1 Esdras 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, the Lord stirs up his spirit, and Cyrus proclaims through his kingdom that the Lord of Israel has made him king of the whole world and told him to build a house at Jerusalem; he releases the temple vessels that Nabuchodonosor had carried away. Heads of families, priests, Levites and others whose minds the Lord had stirred go up to build, and their neighbors help them with silver, gold, animals and gifts. Later, officials living in Samaria and other places write to Artexerxes that Jerusalem is a rebellious city and that a rebuilt city will withhold tribute; the king has the records searched and orders the building stopped. The officials hurry to Jerusalem with horsemen and a crowd in battle formation and stop the builders, and work on the temple ceases until the second year of Darius king of the Persians.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • It was the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians.
   • What follows happened so that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled.
   • The Lord had spoken that word by the mouth of Jeremy.
2. 2:2
   • The Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians.
   • Cyrus made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom.
   • Cyrus also made the proclamation in writing.
3. 2:3
   • The proclamation said that Cyrus king of the Persians speaks thus.
   • Cyrus said the Lord of Israel is the most high Lord.
   • Cyrus said the Lord of Israel had made him king of the whole world.
4. 2:4
   • Cyrus said the Lord had commanded him to build him a house at Jerusalem.
   • Jerusalem is in Judea.
5. 2:5
   • Cyrus said that if any among them belong to the Lord's people, they should act accordingly.
   • Cyrus said let the Lord, that man's own Lord, be with him.
   • Cyrus said let such a man go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judea.
   • Cyrus said let such a man build the house of the Lord of Israel.
   • Cyrus said the Lord is the one who dwells in Jerusalem.
6. 2:6
   • Cyrus said that those who dwell in the surrounding places should help such a man.
   • Cyrus specified that those helping are his neighbours.
   • Cyrus said they should help with gold.
   • Cyrus said they should help with silver.
7. 2:7
   • Cyrus said they should help with gifts.
   • Cyrus said they should help with horses.
   • Cyrus said they should help with cattle.
   • Cyrus said they should help with other things that have been pledged by vow.
   • Those things were pledged for the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem.
8. 2:8
   • The chief men of the families of Judea stood up.
   • The chief men of the tribe of Benjamin stood up.
   • The priests stood up.
   • The Levites stood up.
   • All those whose mind the Lord had moved stood up.
   • They stood up to go up and build a house for the Lord at Jerusalem.
9. 2:9
   • Those who dwelt round about them helped them in all things.
   • They helped with silver and gold.
   • They helped with horses and cattle.
   • They helped with very many free gifts.
   • A great number of people gave, whose minds were stirred up to do so.
10. 2:10
    • King Cyrus brought forth the holy vessels.
    • Nabuchodonosor had carried those vessels away from Jerusalem.
    • Nabuchodonosor had set them up in his temple of idols.
11. 2:11
    • Cyrus king of the Persians brought the vessels forth.
    • Cyrus delivered them to Mithridates.
    • Mithridates was Cyrus's treasurer.
12. 2:12
    • Mithridates delivered the vessels to Sanabassar.
    • Sanabassar was the governor of Judea.
13. 2:13
    • The vessels included a thousand golden cups.
    • The vessels included a thousand silver cups.
    • The vessels included twenty-nine silver censers.
    • The vessels included thirty golden vials.
    • The vessels included two thousand four hundred and ten silver vials.
    • The vessels included a thousand other vessels.
14. 2:14
    • All the vessels of gold and silver that were carried away numbered five thousand four hundred and sixty-nine.
15. 2:15
    • Sanabassar brought these vessels back.
    • They were brought back together with the people of the captivity.
    • They were brought from Babylon to Jerusalem.
16. 2:16
    • This happened in the time of Artexerxes king of the Persians.
    • Belemus, Mithridates, Tabellius, Rathumus, Beeltethmus, and Semellius the secretary wrote to the king.
    • Others who were in commission with them joined in writing.
    • These men dwelt in Samaria and other places.
    • They wrote against those who dwelt in Judea and Jerusalem.
    • The letter that follows is what they wrote.
17. 2:17
    • The letter was addressed to king Artexerxes their lord.
    • The writers called themselves his servants.
    • Rathumus was the storywriter.
    • Semellius was the scribe.
    • The rest of their council joined in the letter.
    • The judges in Celosyria and Phenice joined in the letter.
18. 2:18
    • The writers asked that it be known to the lord king.
    • The Jews had come up from the king's region to theirs.
    • The Jews had come into Jerusalem.
    • They called Jerusalem a rebellious and wicked city.
    • The Jews were building the marketplaces.
    • The Jews were repairing the walls of the city.
    • The Jews were laying the foundation of the temple.
19. 2:19
    • The writers said that if this city and its walls were rebuilt, consequences would follow.
    • They said the Jews would refuse to pay tribute.
    • They said the Jews would also rebel against kings.
20. 2:20
    • The writers said the things pertaining to the temple were then in hand.
    • They said they thought it fitting not to neglect such a matter.
21. 2:21
    • They said they should speak to their lord the king.
    • They asked that, if it pleased the king, search be made in the books of his fathers.
22. 2:22
    • They said the king would find in the chronicles what is written concerning these things.
    • They said the king would understand that that city was rebellious.
    • They said that city troubled both kings and cities.
23. 2:23
    • They said the Jews were rebellious.
    • They said the Jews always raised wars in that city.
    • They said that for this cause the city was made desolate.
24. 2:24
    • The writers declared this to the lord the king.
    • They said that if this city were built again and its walls set up anew, a consequence would follow.
    • They said the king would from then on have no passage into Celosyria and Phenice.
25. 2:25
    • The king wrote back.
    • He wrote to Rathumus the storywriter.
    • He wrote to Beeltethmus.
    • He wrote to Semellius the scribe.
    • He wrote to the rest that were in commission with them.
    • Those men dwelt in Samaria, Syria, and Phenice.
    • The reply that follows is what he wrote.
26. 2:26
    • The king said he had read the letter they sent him.
    • The king said he commanded that diligent search be made.
    • The king said it was found that that city from the beginning had practised against kings.
27. 2:27
    • The king said the men in that city were given to rebellion and war.
    • The king said mighty and fierce kings had been in Jerusalem.
    • The king said those kings reigned there.
    • The king said those kings exacted tributes in Celosyria and Phenice.
28. 2:28
    • The king said he had commanded that those men be hindered from building the city.
    • The king said heed was to be taken that nothing more be done in it.
29. 2:29
    • The king said those wicked workers were to proceed no further.
    • The king said their work was to the annoyance of kings.
30. 2:30
    • The letters of king Artexerxes were read.
    • Rathumus, Semellius the scribe, and the rest in commission with them moved in haste toward Jerusalem.
    • They went with a troop of horsemen.
    • They went with a multitude of people in battle array.
    • They began to hinder the builders.
    • The building of the temple in Jerusalem ceased.
    • The building ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of the Persians.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

