2 Esdras 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

An angel explains Ezra's vision of the eagle: the eagle is the kingdom that was seen in Daniel's vision, its twelve wings and eight under-feathers are kings, its three heads are three kingdoms that rule with much oppression, and the lion is the anointed one who will rebuke them and deliver the rest of God's people. Ezra is told to write the vision in a book, hide it, teach it to the wise, and wait seven more days. The people come out and ask why he has left them; he tells them the Most High has not forgotten them, sends them home, and stays in the field seven days, eating only flowers and plants.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • The lion was speaking these words to the eagle.
   • While the lion spoke, Ezra was watching.
2. 12:2
   • The head that had remained appeared no more.
   • The four wings appeared no more.
   • The two wings went over to that head.
   • The two wings set themselves up to reign.
   • The kingdom of the two wings was small.
   • The kingdom of the two wings was full of uproar.
3. 12:3
   • Ezra saw that they appeared no more.
   • The whole body of the eagle was burned.
   • The earth was in great fear.
   • Ezra awoke out of the trouble and trance of his mind.
   • Ezra awoke out of great fear.
   • Ezra spoke to his own spirit.
4. 12:4
   • Ezra said his spirit had done this to him.
   • Ezra said his spirit searches out the ways of the Highest.
5. 12:5
   • Ezra said he was still weary in his mind.
   • Ezra said he was very weak in his spirit.
   • Ezra said there was little strength in him.
   • Ezra said this was because of the great fear he suffered that night.
6. 12:6
   • Ezra said he would now beseech the Highest.
   • Ezra asked that the Highest comfort him to the end.
7. 12:7
   • Ezra addressed the Lord as the one who bears rule.
   • Ezra said, if I have found grace before your sight.
   • Ezra said, if I am justified with you more than many others.
   • Ezra said, if my prayer has indeed come up before your face.
8. 12:8
   • Ezra asked God to comfort him.
   • Ezra asked God to show him, his servant, the interpretation and the clear distinctions of this fearful vision.
   • Ezra asked this so that God might perfectly comfort his soul.
9. 12:9
   • Ezra said God had judged him worthy to be shown the last times.
10. 12:10
    • He said to Ezra that this is the interpretation of the vision.
11. 12:11
    • The eagle Ezra saw came up from the sea.
    • The eagle is the kingdom that was seen in the vision of Daniel.
    • Daniel is called Ezra's brother.
12. 12:12
    • The vision was not expounded to Daniel.
    • It is now being declared to Ezra.
13. 12:13
    • Days will come when a kingdom will rise up on the earth.
    • That kingdom will be feared above all the kingdoms that were before it.
14. 12:14
    • Twelve kings will reign in that kingdom.
    • The twelve kings will reign one after another.
15. 12:15
    • The second of those kings will begin to reign.
    • The second king will hold power longer than any of the twelve.
16. 12:16
    • This is what the twelve wings that Ezra saw signify.
17. 12:17
    • Ezra heard a voice speak.
    • Ezra saw that the voice did not go out from the heads.
    • The voice came from the midst of the body of the eagle.
    • This is the interpretation of that voice.
18. 12:18
    • After the time of that kingdom great strivings will arise.
    • The kingdom will stand in peril of failing.
    • The kingdom will not fall at that time.
    • The kingdom will be restored again to its beginning.
19. 12:19
    • Ezra saw eight small under feathers sticking to the eagle's wings.
    • This is the interpretation of those under feathers.
20. 12:20
    • Eight kings will arise in that kingdom.
    • The times of those eight kings will be short.
    • The years of those eight kings will be swift.
21. 12:21
    • Two of the eight will perish as the middle time approaches.
    • Four of them will be kept until their end begins to approach.
    • Two of them will be kept until the end.
22. 12:22
    • Ezra saw three heads at rest.
    • This is the interpretation of the three heads.
23. 12:23
    • In the last days of that kingdom the most High will raise up three kingdoms.
    • The most High will renew many things in those three kingdoms.
    • Those three kingdoms will have dominion over the earth.
24. 12:24
    • Those three kingdoms will rule over those who dwell on the earth.
    • Their rule will be with much oppression.
