2 Esdras 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The angel Uriel answers Ezra by setting him three tasks he cannot do (weigh fire, measure wind, call back a day that has passed) and tells him that those who live on earth can understand only what is on earth. Ezra says he asked not about high things but about daily ones: why Israel is a reproach among the nations and why the covenants have come to nothing. Uriel speaks of the evil seed sown in Adam's heart, of a harvest whose times are measured and numbered, and of the souls of the righteous in their chambers asking how long they must wait. At the end he shows Ezra a burning furnace and a rain cloud, compares what is left behind with what has gone by, and says he was not sent to tell Ezra about his own life.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • An angel had been sent to the speaker.
   • The angel's name was Uriel.
   • The angel gave the speaker an answer.
2. 4:2
   • The angel said the speaker's heart had gone too far in this world.
   • The angel asked whether the speaker thought he could comprehend the way of the Most High.
3. 4:3
   • The speaker answered, Yes, my lord.
   • The angel said he was sent to show the speaker three ways.
   • The angel said he was sent to set three similitudes before the speaker.
4. 4:4
   • The angel said that if the speaker could explain one of them to him, he would show the speaker the way the speaker desired to see.
   • The angel said he would also show the speaker where the wicked heart comes from.
5. 4:5
   • The speaker said, Tell on, my lord.
   • The angel told the speaker to go and weigh for him the weight of the fire.
   • The angel told the speaker to measure for him the blast of the wind.
   • The angel told the speaker to call back for him the day that is past.
6. 4:6
   • The speaker answered by asking what man is able to do that.
   • The speaker asked why the angel should ask such things of him.
7. 4:7
   • The angel said he might have asked the speaker how great the dwellings are in the midst of the sea.
   • The angel said he might have asked how many springs are in the beginning of the deep.
   • The angel said he might have asked how many springs are above the firmament.
   • The angel said he might have asked which are the outgoings of paradise.
8. 4:8
   • The angel said the speaker would perhaps have replied that he never went down into the deep.
   • The angel said the speaker would perhaps have replied that he had not yet gone into hell.
   • The angel said the speaker would perhaps have replied that he never climbed up into heaven.
9. 4:9
   • The angel said he had asked the speaker only about the fire and the wind.
   • The angel said he had asked about the day through which the speaker had passed.
   • The angel said he had asked about things from which the speaker cannot be separated.
   • The angel said the speaker could give him no answer about those things.
10. 4:10
    • The angel said the speaker cannot know his own things.
    • The angel said the speaker cannot know the things that have grown up with him.
11. 4:11
    • The angel asked how the speaker's vessel could then comprehend the way of the Highest.
    • The angel asked how the speaker, the world being now outwardly corrupted, could understand the corruption that is evident in the angel's sight.
12. 4:12
    • The speaker said it were better that they were not at all.
    • The speaker said this would be better than living still in wickedness.
    • The speaker said this would be better than suffering and not knowing why.
13. 4:13
    • The angel answered the speaker.
    • The angel said he went into a forest in a plain.
    • The angel said the trees took counsel.
14. 4:14
    • The trees said, Come, let us go and make war against the sea.
    • The trees said this was so the sea might depart away before them.
    • The trees said this was so they might make themselves more woods.
15. 4:15
    • The floods of the sea likewise took counsel.
    • The floods said, Come, let us go up and subdue the woods of the plain.
    • The floods said this was so that there also they might make themselves another country.
16. 4:16
    • The thought of the wood was in vain.
    • The fire came and consumed the wood.
17. 4:17
    • The thought of the floods of the sea likewise came to nothing.
    • The sand stood up and stopped the floods.
18. 4:18
    • The angel asked the speaker whom he would begin to justify if he were judge between these two.
    • The angel asked whom the speaker would condemn.
19. 4:19
    • The speaker answered that both of them devised a foolish thought.
    • The speaker said the ground is given to the wood.
    • The speaker said the sea has its place to bear its floods.
20. 4:20
    • The angel said the speaker had given a right judgment.
    • The angel asked why the speaker did not judge himself also.
21. 4:21
    • The ground is given to the wood.
    • The sea is given to its floods.
    • Those who dwell upon the earth can understand nothing but what is upon the earth.
    • He who dwells above the heavens can understand only the things that are above the height of the heavens.
22. 4:22
    • The speaker answered the angel.
    • The speaker begged the Lord to let him have understanding.
23. 4:23
    • The speaker said it was not his mind to be curious about the high things.
    • The speaker said he asked about such things as pass by them daily.
    • The speaker asked why Israel is given up as a reproach to the heathen.
