2:59 These are the ones that came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer (although they were unable to certify 1 their family connection 2 or their ancestry, 3 as to whether they really were from Israel):
4:8 Rehum the commander 7 and Shimshai the scribe 8 wrote a letter concerning 9 Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:
2:70 The priests, the Levites, some of the people, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the temple servants lived in their towns, and all the rest of Israel lived in their towns.
1 tn Heb “relate.”
2 tn Heb “the house of their fathers.”
3 tn Heb “their seed.”
4 tn Heb “these.”
5 tn Heb “their records were searched for in the genealogical materials, but were not found.” This passive construction has been translated as active for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “they were desecrated.”
7 tn Aram “lord of the command.” So also in vv. 9, 17.
8 sn Like Rehum, Shimshai was apparently a fairly high-ranking official charged with overseeing Persian interests in this part of the empire. His title was “scribe” or “secretary,” but in a more elevated political sense than that word sometimes has elsewhere. American governmental titles such as “Secretary of State” perhaps provide an analogy in that the word “secretary” can have a broad range of meaning.
9 tn Or perhaps “against.”