy is erased along with his life.

Translator Notes

1. Darius invokes the God of the Temple as enforcer of his own decree — a Persian king calling on Israel's God to punish future violators. The phrase di shakken shemeh tammah ('who has caused his name to dwell there') uses Deuteronomic theology (Deuteronomy 12:5, 11) from a pagan king's mouth. Whether Darius understood the theology or his Jewish scribes drafted this language, the effect is the same: imperial power and divine authority converge. The first-person declaration ana Daryavesh sameth te'em ('I Darius have issued the decree') places the king's personal authority behind the order.

Translator Notes

1. The word osparna ('diligently') reappears — the same urgency demanded by the king is now exhibited by his officials. Tattenai's compliance is immediate and thorough. The narrative turns on a bureaucratic irony: the investigation meant to challenge the Jews became the mechanism for expanding their support.

Translator Notes

1. The narrator places God's decree (ta'am Elah Yisrael) alongside the decrees of three Persian kings — divine will and imperial authorization operate as a single cause. The mention of Artaxerxes alongside Cyrus and Darius is unexpected, since Artaxerxes comes later (chapter 7) and is associated with Ezra's mission rather than the Temple construction. The narrator may be telescoping the entire restoration project — Temple, walls, and community reform — into a single summary.

Translator Notes

1. The date — 3 Adar in the sixth year of Darius I — corresponds to approximately March 12, 515 BCE. The Temple construction thus took about four and a half years from the resumption in 520 BCE, or about twenty-three years from Cyrus's original decree in 538 BCE. Adar is the twelfth and final month of the Jewish calendar, making the completion a fitting conclusion to the year.

Translator Notes

1. The word chanukkat ('dedication') is the same root that later names the Hanukkah festival commemorating the rededication of the Temple under the Maccabees in 164 BCE. The term carries the sense of inaugural consecration — setting apart for sacred use. The phrase be-chedvah ('with joy') is Aramaic, reflecting the continued Aramaic section. The community categories — priests, Levites, and benei galuta ('children of exile') — encompass the entire restored community.

Translator Notes

1. The twelve goats for the sin offering are the most theologically significant detail. By offering twelve — le-minyan shivtei Yisrael ('according to the number of the tribes of Israel') — the community claims to represent all twelve tribes, not just Judah and Benjamin. The ten northern tribes deported by Assyria are not forgotten; the restored community acts on their behalf. The total sacrifices (100 + 200 + 400 = 700, plus 12) are modest compared to Solomon's dedication (22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep), but the twelve-goat gesture carries disproportionate theological weight.

Translator Notes

1. This is the last verse in Aramaic; the text returns to Hebrew at verse 19. The organizational structure — priestly and Levitical divisions (peluggatehon, machleqatehon) — follows the Mosaic prescription (Numbers 3-4) as elaborated by David (1 Chronicles 24-26). The phrase ki-khetav sefer Mosheh ('as written in the book of Moses') grounds the new Temple's operations in Torah authority, the same basis invoked at the altar's construction (3:2).

Translator Notes

1. The text returns to Hebrew. The date — 14 Nisan — is exactly one month after the Temple's completion on 3 Adar. The Passover on 14 Nisan follows the Mosaic prescription exactly (Exodus 12:6; Leviticus 23:5). This is the first Passover celebrated at the rebuilt Temple, connecting the new community to the Exodus event. The term benei ha-golah ('children of the exile') emphasizes their identity as the returned diaspora.

Translator Notes

1. The note that 'all of them were clean' (kullam tehorim) emphasizes the contrast with the pre-exilic failures. In Hezekiah's Passover (2 Chronicles 30:17-20), many participants were ritually unclean and required special dispensation. Here the entire community — priests and Levites alike — achieved full ritual purity. The Levites slaughter the lamb for everyone, including the priests, indicating their role as liturgical assistants.

Translator Notes

1. This verse is remarkable for its inclusiveness: alongside the returned exiles, others who had 'separated from the uncleanness of the nations' (nivdal mi-tum'at goyei ha-arets) were welcome at the Passover. These may have been Jews who remained in the land during the exile, or even non-Israelites who converted. The criterion is not genealogy but commitment — separation from impurity and seeking the LORD. This openness stands in tension with the stricter genealogical boundaries of chapters 2, 9, and 10.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The chapter's final verse delivers a theological shock: Darius is called melekh Ashur ('king of Assyria'). Persia was not Assyria, but the narrator sees the imperial succession — Assyria to Babylon to Persia — as a single trajectory now reversed by God. The empire that first destroyed the northern kingdom now, through its Persian successor, funds the rebuilding of the Temple. The verb hesev ('turned') presents God as sovereign over imperial hearts, and the phrase le-chazzeq yedeihem ('to strengthen their hands') closes the arc that began with the enemies 'weakening the hands' of Judah in 4:4.