    • The speaker said the people whom the Lord had loved is given over to ungodly nations.
    • The speaker said the law of their forefathers is brought to nothing.
    • The speaker said the written covenants have come to no effect.
24. 4:24
    • The speaker said they pass away out of the world like grasshoppers.
    • The speaker said their life is astonishment and fear.
    • The speaker said they are not worthy to obtain mercy.
25. 4:25
    • The speaker asked what the Lord will then do to his name by which they are called.
    • The speaker said he had asked about these things.
26. 4:26
    • The angel said the more the speaker searches, the more he shall marvel.
    • The angel said the world hastens fast to pass away.
27. 4:27
    • The angel said the world cannot comprehend the things promised to the righteous in time to come.
    • The angel said this world is full of unrighteousness.
    • The angel said this world is full of infirmities.
28. 4:28
    • The angel said he would tell the speaker about the things the speaker asked him.
    • The angel said the evil is sown.
    • The angel said the destruction of the evil has not yet come.
29. 4:29
    • If that which is sown is not turned upside down, and if the place where the evil is sown does not pass away, then that which is sown with good cannot come.
30. 4:30
    • A grain of evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning.
    • The angel asked how much ungodliness that grain has brought up until this time.
    • The angel asked how much it shall yet bring forth until the time of threshing comes.
31. 4:31
    • The angel told the speaker to ponder by himself how great a fruit of wickedness the grain of evil seed has brought forth.
32. 4:32
    • The ears to be cut down are without number.
    • The angel asked how great a floor those ears shall fill when they are cut down.
33. 4:33
    • The speaker asked how these things shall come to pass.
    • The speaker asked when these things shall come to pass.
    • The speaker asked why their years are few and evil.
34. 4:34
    • The angel told the speaker not to hasten above the Most High.
    • The angel said the speaker's haste to be above him is in vain.
    • The angel said the speaker has much exceeded.
35. 4:35
    • The angel asked whether the souls of the righteous did not also ask about these things in their chambers.
    • The souls asked how long they should hope in this fashion.
    • The souls asked when the fruit of the floor of their reward comes.
36. 4:36
    • Uriel the archangel answered them.
    • He said it would be when the number of seeds is filled in them.
    • He said that he has weighed the world in the balance.
37. 4:37
    • He has measured the times by measure.
    • He has numbered the times by number.
    • He does not move or stir them until the said measure is fulfilled.
38. 4:38
    • The speaker answered and addressed the Lord as the one who bears rule.
    • The speaker said they all are full of impiety.
39. 4:39
    • The speaker said that perhaps it is for their sakes that the floors of the righteous are not filled.
    • The speaker said this is because of the sins of those who dwell upon the earth.
40. 4:40
    • The angel told the speaker to go to a woman with child.
    • The angel told the speaker to ask her whether, when she has fulfilled her nine months, her womb can keep the birth any longer within her.
41. 4:41
    • The speaker said, No, Lord, that she cannot.
    • The angel said that in the grave the chambers of souls are like the womb of a woman.
42. 4:42
    • A woman in travail makes haste to escape the necessity of the travail.
    • Likewise these places hasten to deliver the things that are committed to them.
43. 4:43
    • The angel said that from the beginning, what the speaker desires to see shall be shown him.
44. 4:44
    • The speaker answered with the condition that he had found favour in the Lord's sight.
    • The speaker added the condition that it be possible.
    • The speaker added the condition that he be fit for it.
45. 4:45
    • The speaker asked to be shown whether there is more to come than is past, or more past than is to come.
46. 4:46
    • The speaker said he knows what is past.
    • The speaker said he does not know what is to come.
47. 4:47
    • The angel told the speaker to stand up upon the right side.
    • The angel said he would expound the similitude to the speaker.
48. 4:48
    • The speaker stood and saw.
    • A hot burning oven passed by before him.
    • When the flame had gone by, the speaker looked.
    • The smoke remained still.
49. 4:49
    • After this a watery cloud passed by before the speaker.
    • The cloud sent down much rain with a storm.
    • When the stormy rain was past, the drops remained still.
50. 4:50
    • The angel told the speaker to consider with himself.
    • The rain is more than the drops.
    • The fire is greater than the smoke.
    • The drops and the smoke remain behind.
    • The quantity which is past did more exceed.
51. 4:51
    • The speaker prayed.
    • The speaker asked whether the angel thought he would live until that time.
    • The speaker asked what shall happen in those days.
52. 4:52
    • The angel answered the speaker.
    • The angel said he may tell the speaker in part about the tokens the speaker asked of.
    • The angel said he was not sent to show the speaker about his life.
    • The angel said he does not know it.

