Ezra 3

The Altar of Burnt-Offering Erected, the Feast of Tabernacles Celebrated, and the Foundations of the Temple Laid - Ezr 3:1-13

On the approach of the seventh month, the people assembled in Jerusalem to restore the altar of burnt-offering and the sacrificial worship, and to keep the feast of tabernacles (Ezr 3:1-7); and in the second month of the following year the foundations of the new temple were laid with due solemnity (Ezr 3:8-13). Comp. 1 Esdr. 5:46-62.

The building of the altar, the restoration of the daily sacrifice, and the celebration of the feast of tabernacles. -

Ezr 3:1When the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. The year is not stated, but the year in which they returned from Babylon is intended, as appears from Ezr 3:8, which tells us that the foundations of the temple were laid in the second month of the second year of their return. The words, "and the children of Israel were in the cities," are a circumstantial clause referring to Ezr 2:70, and serving to elucidate what follows. From the cities, in which each had settled in his own (Ezr 2:1), the people came to Jerusalem as one man, i.e., not entirely (Bertheau), but unanimously (ὁμοθυμαδόν, 1 Esdr. 5:46); comp. Neh 8:1; Jdg 20:1.

(Note: The more precise statement of 1 Esdr. 5:46, εἰς τὸ εὐρύχωρον τοῦ πρώτου πυλῶνος τοῦ πρὸς τῇ ἀνατολῇ, according to which Bertheau insists upon correcting the text of Ezra, is an arbitrary addition on the part of the author of this apocryphal book, and derived from Neh 8:1.)

Then the two leaders of the people, Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the prince (see on Jos 2:2), with their brethren, i.e., the priests and the men of Israel (the laity), arose and built the altar, to offer upon it burnt-offerings, as prescribed by the law of Moses, i.e., to restore the legal sacrifices. According to Ezr 3:6, the offering of burnt-offerings began on the first day of the seventh month; hence the altar was by this day already completed. This agrees with the statement, "When the seventh month approached" (Ezr 3:1), therefore before the first day of this month.

They reared the altar על־מכונתו, upon its (former) place; not, upon its bases. The feminine מכונה has here a like signification with the masculine form מכון, Ezr 2:68, and מכוּנה, Zec 5:11. The Keri מכונתיו is an incorrect revision. "For fear was upon them, because of the people of those countries." The בprefixed to אימה is the so-called ב essentiae, expressing the being in a condition; properly, a being in fear had come or lay upon them. Comp. on ב essentiae, Ewald, §217, f, and 299, b, though in §295, f, he seeks to interpret this passage differently. The "people of those countries" are the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the new community; comp. Ezr 9:1; Ezr 10:2. The notion is: They erected the altar and restored the worship of Jahve, for the purpose of securing the divine protection, because fear of the surrounding heathen population had fallen upon them. J. H. Mich. had already a correct notion of the verse when he wrote: ut ita periculi metus eos ad Dei opem quaerendam impulerit.

(Note: Bertheau, on the contrary, cannot understand the meaning of this sentence, and endeavours, by an alteration of the text after 1 Esdras, to make it signify that some of the people of the countries came with the purpose of obstructing the building of the altar, but that the Israelites were able to effect the erection because a fear of God came upon the neighbouring nations, and rendered them incapable of hostile interference.)

Comp. the similar case in 2Ki 17:25., when the heathen colonists settled in the deserted cities of Samaria entreated the king of Assyria to send them a priest to teach them the manner of worshipping the God of the land, that thus they might be protected from the lions which infested it. The Chethiv ויאל must be taken impersonally: "one (they) offered;" but is perhaps only an error of transcription, and should be read ויּעלוּ. On the morning and evening sacrifices, see on Exo 28:38., Num 28:3.

They kept the feast of tabernacles as prescribed in the law, Lev 23:34. "The burnt-offering day by day, according to number," means the burnt-offering day by day, according to number," means the burnt-offerings commanded for the several days of this festival, viz., on the first day thirteen oxen, on the second twelve, etc.; comp. Num 29:13-34, where the words כּמשׁפּט בּמספּרם, Num 29:18, Num 29:21, Num 29:24, etc., occur, which are written in our present verse כּם בּמספּר, by number, i.e., counted; comp. 1Ch 9:28; 1Ch 23:31, etc.

And afterward, i.e., after the feast of tabernacles, they offered the continual, i.e., the daily, burnt-offering, and (the offerings) for the new moon, and all the festivals of the Lord (the annual feasts). עלות must be inserted from the context before לחדשׁים to complete the sense. "And for every one that willingly offered a free-will offering to the Lord." נדבה is a burnt-offering which was offered from free inclination. Such offerings might be brought on any day, but were chiefly presented at the annual festivals after the sacrifices prescribed by the law; comp. Num 29:39. - In Ezr 3:6 follows the supplementary remark, that the sacrificial worship began from the first day of the seventh month, but that the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. This forms a transition to what follows.

