Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

and singing women, in 1 Esdras yjraXrai, icai yjraXrcpSo^ who, as the Rabbis already supposed, were found among the followers of the returning Jews, ut Icetior esset Israelitarum reditus. The Israelites had from of old employed singing men and singing women not merely for the purpose of enhancing the cheerfulness of festivities, but also for the singing of lamentations on sorrowful occasions; comp. Eccles. ii. 8, 2 Chron. xxxv. 25: these, because they sang and played for hire, are named along with the servants and maids, and distinguished from the Levitical singers and players. Instead of 200, we find both in Nehemiah and 1 Esdras the number 245, which probably crept into the text from the transcriber fixing his eye upon the 245 of the following verse. — Yer. 66. The numbers of the beasts, whether for riding or baggage: horses, 736; mules, 245; camels, 435; and asses, 6720. The numbers are identical in Neh. vii. 68. In 1 Esdr. v. 42 the camels are the first named, and the numbers are partially different, viz., horses, 7036, and asses, 5525.

Vers. 68-70. Contributions towards the rebuilding of the temple, and concluding remarks, Comp. Neh. vii. 70-73. — Some of the heads of houses, when they came to the house of Jahve, i.e. arrived at the site of the temple, brought free-will offerings p^Jrin; comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 5) to set it up in its place pW^, to set up, i.e. to rebuild; identical in meaning both here and ix. 9 with ^?\}). After their ability (Dni33; comp. 1 Chron. xxix. 2) they gave unto the treasure of the work, i.e. of restoring the temple and its services,

61,000 darics of gold = £68,625, and 5000 mina of silver, above £30,000, and 100 priests' garments. The account of these contributions is more accurately given in Neh. vii. 70-72, according to which some of the heads of houses gave unto the work (nvfpp as Dan. i. 2 and elsewhere); the Tirshatha gave to the treasure 1000 darics of gold, 50 sacrificial vessels (see on Ex. xxvii. 3), 30 priests' garments, and 500... This last statement is defective; for the two numbers 30 and 500 must not be combined into 530, as in this case the hundreds would have stood first. The objects enumerated were named before 500, and are omitted through a clerical error, D^D f\Dy\, " and silver (500) mina." And some of the heads of houses (others than the Tirshatha) gave of gold 20,000 darics, of silver, 2200 mina; and that which the rest of the people gave was — gold, 20,000 darics, silver, 2000 mina, and 67 priests' garments. According to this statement, the Tirshatha, the heads of houses, and the rest of the people, gave together 41,000 darics in gold, 4200 mina in silver, 97 priests' garments, and 30 golden vessels. In Ezra the vessels are omitted; and instead of the 30 + 67 = 97 priests' garments, they are stated in round numbers to have been 100. The two other differences have arisen from textual errors. Instead of 61,000 darics, it is evident that we must read with Nehemiah, 41,000 (1000 + 20,000 + 20,000); and in addition to the 2200 and 2000 mina, reckon, according to Neh. vii. 70, 500 more, in all 4700, for which in the text of Ezra we have the round sum of 5000. The account of the return of the first band of exiles concludes at ver. 70, and the narrative proceeds to the subsequent final statement: " So the priests, etc.... dwelt in their cities." Byn ]V\ those of the people, are the men of the people of Israel of ver. 2, the laity as distinguished from the priests, Levites, etc. In Nehemiah the words are transposed, so that Dyn p stand after the Levitical door-keepers and singers. Bertheau thinks this position more appropriate; but we cannot but judge otherwise. The placing of the people, i.e. the laity of Israel, between the consecrated servants of the temple (the priests and their Levitioal assistants in the sacrificial service) and the singers and door-keepers, seems to ns quite consistent; while, on the other hand, the naming of the D^yic? before the D*nbte in Nehemiah seems inappropriate, because the performance of the choral service of the temple was a higher office than the guardianship of the doors. Neither can we regard Bertheau's view, that Drnya, which in the present verse follows DWttrTJ, should be erased, as a correct one. The word forms a perfectly appropriate close to the sentence be^innin^ with Wtt>'sl; and the sentence following, " And all Israel were in their cities," forms a well-rounded close to the account; while, on the contrary, the summing up of the different divisions by the words ta"iB*"^3 in Nehemiah, after the enumeration of those divisions, has a rather heavy effect.1

CHAP. III. — TIIE ALTAR OF BURNT-OFFERING ERECTED, THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES CELEBRATED, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE TEMPLE LAID.

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 (vers. 1-7); and in the second month of the following year the foundations of the new temple were laid with due solemnity (vers. 8-13). Comp. 1 Esdr. v. 46-62.

Vers. 1-7. T7/e building of the altar, the restoration of the daily sacrifice, and the celebration of the feast of tabernacles. — Ver. 1. When 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 ver. 8, which tells us that the

1 In 1 Esdr. v. 46, this verse, freely carrying out the texts of Ezra and Nehemiah, with regard also to Neh. xii. 27-30, runs thus: " And so dwelt the priests, and the Levites, and the people, in Jerusalem and in the country, the singers also and the porters, and all Israel in their villages."

foundations of the temple were laid in the second month of the second year of their return. The words, u and the children of Israel were in the cities," are a circumstantial clause referring to ii. 70, and serving to elucidate what follows. From the cities, in which each had settled in his own (ii. 1), the people came to Jerusalem, as one man, i.e. not entirely (Bertheau), but unanimously {pfioOvfiahov, 1 Esdr. v. 46); comp. Neh. viii. 1, Judg. xx. I.1 — Ver. 2. Then the two leaders of the people, Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the prince (see on ii. 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 ver. 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, u When the seventh month approached" (ver. 1), therefore before the first day of this month. — Ver. 3. They reared the altar injiDp"?y, upon its (former) place; not, upon its bases. The feminine H3faD has here a like signification with the masculine form |i3B, h\ 68, and HJ'Dp, Zech. v. 11. The Keri irntoft is an incorrect revision.

u For fear was upon them, because of the people of those countries." The 3 prefixed to HD*K is the so-called 2 essentia, expressing the being in a condition; properly, a being in fear had come or lay upon them. Comp. on 2 essentia?, Ewald, § 217,/, and 299, b, though in § 295, /, he seeks to interpret this passage differently. The u people of those countries" are the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the new community; comp. ix. 1, x. 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

1 The more precise statement of 1 Esdr. v. 46, tig to ilpvy^pou rou irpodTOv 7?vhcouo; rov irpo; rri ccvc&tg^y,, 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. viii. 1.

lie wrote: ut ita perlculi metus eos ad Dei opem queer endam impulerit? Comp. the similar case in 2 Kings xvii. 25 sq., 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 7JP1 must be taken impersonally: "one (they) offered;" but is perhaps only an error of transcription, and should be read v^). On the morning and evening sacrifices, see on Ex. xxviii. 38 sq., Num. xxviii. 3 sq. — Ver. 4. They kept the feast of tabernacles as prescribed in the law, Lev. xxiii. 34 sq. " 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 oxei, on the second twelve, etc.; comp. Num. xxix. 13-34, where the words BBf»3 D"J3?»3, vers. 18, 21, 24, etc., occur, which are written in our present verse '£3 ")Qpp3, by number, i.e. counted; comp. 1 Chron. ix. 28, xxiii. 31, etc. — Ver. 5. 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). ni?y must be inserted from the context before BWn? to complete the sense. " And for every one that willingly offered a free-will offering to the Lord." rmj 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. xxix. 39. — In ver. 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

1 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.

was not yet laid. This forms a transition to what follows.1 — Ver. 7. 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. 1 Chron. xxii. 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, 1 Kings v. 20 sq., 2 Chron. ii. 7 sq. |^Kh3, 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. PSW*[ is in

1 Bertheau, comparing ver. 6 with ver. 5, incorrectly interprets it as meaning: "From the first day of the seventh month the offering of thank-offerings began (comp. ver. 2); then, from the fifteenth day of the second month, during the feast of tabernacles, the burnt-offerings prescribed by the law (ver. 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 burntofferings, was fully restored." The words of the cursive manuscript, however, do not stand in the text, but their opposite. In ver. 2, not thank-offerings (DTD? or D^cfe), but burnt-offerings (niVy), are spoken of, and indeed those prescribed in the law, among which the daily morning and evening burnt-offering, expressly named in ver. 3, held the first place. With this, ver. 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.

the O. T.utt. \cy.; in Chaldee and rabbinical Hebrew, Ktfh and Hjh mean faeultatem habere; and Wh power, permission. Vers. 8—13. The foundation of the temple laid. — Ver. 8. In the second year of their coining 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 fhe 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, chap, ii., 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 ii. 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. *TOgJ... w!?, 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

Levltes 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. xxiii. 4-24. — Ver. 9. The Levites undertook this appointment, and executed the commission. The singular 1b_y;i stands before a plural subject, as is frequently the case when the verb precedes its subject. Three classes or orders of Levites are named: 1. Jeshua with his sons and brethren; 2. Kadmiel with his sons, the sons of Hodaviah; 3. The sons of Ilenadad, their sons and brethren. Jeshua and Kadmiel are the two heads of orders of Levites already named (ii. 40). From a comparison of these passages, wre perceive that niw *ja is a clerical error for njflin (or njnin) \>3. This more precise designation is not a a comprehensive appellation for all hitherto enumerated" (Bertheau), but, as is undoubtedly obvious from ii. 40, only a more precise designation of the sons of Kadmiel. ^N?, as one, i.e. all, without exception. The third class, the sons of Henadad, are not expressly named in ii. 40 among those who returned from Babylon; but a son of Henadad appears, Neh. iii. 24 and x. 10, as head of an order of Levites. The naming of this order after the predicate, in the form of a supplementary notice, and unconnected by a 1 cop., is striking. Bertheau infers therefrom that the construction of the sentence is incorrect, and desires to alter it according to 1 Esdr. v. 56, where indeed this class is named immediately after the two first, but rn}iT V.? is separated from what precedes; and of these mi.T »J3 is made a fourth class, viol 'IcoSd tov ' HXcaSovB. All this sufficiently shows that this text cannot be regarded as authoritative. The striking position or supplementary enumeration of the sons of Henadad may be explained by the fact to which the placing of ^n^3 after rm.T *J3 points, viz. that the two classes, Jeshua with his sons and brethren, and Kadmiel with his sons, were more closely connected with each other than with the sons of Henadad, who formed a third class. The D*vp at the end of the enumeration offen no argument for the transposition of the words, though this addition pertains not only to the sons of Henadad, bat also to the two first cla