Words Worth Explaining

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

4:1

The speaker throughout the book is Ezra, the scribe of the exile, under whose name it is written; the setting is Babylon a generation after the city and temple were destroyed, though readers in the first century would have heard it against Rome's destruction of the temple in AD 70. Uriel is an angel named only in writings outside the Hebrew Bible; the name means something like "God is my light."

4:2

"The Most High" is a name for God. It means the one who is above everything and everyone else.

4:3

A "similitude" in 1611 English is a comparison or parable, a picture set beside the thing it is meant to explain. It does not mean a pretense or a fake. The three set before him are the impossible tasks in the next verse.

4:4

The heart here means the inside of a person. It is the part that thinks and chooses. A wicked heart chooses to do bad things.

4:5

No one can put fire on a scale. No one can bring back yesterday. The angel picks three jobs on purpose that nobody can do.

4:7

The "firmament" is the sky imagined as a solid dome, a vault holding back an ocean of water above the earth. "The deep" is the mass of water below the world. Both come from the picture of creation in Genesis, where the world is a bubble of air between waters above and waters below. "Paradise" is a Persian loanword for a walled garden or park, used here for the hidden place where the righteous dead wait. Some manuscripts of this verse ask about the exits of hell and the entrances of paradise.

4:8

Where the King James says "hell" here it means the underworld, the place all the dead go, not a place of punishment reserved for the wicked. The point is simply that a living man has never been below the earth or above the sky.

4:11

"Vessel" means a container, and it is used here of the man himself: his mind is a jar of fixed size, and the question is how much it can hold. It has nothing to do with a ship.

4:13

The angel now tells a made-up story about trees and waves that talk, a little like Aesop's fables. He tells it to make a point, not as history.

4:15

"Floods of the sea" means the waves rolling in, not a flood of water over land.

4:18

"Justify" is a courtroom word meaning to declare someone in the right, the exact opposite of "condemn" in the same sentence. It does not mean to make excuses for them.

4:19

The King James writes "his place" and "his floods" because in 1611 English "his" was still the ordinary possessive for things as well as people; "its" was only just coming into use. It means the sea's own place and the sea's own waves. "Floods" here means the moving water itself, not a disaster.

4:21

The heavens means the sky and everything above it. People said that is where God lives.

4:23

"Heathen" translates a word that means simply the nations, that is, every people other than Israel. It is a category, not a comment on how civilized they were. A covenant is a binding agreement with stated terms and obligations on both sides, the legal form in which Israel's relationship with God was written down; "come to none effect" means those written agreements are no longer producing anything.

4:24

The King James "grasshoppers" renders a word for locusts, which appear in swarms too large to count, strip a field, and are gone within a season. The comparison is to creatures that are numberless and short-lived at the same time.

4:25

To be "called by" someone's name meant to belong to them, the way a household or a wife carried the name of the head of the family. Israel was called by God's name, so Israel's ruin is a stain on his reputation. That is what the question is pressing.

4:26

The Latin text behind this book reads roughly "if you live you will see, and if you live long you will marvel." The King James translators worked from a version in which this had become "the more thou searchest, the more thou shalt marvel."

4:28

From here through verse 39 the whole answer runs on one farming image: evil is a seed sown long ago, the present age is the growing season, and the end of the age is the harvest. "The destruction thereof" is the reaping, which cannot happen before the crop is ripe.

4:30

The book's recurring term is the "evil heart" planted in Adam at the start and inherited by everyone after him. Threshing is the stage after harvest, when cut grain is beaten to knock the kernels loose from the stalks; used as an image, it is the sorting and ending of the age.

4:32

"Ears" are the heads of grain at the top of the stalks. The "floor" is the threshing floor: a flat, hard, open patch of ground where cut grain was heaped and then trodden or beaten. Picturing the floor filled is picturing a harvest beyond measuring.

4:34

"Most Highest" is a doubled superlative, ordinary emphasis in 1611 English, and means the same thing as "the most High" earlier in the chapter.

4:35

"Chambers" are storerooms. The book pictures the souls of the dead held in sealed storage rooms, waiting. "The fruit of the floor of our reward" is the harvest brought in to the threshing floor, here standing for the payment they are waiting on.

4:36

The Latin manuscripts name the archangel who answers here as Jeremiel; the King James follows a text that read Uriel. An archangel is a chief or ranking angel. The "balance" is a pair of scales.

4:39

Filling the floors means completing the harvest, that is, reaching the full count of the righteous dead named in verse 36. Until that number is complete, nothing moves.

4:40

The womb is the place inside a mother where a baby grows.

4:41

"The grave" here is not a dug hole but the underworld, the common holding place of all the dead, called Hades in Greek. The "chambers" are the storerooms of verse 35.

4:42

Being "in labor" means the hard work and pain a woman goes through while her baby is being born.

4:44

"To find favor" with someone is an old way of saying they are pleased with you and willing to listen.

4:47

A picture here means a short scene that teaches something.

4:48

This is not a metal kitchen oven. It was a big clay oven with the fire burning inside it, used for baking bread.

4:50

The figure works by proportion. The fire and the rainstorm are the great bulk that has already gone past; the thin smoke and the few clinging drops are the small remainder left behind. So the answer to the question asked in verse 45 is that far more time has passed than is still to come.

4:52

"Tokens" means signs: the marks by which the coming of that time could be recognized. It does not mean keepsakes or gifts.