"Jeremy" is the King James spelling of Jeremiah, the prophet who had said the exile in Babylon would last seventy years. The first year of Cyrus means his first year as ruler of Babylon, about 538 BC, shortly after the Persians took the city. 1 Esdras is a Greek retelling of material also found in Ezra, Nehemiah and 2 Chronicles, and its personal names have come through Greek, so many of them look unfamiliar compared with their forms elsewhere.

2:2

To stir up someone's spirit means to move a person on the inside so that they want to act.

2:3

"King of the whole world" is the ordinary language of Persian royal proclamations, which claimed rule over all lands. Persian kings also customarily issued decrees for a conquered people in the name of that people's own god, which is why the decree here speaks in the name of the Lord of Israel.

2:4

The King James "Jewry" is simply an older English word for Judea, the territory around Jerusalem. It does not mean a Jewish quarter of a town.

2:5

"Go up" is the standard idiom for travel to Jerusalem, which sits in hill country, so one goes up to it from any direction. It became the fixed term for returning from exile.

2:6

The Greek of this verse is obscure and translations divide over it. The sense is either that the neighbors of a returning exile should help him, or that in each place the locals should supply the one going from among them.

2:7

A vow was a binding promise to give a specific thing to God. Goods promised this way were set apart from ordinary use and had to be handed over.

2:8

"Heads of the families" means the chiefs of the extended family groups into which the people were organized. Judah and Benjamin were the two tribes of the southern kingdom, the population that had been deported to Babylon. Priests were descendants of Aaron who served at the altar; Levites were the wider tribe of Levi, who did the supporting work of the temple: music, gatekeeping, slaughtering and carrying.

2:10

The "holy vessels" are the gold and silver equipment used in worship at the Jerusalem temple. Nabuchodonosor is Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, who captured Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 587 or 586 BC and carried its furnishings off. Placing captured temple objects in the victor's own temple was standard practice, a public display that the winner's gods had won.

2:12

Sanabassar is the Greek form of the name Sheshbazzar. "Governor" is the Persian-appointed official in charge of a province, answerable to the king.

2:13

A censer is a pan for burning incense. "Vials" in 1611 English means shallow bowls used for pouring, not small glass tubes. The parallel list in Ezra 1:9 to 11 gives a different set of figures.

2:14

In the King James, "threescore" means sixty, so "five thousand four hundred threescore and nine" is 5,469. That total is exactly the sum of the items listed in the previous verse.

2:15

"Them of the captivity" is the standard term for the people deported to Babylon and their descendants born there.

2:16

Artexerxes is the King James spelling of Artaxerxes. The story here jumps out of chronological order: this complaint belongs to a reign later than that of Cyrus, and the chapter ends with Darius, who ruled before Artaxerxes. The same sequence appears in Ezra 4. Samaria was the administrative center of the province north of Judea, and officials based there had authority over the area. "In commission with them" means holding office alongside them.

2:17

"Storywriter" translates the title of a royal official who kept the official record of events, something like a chronicler or recorder. Celosyria, literally "hollow Syria," is the inland valley region of Syria; Phenice is Phoenicia, the coastal strip of what is now Lebanon. Together they stand for the Persian province west of the Euphrates in which Judea lay.

2:18

"The Jews that are up from you to us" means those who have traveled from the king's own heartland, Babylon and Persia, into this western province.

2:19

Tribute is the tax a subject people paid to the imperial ruler. The argument is that a city with rebuilt walls can defend itself and so can refuse to pay.

2:20

"Meet" in the King James means fitting or proper.

2:21

"The books of thy fathers" means the archives of previous kings, "fathers" here being predecessors on the throne rather than literal parents. Persian administration kept written records that officials could search on the king's order.

2:24

Judea sat astride the main routes running from the empire toward the Mediterranean coast and Egypt. The claim is that a fortified Jerusalem would close the king's access to the western provinces.

2:26

"Practising against kings" in the King James means plotting or scheming against them.

2:27

The "mighty kings" who ruled in Jerusalem and collected tribute in the north and west refers to the earlier Israelite monarchy, above all David and Solomon, who were remembered as dominating territory well beyond Judea.

2:29

In 1611 "annoyance" meant harm or injury, a far stronger word than it is today.

2:30

"In battle array" means drawn up in military formation, ready to fight. Darius I became king in 522 BC, so his second year is about 520 BC; the work on the temple was halted for years.