'DTI njpfc is plural, and only an unusual reading for *bfPj see the foundation of the temple of the Loud, they (Zerubbabel and.Joshua, the heads of the community) set the priosts in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the Loud after the ordinance of David. The perf. HD^I, followed by an imperf. connected by a Vav consecutive, must be construed: When they laid the foundations, then. tPISWp, clothed, sc. in their robes of office; comp. 2 Chron. v. 12, xx. 21. H] by as 1 Chron. xxv. 2. On ver. 11, comp. remarks on 1 Chron. xvi. 34, 41, 2 Chron. v. 13, vii. 3, and elsewhere. Older expositors (Clericus, J. II. Mich.), referring to Ex. xv. 21, understand Sna UJW of the alternative singing of two choirs, one of which sang, "Praise the Lord, for He is good; " and the other responded, " And His mercy endureth for ever." In the present passage, however, there is no decided allusion to responsive singing; hence (with Bertheau) we take W in the sense of, " They sang to the Lord with hymns of thanksgiving." Probably they sang such songs as Ps. cvi., cvii., or cxviii., which commence with an invitation to praise the Lord because He is good, etc. All the people, moreover, raised a loud shout of joy. n?i"U nynn is repeated in ver. 13 by nnEfrn nynn. Tpin 7V; on account of the founding, of the foundation-laying, of the house of the Lord. "JOin as in 2 Chron. iii. 3. — Ver. 12. But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the people, the old men who had seen (also) the former temple, at the foundation of this house before their eyes (i.e. when they saw the foundation of this house laid), wept with a loud voice. Solomon's temple was destroyed B.C. 588, and the foundation of the subsequent temple laid B.C. 535 or 534: hence the older men among those present at the latter event might possibly have seen the former house; indeed, some (according to Hagg. ii. 2) were still living in the second year of Darius

Hystaspis who had beheld the glory of the earlier building. Upon these aged men, the miserable circumstances under which the foundations of the new temple were laid produced so overwhelming an impression, that they broke into loud weeping. iW3 is connected by its accents with the words preceding: the former temple in its foundation, i.e. in its stability. But this can scarcely be correct. For not only does no noun *TD*? foundation, occur further on; but even the following words, u of this house before their eyes," if severed from ftpjs, have no meaning. Hence (with Aben Ezra, Cler., Berth., and others) we connect V1DJ3 with the parenthetical sentence following, a when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes;" and then the suffix of the infinitive ftDJ expressly refers to the object following, as is sometimes the case in Hebrew, e.g. 2 Chron. xxvi. 14, Ezra ix. 1, and mostly in Chaldee; comp. Ew. § 209, c, " But many were in rejoicing and joy to raise their voices," i.e. many so joyed and rejoiced that they shouted aloud. — Ver. 13. And the people could not discern (distinguish) the loud cry of joy in the midst of (beside) the loud weeping of the people; for the people rejoiced with loud rejoicings, and the sound was heard afar off. The meaning is not, that the people could not hear the loud weeping of the older priests, Levites, and heads of the people, because it was overpowered by the loud rejoicings of the multitude. The verse, on the contrary, contains a statement that among the people also (the assembly exclusive of priests, Levites, and chiefs) a shout of joy and a voice of weeping arose; but that the shouting for joy of the multitude was so loud, that the sounds of rejoicing and weeping could not be distinguished from each other. "^'7, with the ace. and?, to perceive something in the presence of (along with) another, i.e. to distinguish one thing from another. u The people could not discern " means: Among the multitude the cry of joy could not be distinguished from the noise of weeping. P^"JD? 1JJ as 2 Chron. xxvi. 15.

ril.vr. iv. — HINDRANCES TO BUILDING THE TEMPLE. LCH (78ATION8 acainst THE JEWS CONCERNING THE BUILDING OF THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM.

Vers. 1-5. The adversaries of the Jews prevent the building of the temple till the reign of Darius (vers. 1, 2). When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the community which had returned from captivity were beginning to rebuild the temple, they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chiefs of the people, and desired to take part in this work, because they also sacrificed to the God of Israel. These adversaries were, according to ver. 2, the people whom Esarhaddon king of Assyria had settled in the neighbourhood of Benjamin and Judah. If we compare with this verse the information (2 Kings xvii. 24) that the kings of Assyria brought men from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Ilamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, and that they took possession of the depopulated kingdom of the ten tribes, and dwelt therein; then these adversaries of Judah and Benjamin are the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Israel, who were called Samaritans after the central-point of their settlement, rpi-in *jaf sons of the captivity (vi. 19, etc., viii. 35, x. 7, 16), also shortly into nTfofT, e,q, i. H? are the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity, who composed the new community in Judah and Jerusalem. Those who returned with Zerubbabel, and took possession of the dwelling-places of their ancestors, being, exclusive of priests and Levites, chiefly members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, are called, especially when named in distinction from the other inhabitants of the land, Judah and Benjamin. The adversaries give the reason of their request to share in the^ building of the temple in the words: " For we seek your God as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, which brought us up hither." The words C^nai urnx nti are variously explained. Older expositors take the Chethiv K?1 as a negative, and make D^nnf to mean the offering of sacrifices to idols, both because

*6 is a negative, and also because the assertion that they had sacrificed to Jahve would not have pleased the Jews, quia dejlciente templo non debuerint sacrificare; and sacrifices not offered in Jerusalem were regarded as equivalent to sacrifices to idols. They might, moreover, fitly strengthen their case by the remark: " Since the days of Esarhaddon we offer no sacrifices to idols." On the other hand, however, it is arbitrary to understand l"DT, without any further definition, of sacrificing to idols; and the statement, u We already sacrifice to the God of Israel," contains undoubtedly a far stronger reason for granting their request than the circumstance that they do not sacrifice to idols. Hence we incline, with older translators (LXX., Syr., Vulg., 1 Esdras), to regard *6 as an unusual form of V, occurring in several places (see on Ex. xxi. 8), the latter being also substituted in the present instance as Keri. The position also of tib before ^rttK points the same way, for the negative would certainly have stood with the verb. On Esarhaddon, see remarks on 2 Kings xix. 37 and Isa. xxxvii. 38. — Ver. 3. Zerubbabel and the other chiefs of Israel answer, a It is not for you and for us to build a house to our God;" i.e., You and we cannot together build a house to the God who is our God; " but we alone will build it to Jahve the God of Israel, as King Cyrus commanded us." "inj «riJK, we together, i.e. we alone (without your assistance). By the emphasis placed upon "our God" and "Jahve the God of Israel," the assertion of the adversaries, " We seek your God as ye do," is indirectly refuted. If Jahve is the God of Israel, He is not the God of those whom Esarhaddon brought into the land. The appeal to the decree of Cyrus (i. 3, comp. iii. 6, etc.) forms a strong argument for the sole agency of Jews in building the temple, inasmuch as Cyrus had invited those only who were of His (Jahve's) people (i. 3). Hence the leaders of the new community were legally justified in rejecting the proposal of the colonists brought in by Esarhaddon. For the latter wTere neither members of the people of Jahve, nor Israelites, nor genuine worshippers of Jahve. They were non-Israelites, and designated themselves as those whom the king of Assyria had brought into the land. According to 2 Kings xvii. 24, the king of Assyria brought colonists from Babylon, Cuthah, and other places, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. Now we cannot suppose that every Israelite, to the verylast man, was carried away by the Assyrians; such a deportation of a conquered people being unusual, and indeed impossible. Apart, then, from the passage, 2 Chron. xxx. 6, etc., which many expositors refer to the time of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, we find that in the time of King Josiah (2 Chron. xxxiv. 9), when the foreign colonists had been for a considerable period in the country, there were still remnants of Manasseh, of Ephraim, and of all Israel, who gave contributions for the house of God at Jerusalem; and also that in 2 Kings xxiii. 15-20 and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6, a remnant of the Israelite inhabitants still existed in the former territory of the ten tribes. The eighty men, too, who (Jer. xli. 5, etc.) came, after the destruction of the temple, from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, mourning, and bringing offerings and incense to Jerusalem, to the place of the house of God, which was still a holy place to- them, were certainly Israelites of the ten tribes still left in the land, and who had probably from the days of Josiah adhered to the temple worship. These remnants, however, of the Israelite inhabitants in the territories of the former kingdom of the ten tribes, are not taken into account in the present discussion concerning the erection of the temple; because, however considerable their numbers might be, they formed no community independent of the colonists, but were dispersed among them, and without political influence. It is not indeed impossible "that the colonists were induced through the influence exercised upon them by the Israelites living in their midst to prefer to the Jews the request, 'Let us build with you;' still those who made the proposal were not Israelites, but the foreign colonists" (Bertheau). These were neither members of the chosen people nor worshippers of the God of Israel. At their first settlement (2 Kings xvii. 24, etc.) they evidently feared not the Lord, nor did they learn to do so till the king of Assyria, at their request, sent them one of the priests who had been carried away to teach them the manner of worshipping the God of the land. This priest, being a priest of the Israelitish calf-worship, took up his abode at Bethel, and taught them to worship Jahve under the image of a golden calf. Hence arose a worship which is thus described, 2 Kings xvii. 29-33: Every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans, i.e. the former inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes, had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And besides their idols Nergal, Asima, Nibhaz, Tartak, they feared Jahve; they sacrificed to all these gods as well as to Him. A mixed worship which the prophethistorian (2 Kings xvii. 34) thus condemns: " They fear not the Lord, and do after their statutes and ordinances, not after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded to the sons of Jacob." And so, it is finally said (ver. 41), do also their children and children's children unto this day, i.e. about the middle of the Babylonian captivity; nor was it till a subsequent period that the Samaritans renounced gross idolatry. The rulers and heads of Judah could not acknowledge that Jahve whom the colonists worshipped as a local god, together with other gods, in the houses of the high places at Bethel and elsewhere, to be the God of Israel, to whom they were building a temple at Jerusalem. For the question was not whether they would permit Israelites who earnestly sought Jahve to participate in His worship at Jerusalem, — a permission which they certainly would have refused to none who sincerely desired to turn to the Lord God, — but whether they would acknowledge a mixed population of Gentiles and Israelites, whose worship was more heathen than Israelite, and who nevertheless claimed on its account to belong to the people of God.1 To such, the

1 The opinion of Knobel, that those who preferred the request were not the heathen colonists placed in the cities of Samaria by the Assyrian king (2 Kings xvii. 24), but the priests sent by the Assyrian king to Samaria (2 Kings xvii. 27), has been rejected as utterly unfounded by mien of Judali could not, without unfaithfulness to the Lord their God, permit a participation in the building of the Lord's house.

