Ezra 2:68

2:68 When they came to the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, some of the family leaders ¹  offered voluntary offerings for the temple of God in order to rebuild ²  it on its site.

Ezra 4:7-9

4:7 And during the reign ³  of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, ⁴  Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their colleagues ⁵  wrote to King Artaxerxes ⁶  of Persia. This letter ⁷  was first written in Aramaic but then translated.

[Aramaic:] ⁸ 

4:8 Rehum the commander ⁹  and Shimshai the scribe ¹⁰  wrote a letter concerning ¹¹  Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows: 4:9 From ¹²  Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their colleagues – the judges, the rulers, the officials, the secretaries, the Erechites, the Babylonians, the people of Susa (that is, ¹³  the Elamites),

Ezra 4:13

4:13 Let the king also be aware that if this city is built and its walls are completed, no more tax, custom, or toll will be paid, and the royal treasury ¹⁴  will suffer loss.

Ezra 5:6

5:6 This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and his colleagues who were the officials of Trans-Euphrates sent to King Darius.

Ezra 5:15

5:15 He said to him, “Take these vessels and go deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt in its proper location.” ¹⁵ 

Ezra 7:24

7:24 Furthermore, be aware of the fact ¹⁶  that you have no authority to impose tax, tribute, or toll on any of the priests, the Levites, the musicians, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or the attendants at the temple of this God.

Ezra 8:29

8:29 Be careful with them and protect them, until you weigh them out before the leading priests and the Levites and the family leaders of Israel in Jerusalem, ¹⁷  in the storerooms of the temple of the Lord.”

Ezra 9:4

9:4 Everyone who held the words of the God of Israel in awe ¹⁸  gathered around me because of the unfaithful acts of the people of the exile. ¹⁹  Devastated, I continued to sit there until the evening offering.

[2:68]  ¹ tn Heb “the heads of the fathers.”

[2:68]  ² tn Heb “cause it to stand.”

[4:7]  ³ tn Heb “And in the days.”

[4:7]  ⁴ tn The LXX understands this word as a prepositional phrase (“in peace”) rather than as a proper name (“Bishlam”). Taken this way it would suggest that Mithredath was “in agreement with” the contents of Tabeel’s letter. Some scholars regard the word in the MT to be a corruption of either “in Jerusalem” (i.e., “in the matter of Jerusalem”) or “in the name of Jerusalem.” The translation adopted above follows the traditional understanding of the word as a name.

[4:7]  ⁵ tc The translation reads the plural with the Qere rather than the singular found in the MT Kethib.

[4:7]  ⁶ sn Artaxerxes I ruled in Persia from ca. 465–425 b.c.

[4:7]  ⁷ tc It is preferable to delete the MT’s וּכְתָב (ukhÿtav) here.

[4:7]  ⁸ sn The double reference in v. 7 to the Aramaic language is difficult. It would not make sense to say that the letter was written in Aramaic and then translated into Aramaic. Some interpreters understand the verse to mean that the letter was written in the Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language, but this does not seem to give sufficient attention to the participle “translated” at the end of the verse. The second reference to Aramaic in the verse is more probably a gloss that calls attention to the fact that the following verses retain the Aramaic language of the letter in its original linguistic form. A similar reference to Aramaic occurs in Dan 2:4b, where the language of that book shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic. Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12-26 are written in Aramaic, whereas the rest of the book is written in Hebrew.

[4:8]  ⁹ tn Aram “lord of the command.” So also in vv. 9, 17.

[4:8]  ¹⁰ 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.

[4:8]  ¹¹ tn Or perhaps “against.”

[4:9]  ¹² tn Aram “then.” What follows in v. 9 seems to be the preface of the letter, serving to identify the senders of the letter. The word “from” is not in the Aramaic text but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[4:9]  ¹³ tn For the qere of the MT (דֶּהָיֵא, dehaye’, a proper name) it seems better to retain the Kethib דִּהוּא (dihu’, “that is”). See F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 25, §35; E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 36.

[4:13]  ¹⁴ tn Aram “the treasury of kings.” The plural “kings” is Hebrew, not Aramaic. If the plural is intended in a numerical sense the reference is not just to Artaxerxes but to his successors as well. Some scholars understand this to be the plural of majesty, referring to Artaxerxes. See F. C. Fensham, Ezra and Nehemiah (NICOT), 74.

[5:15]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “upon its place.”

[7:24]  ¹⁶ tn Aram “we are making known to you.”

[8:29]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[9:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “who trembled at the words of the God of Israel.”

[9:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the exile”; the words “the people” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.