(Note: Bertheau, comparing Ezr 3:6 with Ezr 3:5, incorrectly interprets it as meaning: "From the first day of the seventh month the offering of thank-offerings began (comp. Ezr 3:2); then, from the fifteenth day of the second month, during the feast of tabernacles, the burnt-offerings prescribed by the law (Ezr 3:4); but the daily burnt-offerings were not recommenced till after the feast of tabernacles, etc. Hence it was not from the first day of the seventh month, but subsequently to the feast of tabernacles, that the worship of God, so far as this consisted in burnt-offerings, was fully restored." The words of the cursive manuscript, however, do not stand in the text, but their opposite. In Ezr 3:2, not thank-offerings (זבהים or שׁלמים), but burnt-offerings (עלות), are spoken of, and indeed those prescribed in the law, among which the daily morning and evening burnt-offering, expressly named in Ezr 3:3, held the first place. With this, Ezr 3:5, "After the feast of tabernacles they offered the continual burnt-offering, and the burnt-offerings for the new moon," etc., fully harmonizes. The offering of the continual, i.e., of the daily, burnt-offerings, besides the new moon, the feast-days, and the free-will offerings, is named again merely for the sake of completeness. The right order is, on the contrary, as follows: The altar service, with the daily morning and evening sacrifice, began on the first day of the seventh month; this daily sacrifice was regularly offered, according to the law, from then till the fifteenth day of the second month, i.e., till the beginning of the feast of tabernacles; all the offerings commanded in the law for the separate days of this feast were then offered according to the numbers prescribed; and after this festival the sacrifices ordered at the new moon and the other holy days of the year were offered, as well as the daily burnt-offerings, - none but these, neither the sacrifice on the new moon (the first day of the seventh month) nor the sin-offering on the tenth day of the same month, i.e., the day of atonement, having been offered before this feast of tabernacles.)

Preparations were also made for the rebuilding of the temple; money was given to hewers of wood and to masons, and meat and drink (i.e., corn and wine) and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians (i.e., the Phoenicians; comp. 1Ch 22:4), to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa (i.e., to the coast of Joppa), as was formerly done by Solomon, 1Ki 5:6., 2Ch 2:7. כּרשׁיון, according to the grant of Cyrus to them, i.e., according to the permission given them by Cyrus, sc. to rebuild the temple. For nothing is said of any special grant from Cyrus with respect to wood for building. רשׁיון is in the O.T. ἁπ. λεγ.; in Chaldee and rabbinical Hebrew, רשׁא and רשׁי mean facultatem habere; and רשׁוּ power, permission.

The foundation of the temple laid. - Ezr 3:8 In the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, i.e., after their arrival at Jerusalem on their return from Babylon, in the second month, began Zerubbabel and Joshua to appoint the Levites from twenty years old and upwards to the oversight of the work (the building) of the house of the Lord. That is to say, the work of building was taken in hand. Whether this second year of the return coincides with the second year of the rule of Cyrus, so that the foundations of the temple were laid, as Theophil. Antioch. ad Autolic. lib. 3, according to Berosus, relates, in the second year of Cyrus, cannot be determined. For nothing more is said in this book than that Cyrus, in the first year of his reign, issued the decree concerning the return of the Jews from Babylon, whereupon those named in the list, Ezra 2, set out and returned, without any further notice as to whether this also took place in the first year of Cyrus, or whether the many necessary preparations delayed the departure of the first band till the following year. The former view is certainly a possible though not a very probable one, since it is obvious from Ezr 2:1 that they arrived at Jerusalem and betook themselves to their cities as early as the seventh month of the year. Now the period between the beginning of the year and the seventh month, i.e., at most six months, seems too short for the publication of the edict, the departure, and the arrival at Jerusalem, even supposing that the first year of Cyrus entirely coincided with a year of the Jewish calendar. The second view, however, would not make the difference between the year of the rule of Cyrus and the year of the return to Jerusalem a great one, since it would scarcely amount to half a year. ויּעמידוּ...החלּוּ, they began and appointed, etc., they began to appoint, i.e., they began the work of building the temple by appointing. Those enumerated are-1. Zerubbabel and Joshua, the two rulers: 2. The remnant of their brethren = their other brethren, viz., a, the priests and Levites as brethren of Joshua; b, all who had come out of captivity, i.e., the men of Israel, as brethren of Zerubbabel. These together formed the community who appointed the Levites to preside over, i.e., to conduct the building of the temple. For the expression, comp. 1 Chron 23:4-24.