Ver. 4. In consequence of this refusal, the adversaries of Judali sought to weaken the hands of the people, and to deter them from building. l^n nyy the people of the land, i.e. the inhabitants of the country, the colonists dwelling in the land, the same who in ver. 1 are called the adversaries of Judali and Benjamin. W followed by the participle expresses the continuance of the inimical attempts. To weaken the hands of any one, means to deprive him of strength and courage for action; comp. Jer. xxxviii. 4. fHWT Dy are the inhabitants of the realm of Judah, who, including the Benjamites, had returned from captivity, Judali being now used to designate the whole territory of the new community, as before the captivity the entire southern kingdom; comp. ver. 6. Instead of the Chethiv DW3D, the Keri offers &7l!?0, from ^m, Pielj to terrify, to alarm, 2 Chron. xxxii. 18, Job xxi. 6, because the verb nbl nowhere else occurs; but the noun niJ??, fear, being not uncommon, and presupposing the existence of a verb BwSL the correctness of the Chethiv cannot be impugned. — Ver. 5. And they hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose (of building the temple). B^Dl still depends on the WJ of ver. 4. ">2D is a later orthography of "OSP, to hire, to bribe. Whether by the hiring of CWBH* we are to understand the corruption of royal counsellors or ministers, or the appointment of legal agents to act against the Jewish community at the Persian court, and to endeavour to obtain an inhibition against the erection of the temple, does not appear. Thus much only is evident from the text, that the adversaries succeeded in frustrating the continuance of the building a all the days of Koresh," i.e. the yet remaining five years of Cyrus, who was for the space of seven years sole ruler of Babylon; while the machinations against the building, begun immediately after the laying of

Bertheau, who at the same time demonstrates, against Fritzsche on 1 Esdr. v. 65, the identity of the unnamed king of Assyria (2 Kings xvii. 24) with Esarhaddon.

its foundations in the second year of the return, had the effect, in the beginning of the third year of Cyrus (judging from Dan. x. 2), of putting a stop to the work until the reign of Darius, — in all, fourteen years, viz. five years of Cyrus, seven and a half of Camhyses, seven months of the Pseudo-Smerdis, and one year of Darius (till the second year of his reign).

Vers. 6-23. Complaints against the Jews to Kings Ahashverosh and Artac7ishasta. — The right understanding of this section depends upon the question, What kings of Persia are meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta 1 while the answer to this question is, in part at least, determined by the contents of the letter, 8—16, sent by the enemies of the Jews to the latter monarch. — Ver. 6. And in the reign of Ahashverosh, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, nj*??*, not to mention the name of the well, Gen. xxvi. 21, occurs here only, and means, according to its derivation frcm 19^, to bear enmity, the enmity; hence here, the accusation. ^ by belongs to nabfe> not to ttfi3; the letter was sent, not to the inhabitants of Judah, but to the king against the Jews. The contents of this letter are not given, but may be inferred from the designation njjp^. The letter to Artachshasta then follows, 7-16. In his days, i.e. during his reign, wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions. tffo?, for which the Keri offers the ordinary form W?ij3j occurs only here in the Hebrew sections, but more frequently in the Chaldee (comp. iv. 9, 17, 23, v. 3, and elsewhere), in the sense of companions or fellow-citizens; according to Gesenius, it means those who bear the same surname (Kunje) together with another, though Evvald is of a different opinion; see § 117, b, note. The singular would be written riJS (Ewald, § 187, d). And the writing of the letter was written in Aramaean (i.e. with Aramaean characters), and interpreted in (i.e. translated into) Aramaean. |ViKO is of Aryan origin, and connected with the modern

Persian ^jl^y nuivishten, to write together; it signifies in Hebrew and Chaldee a letter: comp. ver. 18, where WW'J is used for RWIM of ver. 11. Bertheau translates 3TI2) P^V^j copy of the letter, and regards it as quite identical with the Chaldee WT)3S p^HQ, ver. 11; he can hardly, however, be in the right, sro does not mean a transcript or copy, but only a writing (comp. Esth. iv. 8). This, too, does away with the inference u that the writer of this statement had before him only an Aramaean translation of the letter contained in the state-papers or chronicles which he made use of." It is not sris, the copy or writing, but I^^S, the letter, that is the subject of rPDi« DJ")^P, interpreted in Aramaean. This was translated into the Aramaean or Syrian tongue. The passage is not to be understood as stating that the letter was drawn up in the Hebrew or Samaritan tongue, and then translated into Aramaean, but simply that the letter was not composed in the native language of the writers, but in Aramaean. Thus Gesenius rightly asserts, in his Hies. p. 1264, et lingua aramcea scripta erat; in saying which Dinn does not receive the meaning concepit, expressit, but retains its own signification, to interpret, to translate into another language. The writers of the letter were Samaritans, who, having sprung from the intermingling of the Babylonian settlers brought in by Esarhaddon and the remnants of the Israelitish population, spoke a language more nearly akin to Hebrew than to Aramaean, which was spoken at the Babylonian court, and was the official language of the Persian kings and the Persian authorities in Western Asia. This Aramaean tongue had also its own characters, differing from those of the Hebrew and Samaritan. This is stated by the words riWX 3^13, whence Bertheau erroneously infers that this Aramaean wrriting was written in other than the ordinary Aramaean, and perhaps in Hebrew characters. This letter, too, of Bishlam and his companions seems to be omitted. There follows, indeed, in ver. 8, etc., a letter to King Artachshasta, of which a copy is given in vers. 11-16; but the names of the writers are different from those mentioned in ver. 7. The three names, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel (ver. 7), cannot be identified with the two names Rehum and Shimshai (ver. 8).

When we consider, however, that the writers named in ver. 8 were high officials of the Persian king, sending to the monarch a written accusation against the Jews in their own and their associates' names, it requires but little stretch of the imagination to suppose that these personages were acting at the instance of the adversaries named in ver. 7, the Samaritans Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and merely inditing the complaints raised by these opponents against the Jews. This view, which is not opposed by the 2ri3 of ver. 7, — this word not necessarily implying an autograph, — commends itself to our acceptance, first, because the notion that the contents of this letter are not given finds no analogy in ver. 6, where the contents of the letter to Ahashverosh are sufficiently hinted at by the word n;B&; while, with regard to the letter of ver. 7, we should have not a notion of its purport in case it were not the same which is given in ver. 8, etc.1 Besides, the statement concerning the Aramaean composition of this letter would have been utterly purposeless if the Aramaean letter following in ver. 8 had been an entirely different one. The information concerning the language in which the letter was written has obviously no other motive than to introduce its transcription in the original Aramaean. This conjecture becomes a certainty through the fact that the Aramaean letter follows in ver. 8 without a copula of any kind. If any other had been intended, the i copulative would no more have been omitted here than in ver. 7. The letter itself, indeed, does not begin till ver. 9,

1 The weight of this argument is indirectly admitted by Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 119) and Bertheau, inasmuch as both suppose that there is a long gap in the narrative, and regard the Aramaean letter mentioned in ver. 7 to have been a petition, on the part of persons of consideration in the community at Jerusalem, to the new king, — two notions which immediately betray themselves to be the expedients of perplexity. The supposed "long gaps, which the chronicler might well leave even in transcribing from his documents" (Ew.), do not explain the abrupt commencement of ver. 8. If a petition from the Jewish community to the king wrere spoken of in ver. 7, the accusation against the Jews in ver. 8 would certainly have been alluded to by at least a 1 adversative, or some other adversative particle.

while ver. 8 contains yet another announcement of it. This circumstance^ however, is explained by the fact that the writers of the letters are other individual! than those named in ver. 7, but chiefly by the consideration that the letter, together with the king's answer, being derived from an Aramaean account of the building of the temple, the introduction to the letter found therein was also transcribed.

Ver, 8, etc. The writers of the letter are designated by titles which show them to have been among the higher functionaries of Artachshasta. Rehum is called EVp 7JJ3, dominus consilii v. decreti, by others con&iliarius, royal counsellor, probably the title of the Persian civil governor (erroneously taken for a proper name in LXX.,. Syr., Arab.); Shimshai, N^p, the Hebrew "IBID, scribe, secretary. KDJ3 is interpreted by Rashi and Aben Ezra by "1D*U "H^H?, as we shall say; NOjl is in the Talmud frequently an abbreviation of 1EX3 or "i£^, of like signification with "ibfcO: as follows. — Ver. 9. After this introduction we naturally look for the letter itself in ver. 9, instead of which we have (9 and 10) a full statement of who were the senders; and then, after a parenthetical interpolation, u This is the copy of the letter," etc., the letter itself in ver. 11. The statement is rather a clumsy one, the construction especially exhibiting a want of sequence. The verb to H^ is wanting; this follows in ver. 11, but as an anacoluthon, after an enumeration of the names in 9 and 10 with *rw. The sentence ought properly to run thus: 'J Then (i.e. in the days of Artachshasta) llehum, etc., sent a letter to King Artachshasta, of which the following is a copy: Thy servants, the men on this side the river," etc. The names enumerated in vers. 9 and 10 were undoubtedly all inserted in the superscription or preamble of the letter, to give weight to the accusation brought against the Jews. The author of the Chaldee section of the narrative, however, has placed them first, and made the copy of the letter itself begin only with the words, " Thy servants," etc. First come the names of the superior officials, Rehum and Shimshai, and the rest of their companions. The latter are then separately enumerated: the Dinaites,