    • Their oppression will exceed that of all who were before them.
    • Because of this they are called the heads of the eagle.
25. 12:25
    • These heads are the ones who will bring the eagle's wickedness to its full sum.
    • These heads are the ones who will finish the eagle's last end.
26. 12:26
    • Ezra saw that the great head appeared no more.
    • This signifies that one of the three will die upon his bed.
    • That one will die in pain.
27. 12:27
    • The two heads that remain will be slain with the sword.
28. 12:28
    • The sword of one of them will devour the other.
    • At the last that one will himself fall by the sword.
29. 12:29
    • Ezra saw two feathers under the wings passing over to the head that is on the right side.
30. 12:30
    • These two are the ones whom the Highest has kept until their end.
    • This is the small kingdom that is full of trouble.
    • This is as Ezra saw it.
31. 12:31
    • Ezra saw the lion rise up out of the wood.
    • The lion roared.
    • The lion spoke to the eagle.
    • The lion rebuked the eagle for her unrighteousness.
    • The lion rebuked the eagle with all the words Ezra had heard.
32. 12:32
    • The lion is the anointed one.
    • The Highest has kept the anointed one for them and for their wickedness until the end.
    • The anointed one will reprove them.
    • The anointed one will set their contemptuous deeds before their faces.
33. 12:33
    • He will set them alive before him in judgment.
    • He will rebuke them.
    • After rebuking them he will destroy them.
34. 12:34
    • He will deliver the rest of my people with mercy.
    • Those delivered are the ones who have been preserved within my borders.
    • He will make them joyful until the coming of the day of judgment.
    • God says he has spoken to Ezra of that day from the beginning.
35. 12:35
    • This is the dream that Ezra saw.
    • These are the interpretations of that dream.
36. 12:36
    • Ezra alone has been fit to know this secret of the Highest.
37. 12:37
    • Ezra is told to write in a book all these things he has seen.
    • Ezra is told to hide them in a secret place.
38. 12:38
    • Ezra is told to teach these things to the wise of his people.
    • Those wise ones are those whose hearts Ezra knows can comprehend and keep these secrets.
39. 12:39
    • Ezra is told to wait there himself seven more days.
    • Ezra is told this is so that whatever it pleases the Highest to declare to him may be shown to him.
    • The speaker then went away from Ezra.
40. 12:40
    • All the people saw that the seven days were past.
    • Ezra had not come again into the city.
    • The people all gathered themselves together.
    • They gathered from the least to the greatest.
    • They came to Ezra.
    • They spoke to Ezra.
41. 12:41
    • The people asked what they had offended Ezra in.
    • The people asked what evil they had done against him.
    • The people said Ezra was forsaking them.
    • The people said Ezra was sitting in that place.
42. 12:42
    • The people said that of all the prophets Ezra alone was left to them.
    • They likened Ezra to a cluster left from the vintage.
    • They likened Ezra to a candle in a dark place.
    • They likened Ezra to a harbour for a ship saved from the tempest.
43. 12:43
    • The people asked whether the evils that had come upon them were not enough.
44. 12:44
    • The people said, if you forsake us.
    • The people said it would have been far better for them if they too had been burned when Zion burned.
45. 12:45
    • The people said they are not better than those who died there.
    • The people wept with a loud voice.
    • Ezra answered them and spoke.
46. 12:46
    • Ezra told Israel to be of good comfort.
    • Ezra told the house of Jacob not to be heavy.
47. 12:47
    • The Highest holds you in remembrance.
    • The Mighty One has not forgotten you in your struggle.
48. 12:48
    • Ezra said he had not forsaken them.
    • Ezra said he had not departed from them.
    • Ezra said he had come into this place to pray for the desolation of Zion.
    • Ezra said he had come to seek mercy for the low estate of their sanctuary.
49. 12:49
    • Ezra told each man to go home.
    • Ezra said he would come to them after these days.
50. 12:50
    • The people went their way into the city.
    • They did as Ezra had commanded them.
51. 12:51
    • Ezra remained in the field seven days.
    • Ezra did so as the angel had commanded him.
    • In those days Ezra ate only of the flowers of the field.
    • Ezra's food was from herbs.