LXX. Aeivaloi, — so named, according to the conjecture of Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 676), from the Median city long afterwards called Deinaver (Abulf. Geogr. ed. Paris, p. 414); the Apharsathchites, probably the Pharathiakites of Strabo (xv. 3. 12) (IIapr)Tafcr}votj Herod, i. 101), on the borders of Persia and Media, described as being, together with the Elymaites, a predatory people relying on their mountain fastnesses; the Tarpelites, whom Junius already connects with the TaTrovpoi dwelling east of Elymais (Ptol. vi. 2. 6); the Apharsites, probably the Persians (^D'lB with K prosthetic); the Archevites, probably so called from the city STJK, Gen. x. 10, upon inscriptions Uruk, the modern Warka; the Kv33, Babylonians, inhabitants of Babylon; the Shushanchites, i.e. the Susanites, inhabitants of the city of Susa; N.VTi), in the Keri fc^rn, the Dehavites, the Grecians (Adoi, Herod, i. 125); and lastly, the Elamites, the people of Elam or Elymais. Full as this enumeration may seem, yet the motive being to name as many races as possible, the addition, u and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper brought over and set in the city of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river,,' etc., is made for the sake of enhancing the statement. Prominence being given both here and ver. 17 to the city of Samaria as the city in which Osnapper had settled the colonists here named, the u nations brought in by Osnapper" must be identical with those who, according to ver. 2, and 2 Kings xvii. 24, had been placed in the cities of Samaria by King Esarhaddon. Hence Osnapper would seem to be merely another name for Esarhaddon. But the names Osnapper (LXX. 'Aaaevacpdp) and Asarhaddon (LXX. ' 'AaapaSdu) being too different to be identified, and the notion that Osnapper was a second name of Asarhaddon having but little probability, together with the circumstance that Osnapper is not called king, as Asarhaddon is ver. 2, but only " the great and noble," it is more likely that he was some high functionary of Asarhaddon, who presided over the settlement of eastern races in Samaria and the lands west of the Euphrates. a In the cities," or at least the preposition 3, must be supplied from the preceding '^"Ji?3 before fnrw *ny "ISC': and in the rest of the territory, or in the cities of the rest of the territory, on this side of Euphrates. "UV, trans, is to he understood of the countries west of Euphrates; matters being regarded from the point of view of the settlers, who had been transported from the territories east, to those west of Euphrates, R$? means " and so forth," and hints that the statement is not complete.

On comparing the names of the nations here mentioned with the names of the cities from which, according to 2 Kings xvii. 24, colonists were brought to Samaria, we find the inhabitants of most of the cities there named — Babylon, Cuthah, and Ava — here comprised under the name of the country as Nv?3, Babylonians; while the people of Hamath and Sepharvaim may fitly be included among "the rest of the nations," since certainly but few colonists would have been transported from the Syrian Hamath to Samaria. The main divergence between the two passages arises from the mention in our present verse, not only of the nations planted in the cities of Samaria, but of all the nations in the great region on this side of Euphrates (•"Hffl "*?£!)• All these tribes had similar interests to defend in opposing the Jewish community, and they desired by united action to give greater force to their representation to the Persian monarch, and thus to hinder the people of Jerusalem from becoming powerful. And certainly they had some grounds for uneasiness lest the remnant of the Israelites in Palestine, and in other regions on this side the Euphrates, should combine with the Jerusalem community, and the thus united Israelites should become sufficiently powerful to oppose an effectual resistance to their heathen adversaries. On the anacoluthistic connection of ver. 11, see remarks above, p. 65. E^ns, vers. 11, 23, ch. v. 6, vii. 11, and frequently in the Targums and the Syriac, written fJKT)5> Esth. iii. 14 and iv. 8, is derived from the Zendish. paiti (Sanscr. prati) and genghana (in Old-Persian ihanhana), and signifies properly a counterword, i.e. counterpart, copy. The form with "i is either a corruption, or formed from a compound with fra; comp. Gildemeister in the Zeitschr. fur die Kunde des MorgenL iv. p. 210, and Haug in Ewald's bihl. JalivJ). v. p. 163, etc. — The copy of the letter begins with T??y, thy servants, the men, etc. The Chethib -pap is the original form, shortened in the Keri into sFpJ?. Both forms occur elsewhere; comp. Dan. ii. 29, iii. 12, and other passages. The TOm, etc., here stands for the full enumeration of the writers already given in ver. 9, and also for the customary form of salutation.— Vers. 12-16. The letter. Ver. 12. "Be it known unto the king." On the form Sw for Kinj? peculiar to biblical Chaldee, see remarks on Dan. ii. 20. " Which are come up from thee," i.e. from the territory where thou art tarrying; in other words, from the country beyond Euphrates. This by no means leads to the inference, as Schrader supposes, that these Jews had been transported from Babylon to Jerusalem bv Kin£ Artachshasta. P?D answers to the Hebrew npy and is used like this of the -journey to Jerusalem. u Are come to us, to Jerusalem." NJvy, to l,s> that is, into the parts wdiere we dwell, is more precisely defined by the words "to Jerusalem." "They are building the rebellious and bad city, and are setting up its walls and cli<r£xin£r its foundations." Instead of NHTiD (with Kamets and Metheg under l) the edition of J. H. Mich, has WJT??, answering to the stat. ahs. NTJC*? ver. 15; on the other hand, the edition of Norzi and several codices read NnTiD, the feminine of 1TO. For KWW3 Norzi has KD^fctt, from B*K3, a contraction of fc^Na. For }fet?K,rw must be read, according to the Keri, ftfltf K^tt*. The Shaphel fetf, from &p, means to complete, to finish. r$£, bases, foundations. }DW may be the imperf. Aphel of Bin, formed after the example of &$l for D^, omitting the reduplication, DW. Din means to sew, to sew together, and may, like N£"J, be understood of repairing walls or foundations. But it is more likely to be the imperf. Aphel of DDn, in Syriac ^k>, and in the Talmud, to dig, to dig out, fodit, excavavit — to dig out the foundations for the purpose of erecting new buildings. — Ver. 13. " Now be it known unto the king, that if this city be built up and... they will not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and it (the city) will at last bring damage to the king." The three words tbt\) 6a!"n:E occur again, ver. 20 and vii. 21, in tins combination as designating the different kinds of imposts. ni:p, with resolved Dagesh forte, for PTOB (ver. 20), signifies measure, then tax or custom measured to every one. i?3, probably a duty on consumption, excise; J^n, a toll paid upon roads by travellers and their goods. The word EhEX, which occurs only here, and has not been expressed by old translators, depends upon the Pehlevi word DVnK: it is connected with the Sanscrit apa, in the superl. apama, and signifies at last, or in the future; comp. Haug, p. 156. B^pS, a Hebraized form for Tr?®, ver. 15, is perhaps only an error of transcription. — Ver. 14. "Now, because we eat the salt of the palace, and it does not become us to see the damage of the king, we send (this letter) and make known to the king." npp n^D, to salt salt = to eat salt. To eat the salt of the palace is a figurative expression for: to be in the king's pay. See this interpretation vindicated from the Syriac and Persian in Gesen. thes. p. 790.1 nny? deprivation, emptying, here injury to the royal power or revenue, sp^K, participle of ifW>, answering to the Hebrew ^py, means fitting, becoming. — Ver. 15. "That search may be made in the book of the chronicles of thy fathers, so shalt thou find in the book of the Chronicles that this city has been a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and countries, and that they have from of old stirred up sedition within it, on which account this city was (also) destroyed." ^2] is used impersonally: let one seek, let search be made, ^ro"? ">Sp? book of records, is the public royal chronicle in which the chief events of the history of the realm were recorded, called Esth. vi. 1 the book of the records of daily events. Thy fathers are the predecessors of the king, i.e. his predecessors in government; therefore not merely the Median and Persian, but the Chaldean and Assyrian kings, to whose dominions the Persian monarchs had succeeded. "ivnfiE'K, a verbal noun from the

1 Luther, in translating " all we who destroyed the temple," follows the Rabbis, who, from the custom of scattering salt upon destroyed places, Judg. ix. 45, understood these words as an expression figurative of destruction, and fr^DM as the temple.

Ithpeal of "VttP, rebellion, Wbfo riDV |D, from the days of eternity, i.e. from time immemorial, rioi* is in the constructive state, plural, formed from the singular NEi\ This form occurs only here and ver. 19, but is analogous with the Hebrew poetical form rfD* for Dsi?\ — Ver. 16. After thus casting suspicion upon the Jews as a seditious people, their adversaries bring the accusation, already raised at the beginning of the letter, to a climax, by saying that if Jerusalem is rebuilt and fortified, the king will lose his supremacy over the lands on this side the river. ■ nri b3|pb, on this account, for this reason, that the present inhabitants of the fortified city Jerusalem are like its former inhabitants, thou wilt have no portion west of Euphrates, i.e. thou wilt have nothing more to do with the countries on this side the river — wilt forfeit thy sway over these districts.

Vers. 17-22. The royal answer to this letter. NDana — a word which has also passed into the Hebrew, Eccles. viii. 11, Esth. i. 20 — is the Zend, patigama, properly that which is to take place, the decree, the sentence; see on Dan. iii. 16. '3 13V "W^ still depends upon 3: those dwelling in Samaria and the other towns on this side the river. The royal letter begins with riym D?B>, " Peace," and so forth. rU'2 is abbreviated from W3. — Ver. 18. M The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me." £n?P, part. pass. Pael, corresponds with the Hebrew part. Piel ^"jsp, made plain, adverbially, plainly, and does not signify u translated into Persian." — Ver. 19. u And by me a command has been given, and search has been made; and it has been found that this city from of old hath lifted itself (risen) up against kings," etc. Nfe^np, lifted itself up rebelliously, as (in Hebrew) in 1 Kings i. 5. — Ver. 20. "There have been powerful kings in Jerusalem, and (rulers) exercising dominion over the whole region beyond the river" (westward of Euphrates). This applies in its full extent only to David and Solomon, and in a less degree to subsequent kings of Israel and Judah. On ver. 20&, comp. ver. 13. — Ver. 21. il Give ye now commandment to hinder these people (to keep them from the work), that this city be not built until command (m, to build) be given from me." ^V\ Ithpeal of DiLM. — Xw. i'i*. u And be warned from committing an oversight in this respect," i.e. take heed to overlook nothing in this matter pTJJj instructed, warned). "Why should the damage become great {i.e. grow), to bring injury to kings?" — Ver. 23. The result of this royal command. As soon as the copy of the letter was read before Rehum and his associates, they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and hindered them by violence and force. VpX with N prosthetic only here, elsewhere JTR ( = yHT), arm, violence. Bertheau translates, " with forces and a host;" but the rendering of jmx or lri"iT by " force" can neither be shown to be correct from Ezek. xvii. 9 and Dan. xi. 15, 31, nor justified by the translation of the LXX., iv 'lttttols teal Buvdfiet.

Ver. 24. u Then ceased the work of the house of God at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of Darius king of Persia." With this statement the narrator returns to the notice in ver. 5, that the adversaries of Judah succeeded in delaying the building of the temple till the reign of King Darius, which he takes up, and now adds the more precise information that it ceased till the second year of King Darius. The intervening section, vers. 6-23, gives a more detailed account of those accusations against the Jews made by their adversaries to kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta. If we read vers. 23 and 24 as successive, we get an impression that the discontinuation to build mentioned in ver. 24 was the effect and consequence of the prohibition obtained from King Artachshasta, through the complaints brought against the Jews by his officials on this side the river; the |HN3 of ver. 24 seeming to refer to the H?* of ver. 23. Under this impression, older expositors have without hesitation referred the contents of vers. 6-23 to the interruption to the building of the temple during the period from Cyrus to Darius, and understood the two names Ahashverosh and Artachshasta as belonging to Cambyses and (Pseudo) Smerdis, the monarchs who reigned between Cyrus and Darius. Grave objections to this view have, however, been raised by Kleinert (in the Beitragen der Dorpater Prof, d.

Theol. 1832, vol. i.) and J. W. Schultz (Cyrus der Grosse, in Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 624, etc.), who have sought to prove that none but the Persian kings Xerxes and Artaxerxes can be meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta, and that the section vers. 6-23 relates not to the building of the temple, but to the building of the walls of Jerusalem, and forms an interpolation or episode, in which the historian makes the efforts of the adversaries of Judah to prevent the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem under Xerxes and Artaxerxes follow immediately after his statement of their attempt to hinder the building of the temple, for the sake of presenting at one glance a view of all their machinations against the Jews. This view has been advocated not only by Vaihinger, " On the Elucidation of the History of Israel after the Captivity," in the Theol. Stud, u.* Krit. 1857, p. 87, etc., and Bertheau in his Commentary on this passage, but also by Hengstenberg, Christol. iii. p. 143, Auberlen, and others, and opposed by Ewald in the 2d edition of his Gesch. Israels, iv. p. 118, where he embraces the older explanation of these verses, and A. Koehler on Haggai, p. 20. On reviewing the arguments advanced in favour of the more modern view, we can lay no weight at all upon the circumstance that in 6-23 the building of the temple is not spoken of. The contents of the letter sent to Ahashverosh (ver. 6) are not stated; in that to Artachshasta (vers. 11-16) the writers certainly accuse the Jews of building the rebellious and bad city (Jerusalem), of setting up its walls and digging out its foundations (ver. 12); but the whole document is so evidently the result of ardent hatred and malevolent suspicion, that well-founded objections to the truthfulness of these accusations may reasonably be entertained. Such adversaries might, for the sake of more surely attaining their end of obstructing the work of the Jews, easily represent the act of laying the foundations and building the walls of the temple as a rebuilding of the town walls. The answer of the king, too (vers. 17-22), wrould naturally treat only of such matters as the accusers had mentioned. The argument derived from the names of the kings is of far more importance.

The name C'^vjts (in ver. G) occurs also in the book of Esther, where, as is now universally acknowledged) the Persian king Xerxes is meant; and in Dan. ix. 1, as the name of the Median kinix Kvaxares. In the cuneiform inscriptions the name is in Old-Persian Ksayarsa, in Assyrian Hisiarsif in which it is easy to recognise both the Hebrew form Ahashverosh,and the Greek forms Eep?7?'* and Kva^dpr]^. On the other hand, the name Cambyses (Old-Persian Kambudshja) offers no single point of identity; the words are radically different, whilst nothing is known of Cambyses having ever borne a second name or surname similar in sound to the Hebrew Ahashverosh. The name Artachshasta, moreover, both in Esth. vii. and viii., and in the book of Nehemiah, undoubtedly denotes the monarch known as Artaxerxes (Longimanus). It is, indeed, in both these books written Nnpw'nrnN with D, and in the present section, and in vi. 14, Nnw'y'nrnx; but this slight difference of orthography is nc argument for difference of person, NnrJ;,JJnms seeming to be a mode of spelling the word peculiar to the author of the Chaldee section, Ezra iv.-vi. Two other names, indeed, of Smerdis, the successor of Cambyses, have been handed down to us. According to Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 7, and Ktesias, Pers.fr. 8-13, he is said to have been called Tanyoxares, and according to Justini hist. i. 9, Oropastes; and Ewald is of opinion that the latter name is properly Ortosastes, which might answer to Artachshasta. It is also not improbable that Smerdis may, as king, have assumed the name of Artachshasta, 'ApTa^efj^T)?, which Herodotus (vi. 98) explains by fieyas apiqlo^. But neither this possibility, nor the opinion of Ewald, that Ortosastes is the correct reading for Oropastes in Just. hist. i. 9, can lay any claim to probability, unless other grounds also exist for the identification of Artachshasta with Smerdis. Such grounds, however, are wanting; while, on the other hand, it is a priori improbable that Ps. Smerdis, who reigned but about seven months, should in this short period have pronounced such a decision concerning the matter of building the temple of Jerusalem, as we read in the letter of Artachshasta, 17-22, even if the adversaries of the Jews should, though residing in Palestine, have laid their complaints before him, immediately after his accession to the throne. When we consider also the great improbability of Ahashverosh being a surname of Cambyses, we feel constrained to embrace the view that the section 6-23 is an episode inserted by the historian, on the occasion of narrating the interruption to the building of the temple, brought about by the enemies of the Jews, and for the sake of giving a short and comprehensive view of all the hostile acts against the Jewish community on the part of the Samaritans and surrounding nations.

The contents and position of ver. 24 may easily be reconciled with this view, which also refutes as unfounded the assertion of Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, i. p. 303, and Schrader, p. 469, that the author of the book of Ezra himself erroneously refers the document given, vers. 6-23, to the erection of the temple, instead of to the subsequent building of the walls of Jerusalem. For, to sav nothing of the contents of vers. 6-23, although it may seem natural to refer the HK? of ver. 24 to ver. 23, it cannot be affirmed that this reference is either necessary or the only one allowable. The assertion that iHN? is a always connected with that which immediately precedes," cannot be strengthened by an appeal to v. 2, vi. 1, Dan. ii. 14, 46, iii. 3, and other passages. H**?, then ( = at that time), in contradistinction to n*5, thereupon, only refers a narrative, in a general manner, to the time spoken of in that which precedes it. When, then, it is said, then, or at that time, the work of the house of God ceased (ver. 24), the then can only refer to what was before related concerning the building of the house of God, i.e. to the narrative vers. 1-5. This reference of ver. 24 to vers. 1-5 is raised above all doubt, by the fact that the contents of ver. 24 are but a recapitulation of ver. 5; it being said in both, that the cessation from building the temple lasted till the reign, or, as it is more precisely stated in ver. 24, till the second year of the reign, of Darius king of Persia. With this recapitulation of the contents of ver. 5, the narrative, ver. 24, returns to the point which it had reached at ver. 5. What lies between is thereby characterized as an illustrative episode, the relation of which to that which precedes and follows it, is to he perceived and determined solely by its contents. If, then, in this episode, we find not only that the building of the temple is not Bpoken of, but that letters are given addressed to the Kings Ahashveroah and Artachshasta, who, as all Ezra's contemporaries would know, reigned not before but after Darius, the very introduction of the first letter with the words, uAnd in the reign of Ahashverosh" (ver. 6), after the preceding statement, u until the reign of Darius king of Persia " (ver. 5), would be sufficient to obviate the misconception that letters addressed to Ahashverosh and Artachshasta related to matters which happened in the period between Cyrus and Darius Hystaspis. Concerning another objection to this view of vers. 6-23, viz. that it would be strange that King Artaxerxes, who is described to us in Ezra vii. and in Nehemiah as very favourable to the Jews, should have been for a time so prejudiced against them as to forbid the building of the town and walls of Jerusalem, \ve shall have an opportunity of speaking in our explanations of Neh. i. — Ver. 24, so far, then, as its matter is concerned, belongs to the following chapter, to which it forms an introduction.

In the second year of Darius Hystaspis (Darajavus Vic^taQpa) the prophets Zechariah and Haggai arose, and exhorted the people by words, both of reproof and encouragement, to assist in the work of rebuilding the house of God. In consequence of these prophetic admonitions, the rulers of the community resumed the work (vers. 1, 2); and the royal governor on this side the Euphrates allowed them, when in answer to his inquiries they appealed to the decree of Cyrus, to proceed with their building until the arrival of a decision from King Darius, to whom he addressed a written report of the matter (3-17).

Vers. 1 and 2. a The prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel upon them." s32nn without K, which this word occasionally loses in Hebrew also, comp. 1 Sam. x. 6, 13, Jer. xxvi. 9. The epithet n^'Itf added to the name of Ha^ai serves to distinguish him from others of the same name, and as well as K*3|n, Hagg. i. 1,3, 12, and elsewhere, is used instead of the name of his father; hence, after Zechariah is named, the prophets, as designating the position of both, can follow. K.VF'T'^j they prophesied to (not against) the Jews; sV as in Ezek. xxxvii. 4, = /K, Ezek. xxxvii. 9, xxxvi. 1. The Jews in Judah and Jerusalem, in contradistinction to Jews dwelling elsewhere, especially to those who had remained in Babylon. ]^y.V. belongs to FlJK DP3, in the name of God, who was upon them, who was come upon them, had manifested Himself to them. Comp. Jer. xv. 16. — Ver. 2. "Then rose up Zerubbabel... and Joshua... and began to build the house of God at Jerusalem, and with them the prophets of God helping them." The beginning to build is (iii. 6, etc.) the commencement of the building properly so called, upon the foundations laid, iii. 10; for what was done after this foundation-laying till a stop was put to the work, w^as so unimportant that no further notice is taken of it. The " prophets of God" are those mentioned ver. 1, viz. Haggai, and Zechariah the son, i.e. grandson, of Iddo, for his father's name was Berechiah (see Introd. to Zechariah). Haggai entered upon his work on the first day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius; and his first address made such an impression, that Zerubbabel and Joshua with the people set about the intermitted work of building as early as the twenty-fourth day of the same month (comp. Hagg. i. 1 and 14 sq.). Two months later, viz. in the eighth month of the same year, Zechariah began to exhort the people to turn sincerely to the Lord their God, and not to relapse into the sins of their fathers.