Words Worth Explaining

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

12:1

This chapter is the angel's explanation of the dream Ezra saw in chapter 11: an eagle with twelve large wings, eight small ones and three heads rose out of the sea and ruled the earth, and a lion came out of the forest and denounced it. Everything here refers back to parts of that dream.

12:2

"The two" are the last two of the small wings, which in the dream went over to the surviving head and then set themselves up to rule.

12:3

"Trance" in 1611 English means a daze or stupor, the state of someone stunned and not fully in possession of himself. It does not mean a mystical state entered on purpose.

12:4

Ezra is still addressing his own spirit, which he turned to at the end of the previous verse. The "thou" who has done this to him is his own mind, for pressing so hard into hidden things.

12:7

"Lord that bearest rule" means sovereign Lord, the one who holds all authority. "Justified with thee" is courtroom language: to be reckoned as in the right when your case is weighed.

12:8

"Plain difference" means the plain distinguishing of one part from another, that is, what each separate piece of the vision stands for.

12:9

"The last times" means the closing period of history, the events leading up to the final judgment.

12:11

The reference is to the book of Daniel, set in the same Babylonian exile, where four beasts come up out of the sea and the fourth is a terrifying kingdom that devours the earth. "Brother" here means a fellow Israelite and fellow visionary, not a blood relation. The angel is saying the eagle is that fourth kingdom.

12:13

The eagle was the standard carried by the Roman legions, and the book's first readers would have taken the eagle for Rome. The vision reworks Daniel's fourth kingdom to fit an empire of their own day.

12:14

The angel is now counting off the parts of the eagle. Each of the twelve wings stands for one king.

12:16

In this dream each wing and head stands for one king.

12:17

In the dream, a voice spoke not from any of the heads but from the middle of the eagle's body, telling the wings to stop sleeping and take their turns to rule.

12:18

"Restored again to his beginning" uses "his" in its old sense of "its." The kingdom, not a person, is what gets restored to the condition it was in at the start. KJV uses "his" and "her" this way for the eagle and its kingdom throughout the chapter.

12:19

"Under feathers" are the smaller feathers growing beneath the great wings. In the dream they were eight little wings that sprouted and reigned very briefly.

12:21

"The middle time" means the midpoint of the span allotted to that kingdom, the halfway mark of its history rather than a particular date.

12:23

The text moves freely between calling these three "heads," "kings" and "kingdoms." In this kind of vision a ruler and the reign he represents are spoken of interchangeably.

12:25

"Accomplish his wickedness" means bring that wickedness to completion, fill up its full measure. Accomplish here carries no sense of achievement or credit.

12:26

To die "upon his bed" was the ordinary way of saying a man died of illness or old age rather than being killed in battle or murdered. The phrase "and yet with pain" qualifies that: an unviolent death, but not an easy one.

12:27

Killed with the sword means killed in war, or murdered by someone else in power.

12:28

A sword is a long knife used in war. Eat up here means kill.

12:29

In the dream, two of the small wings moved from under the wings and placed themselves beside the head on the right, which then swallowed them up.

12:31

The lion is a traditional emblem of the tribe of Judah and of the royal line of David, which is why the next verse identifies it as the anointed one.

12:32

"The anointed" translates the word behind both Messiah in Hebrew and Christ in Greek. It means literally one smeared with oil, the ceremony by which kings and priests were installed in office. The surviving Latin text of this verse adds that he will spring from the seed of David; KJV follows a shorter form of the verse without that clause.

12:33

The Latin text here says that after rebuking them he destroys them. KJV's "correct them" follows a milder reading, so the verse can be taken either way.

12:34

KJV's "pressed upon my borders" sounds like people crowded or oppressed at the frontier. The Latin more likely means those preserved safe within the territory. The two readings differ by very little in the manuscripts.

12:36

"Meet" in 1611 English means fitting or suitable, so "thou only hast been meet" means you alone have been the right person, the one worthy of it.

12:37

Writing a revelation down and then hiding it is a standard move in books of this kind. It explains why a work supposedly written centuries earlier was unknown until now: the book was sealed up and kept for the last generation. Daniel is told to do the same thing.

12:39

Each vision in this book is separated from the next by a fixed span, usually seven days, spent apart from the city in fasting and waiting.

12:40

"From the least unto the greatest" is a standing idiom for everybody, high and low alike, with nobody left out.

12:42

After a vineyard has been picked over, one cluster occasionally remains on the vine; that leftover bunch was a proverbial image for a single survivor of something that is otherwise gone. KJV's "as a haven or ship preserved from the tempest" is compressed; the sense is a harbor sheltering a ship that has come through a storm.

12:44

Zion is the hill in Jerusalem, and by extension the city and its temple. The book presents Ezra as speaking thirty years after the Babylonians burned Jerusalem, so the people are asking why they were not simply killed in that fire along with everyone else.

12:46

"House of Jacob" means the nation descended from Jacob, a standard way of addressing the people of Israel as a family.

12:47

"Temptation" in 1611 English means a trial or testing, an ordeal that puts someone to the proof. It does not mean being enticed to do wrong.

12:48

The sanctuary is the temple in Jerusalem, which in the book's setting is a burned ruin. "Low estate" means its humiliated, brought-down condition.

12:51

"Meat" in 1611 English means food of any kind, not flesh. The verse says the opposite of what a modern reader might assume: Ezra ate nothing but wild plants and blossoms, the sparse diet the angel had set for these days of waiting.