Vers. T> ">. When the building was recommenced, the governor on this side Euphrates, and other royal officials, evidently informed of the undertaking by the adversaries of the Jews, made their appearance for the purpose of investigating matters on the spot. PnyV nnK, came to them, to the two above-named rulers of the community at Jerusalem. Tatnai (LXX. Qavdavat) was nn^ viceroy, in the provinces west of Euphrates, i.e., as correctly expanded in 1 Esdras, of Syria and Phoenicia, to which Judaea with its Pecha Zerubbabel was subordinate. With him came Shethar- Boznai, perhaps his secretary, and their companions, their subordinates. The royal officials inquired: u Who has commanded you to build this house, and to finish this wall?" The form N?~? here and ver. 13 is remarkable, the infinitive in Chaldee beinir not X33 but W2D; compare vers. 2, 17, and vi. 8. Norzi has both times Kj?3?, as though the Dagesh forte were compensating for an omitted D- KJ"}?***, which occurs only here and ver. 9, is variously explained. The Vulgate, the Syriac, and also the Rabbins, translate: these walls. This meaning best answers to the context, and is also linguistically the most correct. It can hardly, however, be derived (Gesenius) from 1B*£, but rather from j'^'S, in Chaldee |VC'i<, firm, strong — walls as the strength or firmness of the building. The form Wi$X has arisen from NS^tf, and is analogous to the form n:^3 * — Ver. 4. Then told we them after this mariner (KJ>32, iv. 8), what were the names of the men who were building this building. From K3"]D8», iue said, it is obvious that the author of this account was an eye-witness of, and sharer in, the work of building. There is not a shadow of reason for altering &o~i£X into }1EK, or into the participle P"H?K (E\v., Berth., and others); the eiirocrav of the LXX. being no critical authority for so doing. The answer in ver. 4 seems not to correspond, with

1 The interpretations of the LXX., tyv x°PYiv'lotv retvrvi'j, meaning these building materials, and of 1 Esdr. vi. 4, rqv arty/iv tocvtyju ku,1 roc oi'A^sc noivTcc, this roof and. all besides, for which Bertheau decides, without considering that XOC> may mean to complete, and not to prepare for anything, are but conjectures.

the question in ver. 3. The royal officials asked, Who had commanded them to build? The Jews told them the names of those who had undertaken and were conducting the building. But this incongruity between question and answer is merely caused by the fact that the discussion is reported only by a short extract restricted to the principal subjects. We learn that this is the case from the contents of the letter sent by the officials to the king. According to these, the royal functionary inquired not merely concerning the author of the command to build, but asked also the names of those who were undertaking the work (comp. vers. 9 and 10); while the rulers of the Jews gave a circumstantial answer to both questions (vers. 11-15). — Ver. 5. Tatnai and Shethar-Boznai had power to prohibit them from proceeding; they allowed them, however, to go on with their work till the arrival of an answer from the king, to whom they had furnished a written report of the matter. In these dealings, the historian sees a proof of the divine protection which was watching over the building. "The eye of their God was over the elders of the Jews, that they should not restrain them (from building) till the matter came to Darius; and they should then receive a letter concerning this matter." Bertheau incorrectly translates aiT '"l? NDyD"iy: until the command of Kins Darius should arrive.? is only used as a paraphrase of the genitive in statements of time; otherwise the genitive, if not expressed by the status construe, is designated by 1 or *J. TJiT, fut. Peal of SJ?n, formed by the rejection of?, construed with?, signifies to go to a place (comp. vii. 13), or to come to a person. Kpitt? (Dyp) does not here mean commandment, but the matter, causa, which the king is to decide; just as DsriQ. vi. 11, means thing, res. The clause 1^^. P.18J still depends upon "iy: and till they (the royal officials) then receive a letter, i.e. obtain a decision.

In vers. 6-17 follows the letter which the royal officials sent to the king. Vers. 6 and la form the introduction to this document, and correspond with vers. 8-11 in chap. iv. Copy of the letter (comp. iv. 11) which Tatnai, etc., sent.

Tll€ senders of the letter are, besides Tatnai, Shethar- Bosnai ami his companions the Apharsachites, the same called IV. 9 tlie Apharsathchites, who perhaps, as a race specially devoted to the Persian king, took a prominent position among the settlers in Syria, and may have formed the royal garrison. After this general announcement of the letter, follows the more precise statement: They sent the matter to him; and in it was written, To King Darius, much peace. D3DQ here is not command, but matter; see above. Npb, its totality, is unconnected with, yet dependent on NE>x^: Peace in a^l things, in every respect. The letter itself begins with a simple representation of the state of affairs (ver. 8): " We went into the province of Judaea, to the house of the great God (for so might Persian officials speak of the God of Israel, after what they had learned from the elders of Judah of the edict of Cyrus), and it is being built with freestone, and timber is laid in the walls; and this work is being diligently carried on, and is prospering under their hands." The placing of wood in the walls refers to building beams into the wall for flooring; for the building was not so far advanced as to make it possible that this should be said of covering the walls with wainscoting. The word KJ-JBDK here, and vi. 8, 12, 13, vii. 17, 21, 26, is of Aryan origin, and is explained by Haug in Ew. Janro. v. p. 154, from the Old-Persian us-parna, to mean: carefully or exactly finished, — a meaning which suits all these passages. — Ver. 9. Hereupon the royal officials asked the elders of the Jews who had commanded them to build, and inquired concerning their names, that they might write to the king the names of the leading men (see the remark on 3 and 41). D'nc'fcon *1 does not mean, who are at the head of them: but, who act in the capacity of heads. — Ver. 11. The answer of the elders of the Jews. They returned us answer in the following manner (^ppp=ibfcO): "We are His, the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house which was built many years ago; and a great king of Israel built and completed it." nri np"l|5p, of before this, i.e. before the present; to which is added the more precise definition: many years (accusative of time), i.e. many years before the present time. — Ver. 12. For this reason (!•!}?), because (*^fl? = T^?> e.g. Isa. xliii. 4) our fathers provoked the God of heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, and he (Nebuch.) destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. For Nj'npa the Keri requires n$n?3, the ordinary form of the absolute state of the noun in ai. iriD, Pael, in the sense of destroy, appears only here in biblical Chaldee, but more frequently in the Targums. Flisy, its people, would refer to the town of Jerusalem; but Norzi and J. H. Mich, have n^y, and the Masora expressly says that the word is to be written without Mappik, and is therefore the stat. emphat. for M3V. — Vers. 13, 14. In the first year, however, of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus made a decree, etc.; comp. i. 3. The infin. wr like ver. 3. — On vers. 14 and 15, comp. i. 7-11. OW, preeter. pass, of Peal: they were given to one Sheshbazzar (is) his name, i.e. to one of the name of Sheshbazzar, whom he had made pechah. Zerubbabel is also called nns, Hagg. i. 1, 14, and elsewhere. — Ver. 15. Take these vessels, go forth, place them in the temple. For n?x the Keri reads?K, according to 1 Chron. xx. 8. Jinx is imperat. Aphel of nrj3. The three imperatives succeed each other without any copula in this rapid form of expression. The last sentence, a and let the house of God be built in its place/5 i.e. be rebuilt in its former place, gives the reason for the command to deposit the vessels in the temple at Jerusalem, i.e. in the house of God, which is to be rebuilt in its former place. — Ver. 16. In virtue of this command of Cyrus, this Sheshbazzar came (from Babylon to Jerusalem), and laid then the foundations of the house of God, and from that time till now it has been building, and is not (yet) finished. Dw, part. pass, of o?B>, often used in the Targums and in Syriac for the Hebrew D»n; hence in Dan. v. 26 the Aphel, in the meaning of to finish, and Ezek. vii. 19, to restore. This statement does not exclude the cessation from building from the last year of Cyrus to the second of Darius, narrated iv. to v. 84, as Bertheau and others suppose, but only leaves the unmentioned circumstance which had been the cause of the delay. If the section iv. G-23 does not refer to the building of the temple, then neither is a "forcible interruption" of the building spoken of in chap. iv.; but it is only said that the adversaries frustrated the purpose of the Jews to rebuild the temple till the time of Darius, and weakened the hands of the people, so that the work of the house of God ceased. — Ver. 17. After thus representing the state of affairs, the royal officials request Darius to cause a search to be made among the archives of the kingdom, as to whether a decree made by Cyrus for the erection of the temple at Jerusalem was to be found therein, and then to communicate to them his decision concerning the matter. "And if it seem good to the king, let search be made in the king's treasure-house there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king."?V 3D p, like the Hebrew hy 2)D DK, Esth. i. 19, for which in older Hebrew \b 3lD, Deut. xxiii. 17, or D???3 3itt, Gen. xix. 8, Judg. x. 15, and elsewhere, is used. Njpa rvs, house of the treasure, more definitely called, vi. 1, house of the rolls, where also the royal treasures were deposited. Hence it is obvious that important documents and writings were preserved in the royal treasury. HEF), there, is explained by " which at Babylon." Wj, chald. voluntas, comp. vii. 18. Concerning the behaviour of these officials Brentius well remarks: vides diffefentiam inter calumniator >es et bonos ac probos vivos, Una eademque causa erat azdijicii templi, unus idemque populus Jud&orum; attamen hujus populi causa aliter refertur ab impiis calumniatoribus, aliter a bonis viris.

CHAP. VI. — THE ROYAL DECREE, THE COMPLETION AND DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE, AND THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER.

Vers. 1-12. The decision of Darius, — Vers. 1-5. At the command of Darius, search was made in the archives of the royal treasury; and in the fortress of Achmetha in Media, was found the roll in which was recorded the edict published by Cyrus, concerning the building of the temple at Jerusalem.— Ver. 1. Search was made in the house of the books where also the treasures were deposited in Babylon. POnnpj partic. Aphel of fin:; see v. 15. — Ver. 2. u And there was found at Achmetha, in the fortress that is in the land of Media, a roll; and thus was it recorded therein." In Babylon itself the document sought for was not found; though, probably, the search there made, led to the discovery of a statement that documents pertaining to the time of Cyrus were preserved in the fortress of Achmetha, where the record in question was subsequently discovered. Kripna, the capital of Great Media — tcl 'EKJ3draua, Judith i. 1, 14, or 'AyftaTava (Herod, i. 98) — built by Dejokes, was the summer residence of the Persian and Parthian kin^s, and situate in the neiffhbourhood of the modern Hamadan. Achmetha is probably the Old-Median or Old-Persian pronunciation of the name, the letters E!"IK on Sassanidian coins being explained as denoting this city (Mordtmann in the Zeitschrift der deutsch morgenl. Gesellsdiaft, viii. p. 14). The citadel of Ecbatana probably contained also the royal palace and the official buildings. For Fft33 is found in some MSS. and editions WJ3; but Norzi and J. H. Mich, have Pathach under 1 as the better authorized reading. ^J^?% stat. emph. of P"1^ memorandum, uTTo/Avrijxa, a record of anything memorable. The contents of this document follow, vers. 3—5. First, the proclamation of King Cyrus in the first year of his reign: u The house of God at Jerusalem, let this house be built as a place where sacrifices are offered." The meaning of the words following is doubtful. We translate p?^DD '•TOK'i: and let them raise up its foundations, i.e. its foundations are to be again raised up, restored. P#K, foundations (iv. 12); P?2iDD, part. Poel of?3p, to carry, to raise (not to be raised), tap often stands for the Hebrew N^J, to carry, to raise up, to erect; compare the Samaritan translation of Gen. xiii. 10: PV riK?2D\ he lifted up his eyes. P#K??iD is analogous with *l *j'pto 0&ip, Isa. lviii. 12, and signifies to erect buildings upon the foundations.1 Expositor 8 are divided as to the dimensions of the new temple, " its height 60 cubits, and its breadth 60 cubits," which are so given also in LXX., Esdr. <jr., and Joseph. Antiq. xi. 4. 6; while Solomon's temple was but 30 cubits high, and, without the side-buildings, only 20 cubits broad. We nevertheless consider the statements correct, and the text incorrupt, and explain, the absence of the measure of length simply by the fact that, as far as length was concerned, the old and new temples were of equal dimensions. Solomon's temple, measured externally, inclusive of the porch and the additional building at the hinder part, was about 100 cubits long (see the ground plan in my hibl. ArchaeoL Table II. fig. 1). To correspond with this length, the new temple was, according to the desire of Cyrus, to be both higher and broader, viz. GO cubits high, and as many wide, — measurements which certainly apply to external dimensions. Zerubbabel's temple, concerning the structure of which we have no further particulars, was externally of this height and breadth. This may be inferred from the speech of King Herod in Joseph. Ant. xv. 11. 1, in which this tyrant, who desired to be famous for the magnificence of his builder ings, endeavoured to gain the favour of the people for the rebuilding of the temple, which he was contemplating, by the remark that the temple built by their forefathers, on their return from the Babylonian captivity, was 60 cubits too low, — Solomon's temple having been double that height (se., according to the height given in 2 Chron. iii. 4, 120 cubits), — and from" the fact that Herod made his temple 100 or 120 cubits high. Hence the temple of Zerubbabel, measured externally, must have been 60 cubits high; and consequently we need not diminish the breadth of 60 cubits,

1 The Vulgate, following a rabbinical explanation, has ponant fundamenta supportantia, which is here unsuitable. The conjecture of Bertheau, who labours, by all sorts of critical combinations of the letters in the words j^niDD NHIEM, to produce the text pjDH HfcMD r»K TWK, " its foundation length 180 cubits," is as needless as it is mistaken. The interpretation of the words in the LXX., x,ot\ Uyikw "nappcx., and Pseudo-Ezra vi., hoc Kvpog evBgAg^ovj, are nothing else than unmeaning suppositions.

also given in this verse, by alterations of the text, because Herod's temple was likewise of this width, but must understand the given dimensions to relate to external height and breadth. For in Herod's temple the holy places were but 60 cubits high and 20 wide; the holy place, 40 cubits long, 20 wide, and 60 high; the holy of holies, 20 cubits long, 20 wide, and 60 high. And we may assume that the dimensions of Zerubbabel's temple preserved the same proportions, with perhaps the modification, that the internal height did not amount to 60 cubits, — an upper storey being placed above the holy place and the holy of holies, as in Herod's temple; which would make the internal height of these places amount to only about 30 or 40 cubits.1 In like manner must the 60 cubits of breadth be so divided, that the 5 cubits internal breadth of the side-buildings of Solomon's temple must be enlarged to 10, which, allowing 5 cubits of thickness for the walls, would make the entire building 60 cubits wide (5 -j- 10 + 5 + 20 -j- 5 + 10 + 5).2 The statement in ver. 4, "three layers of great stones, and a layer of new timber," is obscure. Tjn"}^ means row, layer, and stands in the Targums for the Hebrew "HB, a used of a layer of bricks;" see Gesen. Thes. p. 311, and Levy, cliald.

1 While we acknowledge it possible that the holy and most holy places, measured within, may have been only 40 cubits high, we cannot admit the objection of H. Merz, in Herzog's Realencycl. xv. p. 513, that 20 cubits of internal breadth is an inconceivable proportion to 60 cubits, this being the actual proportion in Herod's temple, as Merz himself states, p. 516, without finding it in this instance "inconceivable."

2 The conjecture of Merz in his above-cited article, and of Bertheau, that the dimensions of Zerubbabel's temple were double those of Solomon's, — viz. the holy and most holy places 40 cubits high and 40 wide, the upper chambers 20 cubits high, the side-chambers each 10 cubits high, and the whole building 120 cubits long, — must be rejected as erroneous, by the consideration that Herod's temple was only the length of Solomon's, viz. 100 cubits, of which the holy of holies took up 20, the holy place 40, the porch 10, the additional building behind 10, and the four walls 20. For Herod would by no means have diminished the length of his building 20, or properly 40 cubits. "We also see, from the above-named dimensions, that the 60 cubits broad cannot be understood of internal breadth.

WfoUrbuch) ii. |>. Oi>. ';2 }3K, stone of rolling, ono that Is rolled and cannot be carried, i.e. a great building stone. Win, novus, as an epithet to ys, is remarkable, it being selfevident that new wood is generally used for a new building. The LXX. translates el?, reading the word rnn (ver. 3). This statement involuntarily recalls the notice, 1 Kings vi. 36, that Solomon built the inner court, TW1 TVM *niD ntfw D^fJN nhH3; hence Merz expresses the supposition that "this is certainly a fragment, forming the conclusion of the whole design of the building, which, like that in 1 Kings vi. 36, ends with the porch and the walls of the fore-court." Thus much only is certain, that the words are not to be understood, as by Fritzsche on 1 Esdr. vi. 25, as stating that the temple walls were built of u three layers of large stones, upon which was one layer of beams," and therefore were not massive; such kind of building never being practised in the East in old times. u And let the expenses be given out of the king's house." This is more precisely stated in ver. 8 of the royal revenues on this side the river. KiJ??, the expense (from p£3, Aphel, to expend), therefore the cost of building. — Ver. 5. " And also let the vessels... be restored, and brought again to the temple at Jerusalem, to their place, and (thou) shalt place them in the house of God." On the matter of this verse, comp. i. 7 and v. 14. The sing. ^}\ (comp. v. 5) is distributive: it (each vessel) to its place. nnrn (comp. rinx v. 15) cannot, according to the sense, be third pers. fern, (neutr.), but only second pers. imperf. Aphel: thou shalt place. None but Sheshbazzar can be addressed (v. 15), though he is not named in ver. 3. The historian is evidently not giving the contents of the document word for word, but only its essential matter; hence he infers the address to Sheshbazzar from the answer of the Jewish elders (v. 15). Perhaps it was also remarked in the document, that Coresh caused the sacred vessels to be delivered to Sheshbazzar (i. 8).

Vers. 6-12. Acting upon the discovered edict, Darius warned the governor and royal officials on this side the Euphrates, not to hinder the building of the house of God at Jerusalem. On the contrary, they were to promote it by furnishing what was necessary for the work, and paying the expenses of the building out of the royal revenues to the elders of the Jews (vers. 6-8). They were also to provide for the worship of God in this temple such animals as the priests should require for sacrifice (vers. 9, 10), under pain of severe punishment for transgressing this command as also for any injury done to the temple (vers. 11, 12). This decree was undoubtedly communicated to the governor in the form of a written answer, to his inquiries (ver. 13). Without, however, expressly stating this to be the case, as ver. 1 and iv. 17 would lead us to expect, the historian gives us in ver. 6 sq. the actual contents of the royal edict, and that in the form of a direct injunction to the governor and his associates on this side the river: " Now Tatnai, governor,... be ye far from thence." The suffix |inni33V and their associates, is indeed unsuitable to the form of an address, of which Tatnai and Shethar-Boznai are the subjects; the narrator, however, in using it, had in mind the title or introduction of the royal letter. On its matter, comp. v. 6. pTp. and Psn*|, to be far from, figuratively to keep from anything, e.g. from good, Ps. liii. 2. nBFTjD, from thence, from Jerusalem; in other words, trouble yourselves no longer, as, according to v. 3, you have done about what is being done there. — Ver. 7. "Let the work of the house of God alone." p3E> with an accusative, to leave anything, to let it go on without hindrance. u Let the Pechah of the Jews (Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel) and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in its place." The? to *3?? introduces a second subject with special emphasis: And as far as regards the elders of the Jews, i.e. the Pechah, and especially the elders. — Ver. 8. "And a decree is (hereby) made by me, what ye shall do to these elders of the Jews, i.e. how you shall behave towards them (pV "ny = UV i*CT? Gen. xxiv. 12 sq.), to build this house, i.e. that this house may be built: namely, (1 expl.) of the royal moneys, of the custom (^P, see remarks on iv. 13) on this side the river, let expenses (the cost of building) be punctually given to these men, that there be no hindrance." N?B3? K7"*!, that there be no cessation or leisure from work, i.e. that the work is not to be discontinued. On the construction of the N? with the following infinitive, comp. Dan. vi. 9. The Vulgate renders the sense correctly by ne iwpediatur opus. — Ver. 9. u And what is needful, both young bullocks and ranis and lambs, for the burnt-offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word of the priests at Jerusalem (i.e. as the priests shall require for the service of God), let it be given them day by day without fail." HD is joined with the plur. fern, of the partic. I^'C1, and is defined by the enumeration which follows. n?fo, properly the anointing, then oil as the means of anointing. On NV"6 and |Vv, see remarks on iv. 12. W K7"% tnat there be no failure. — Ver. 10. The end the kin£ had in view in all this follows: " That they (the priests) may offer sacrifices well-pleasing to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and of his sons." T^n^ (com p. Dan. ii. 46) are sacrifices agreeable to God, rrtrw rn (Lev. i. 9, 13, and elsewhere), i.e. sacrifices pleasing to God. Cyrus had commanded the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, because he acknowledged the God of Israel to be the God of heaven, who had given him the kingdoms of the earth (i. 2). Darius was treading in his footsteps by also owning the God of the Jews as the God of heaven, and desiring that the blessing of this God might rest upon himself and his dynasty. Such an acknowledgment it was possible for the Persian kings to make without a renunciation of their polytheism. They could honour Jahve as a mighty, nay, as the mightiest God of heaven, without being unfaithful to the gods of their fathers; while the Jews could also, in the interest of their own welfare, pray and offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord for the life of the king to whom God had caused them to be subject (comp. Jer. xxix. 7). Accordingly we find that in after times sacrifices were regularly offered for the king on appointed days: comp. 1 Mace. vii. 33, xii. 11; 2 Mace. iii. 35, xiii. 23; Joseph. Antiq. xii. 2. 5, and elsewhere.— Ver. 11. To inculcate obedience to his command, Darius threatens to punish its transgression with death:

" If any one alters this command, let a beam be torn from his house, and let him be fastened hanging thereon." To alter a command means to transgress or abolish it. ytf, a piece of wood, a beam, *Ti?T, raised on high, is in Syriac the usual word for crucified, and is to be so understood here. Nnp, to strike, with?V, strike upon, fasten to, nail to. This kind of capital punishment was customary among the Assyrians (Diod. Sic. ii. 1), the ancient Persians, and many other nations, but seems to have been executed in different manners among different people. Among the Assyrians it generally consisted in the impalement of the delinquent upon a sharp strong wooden post; comp. Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 355, and Nineveh and its Remains, p. 379, with the illustration* nV 58. According to Herod, iii. 159, Darius impaled as many as 3000 Babylonians after the capture of their city (uvea ko\6tt cere). Crucifixion proper, however, i.e. nailing to a cross, also occurred among the Persians; it was, however, practised by nailing the body of the criminal to a cross after decapitation; see the passages from Herodotus in Brissonii de regio Persarum princip. 1. ii. c. 215. "And let his house be made a dunghill." See remarks on Dan. ii. 5 and 2 Kings x. 27. — Ver. 12. Finally, Darius adds the threat: "The God who has caused His name to dwell there, destroy every king and (every) people that shall stretch forth the hand to alter (this command), to destroy this house of God at Jerusalem." The expression, " the God who has caused His name to dwell there," is indeed specifically Israelitish (comp. Deut. xii. 11, xiv. 23; Jer. vii. 12; Neh. i. 9), and therefore undoubtedly originated with the Jewish historian; but the matter itself, the wish that God Himself would destroy him who should injure His temple, recalls the close of the inscription of Bisitun, wherein the judgments of Ahuramazda are imprecated upon him who should dare to injure the image and inscription, and his blessing invoked upon him who should respect them (Berth.).

Vers. 13-18. The execution of the royal decree, the completion of the building, and the dedication of the new temple. — Ver. 13. Tatnai and his associates diligently executed the commands of Darius. " Because Darius the king sent (i.e. despatched to them the letter, whose contents have just been given, 6— 12), they speedily acted accordingly in the manner stated" (KDJ3), — Ver. 14. The elders of the Jews, moreover, built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai and Zachariah, who thereby effected the resumption of the work, and promised them success. 3 is u^ed of the rule by which, or manner in which anything is done. " They built and finished (the building) according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artachshasta, kings of Persia." The naming of Artachshasta presents some difficulty; for since it is impossible to conceive that a predecessor of Darius is intended by a name which follows the name of that monarch, none but Artaxerxes Longimanus can be meant, and he did not reiirn till lon^ after the completion of the temple. Cleric, and J. H. Mich, explain the mention of his name by the consideration that Artaxerxes, by his edict (vii. 15, 21), contributed to the maintenance, though not to the building, of the temple.1 It may in this instance be questionable whether the name NDwDTimK was added by the author of the Chaldee section, or by Ezra when he introduced this into his book. We believe the latter to be the correct view, because the Chaldee section, to judge by the NJ"}£N, v. 4, was composed by one who lived contemporaneously with the building of the temple, while from the date of the completion of the temple to the seventh year of Artaxerxes fifty-seven years elapsed. — Ver. 15. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar (the twelfth month), which is the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. fcWtr, according to the Keri VIP, with the X dropped, is the Shaphel

1 "Nam etsi" remarks Calovius in J. H. Mich., adnotatt. uber. ad h. Z., u noil ad structuram templi conduxerit proprie edict urn Artaxerxis, qux Darii secundo anno incepta et sexto absoluta fuit, v. 15 ad ornamenta tamen et additamenta earn spectasse dubium non est: qux ab ipso, ceu rege post Cyrum et Darium erga Judceos Persarum omnium benignissimo, profecta hie celebratur." Similarly but more briefly explained by Clericus.

of K¥\ to briii£j a tiling to an end, to finish it. The form N'V^ is not a participle pass, formed from the Shaphel (Gesen.), for this would be fcWB'p, but a Hebraized passive form of the Shaphel in the meaning of the Targumistic Ishtaphal, like ^n; Dan. iii. 13, and nwn, Dan. vi. 18, with the active WH, Dan. vi. 17. In the Targums *&& has mostly an active, and only in a few passages the intransitive meaning, to end, to be at the end; comp. Levy, cliald. Wdrterbuch, s.v.1 — Vers. 16, 17. The sons of Israel, more exactly the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the sons of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house of God with joy. H33n 12V = the Hebrew nsjq nb'^ to celebrate the dedication (2 Chron. vii. 9). "Jina, Hebrew nnofe>3; see Neli. viii. 10. They brought for the dedication a hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs as burntofferinirs, and twelve he-jioats for a sin-offerincr for all Israel, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, because the temple was intended for the entire covenant people, whose return to the Lord and to the land of tljeir fathers, according to the predictions of the prophets, was hoped for (comp. e.g. Ezek. xxxvii. 15 sq., Jer. xxxi. 27 sq.), not, as older expositors thought, because certain families of the ten tribes, who had before settled in Judah, were also among those who returned (J. H. Mich, ad h. /.). — Ver. 18. At the same time, the priests and Levites were appointed, according to their classes and divisions, to the service of the temple, that they might henceforth fulfil their office, each class in its week (2 Chron. xxiii. 4; 2 Kings xi. 9). *B*pni corresponds with the Hebrew ^TOH, iii. 8, and elsewhere.

1 Instead of the " third day," which the LXX. also has, in accordance with the Hebrew text, 1 Esdr. vii. 5 gives the three-and-twentieth day of the month Adar, — a statement which Bertheau arbitrarily insists upon regarding as the original reading, because u the view that the compiler altered the third into the twenty-third day, because it seemed to him more fitting to assume an eight days' celebration of the dedication (comp. 1 Kings viii. 60, 2 Chron. xxix. 18), and to fill up therewith also the eight last days of the year, is rather far-fetched." Such a view, however, would be entirely consistent with the whole spirit of 1 Esdras.

A Bertheau justly remarks, "The services of public worship, which after the completion of the temple were to be performed by the priests and Levites, according to ancient ordinance, are here spoken of." With these words the Ghaldee section cloj the / unleavened bread, in tlie year following the dedication, as an historical testimony to the fact that the worship of («oil with its festivals was regularly carried on in the new temple. — Ver. 19. The feast of the passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month, took place only a few weeks after the dedication of the temple. The reason given in ver. 20 — for the priests and Levites had purified themselves without exception ("WJ£?i like iii. D); they were all clean, and they killed the passover for all the sons of the captivity (i.e. the laity who had returned from exile), and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves — has in this connection the meaning: Then the congregation celebrated the passover, and they were able to keep and to eat the passover, because the priests had purified themselves that they might be qualified for performing the office incumbent upon them of sprinkling the blood; and the Levites were also clean, that they might be able to kill the lambs for the whole congregation (comp. the remarks on 2 Chron. xxx. 17, etc., and xxxv. 11, 14). From the days of Josiah, it seems to have been customary for the Levites to take the place of the heads of families (Ex. xii. 6, etc.) in slaughtering the passover lambs for the whole community, both priesthood and laity: for the laity, that no person who was unclean might kill the paschal lamb; for the priests, that their labours might be lightened, the sprinkling of blood and the offering of sacrifices occupying them far into the night (2 Chron. xxxv. 11, 14, 15). And this custom was followed at this time also. The priests are called BrT'rix, brethren of the Levites, as in 2 Chron. xxix. 34, xxxv. 15. — Ver. 21. Thus the sons of Israel who had returned from captivity, and all that had separated themselves unto them from the uncleanness of the heathen of the country to seek Jahve the God of Israel, could eat the passover. H*tf) ^3 = H?1"? W, x. 2, 11, are the heathen races dwelling in Palestine. The expression is not essentially different from nfcnKH *®V, ix. 1 sq., ill- 3, and is only distinguishable therefrom, inasmuch as the latter appellation includes not merely the heathen inhabitants of Palestine, but also the heathen of other lands, as the Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, etc. (ix. 1 sq.). Those who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the heathen to them (the Jews) to seek Jahve, are not proselytes from heathenism (Aben Ezra, Rashi, Clericus, and others), but Israelites, who had till now lived in Palestine, and mingled with the heathen inhabitants of the land. They were descended from those Israelites whom the kings of Assyria and Babylon had not carried away from the realms of Israel and Judah, and who with respect to religion had combined heathenism and the worship of Jahve (2 Kings xvii. 32, etc.), and thus defiled themselves with heathen impurity, but who now, after the erection of the temple, joined themselves to the new community, for the purpose of worshipping with them the God of their fathers in His temple, according to the law of Moses. For, as Bertheau rightly remarks, " in the days of Ezra the princes of the new community complain that the laity, the priests, and Levites do not separate from the people of the lands (ix. 1); reference is made to the dangers which threaten the Israelites, because they dwell in the holy land among the unclean (ix. 10). To separate from the uncleanness of the nations means to renounce intermarriage and other connection with them, x. 2, 10. They are Israelites who are summoned, x. 11, to separate from the peoples of the land; the seed of Israel is, in Neh. ix. 2, separated from the sons of the stranger, and in Neh. x. 29 they who separate from them are evidently Israelites, for, when they bind themselves to walk according to the law of God, they are said to join their brethren, i.e. their fellow-countrymen." Hence in this passage also we cannot but regard those who separated themselves as Israelites, dissolving their connection with the heathen f<>r the sake of tin- God <>f [trael.— Ver. 22. Hereupon they kept the feast <>f unleavened bread for