2 Esdras 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The angel finishes listing signs that will come on the earth, and tells Ezra that if he prays, weeps, and fasts seven days he will hear greater things. Ezra wakes trembling, is urged by Salathiel to eat and not abandon Israel, sends him away, and fasts seven days as Uriel commanded. Then he asks why the one people God chose out of all peoples has been handed over to many, and the angel answers that Ezra cannot search out God's judgment, comparing the ages of the world to a womb that bears children one at a time and to a creation now growing old. Ezra ends by asking to be shown by whom God visits his creation.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • Concerning the signs, days are coming.
   • In those days those who dwell upon earth will be taken in a great number.
   • The way of truth will be hidden.
   • The land will be barren of faith.
2. 5:2
   • Iniquity will be increased above what the seer now sees.
   • Iniquity will be increased above what the seer heard long ago.
3. 5:3
   • The land that the seer now sees to have root he will see suddenly laid waste.
4. 5:4
   • If the Most High grants the seer to live, he will see these things.
   • After the third trumpet the sun will suddenly shine again in the night.
   • The moon will shine three times in the day.
5. 5:5
   • Blood will drop out of wood.
   • The stone will give its voice.
   • The peoples will be troubled.
6. 5:6
   • One will rule whom those who dwell upon the earth do not look for.
   • The birds will take their flight away together.
7. 5:7
   • The Sodomitish sea will cast out fish.
   • That sea will make a noise in the night which many have not known.
   • All will hear the voice of that sea.
8. 5:8
   • There will be confusion in many places.
   • Fire will often be sent out again.
   • The wild beasts will change their places.
   • Menstruous women will bring forth monsters.
9. 5:9
   • Salt waters will be found in the sweet waters.
   • All friends will destroy one another.
   • Then wit will hide itself.
   • Understanding will withdraw itself into its secret chamber.
10. 5:10
    • Understanding will be sought by many and will not be found.
    • Unrighteousness will be multiplied upon earth.
    • Incontinency will be multiplied upon earth.
11. 5:11
    • One land will ask another land.
    • The one land will ask whether the righteousness that makes a man righteous has gone through it.
    • The other land will answer no.
12. 5:12
    • At that same time men will hope but obtain nothing.
    • They will labour but their ways will not prosper.
13. 5:13
    • The speaker has leave to show the seer such signs.
    • If the seer prays again, weeps as now, and fasts seven days, he will hear yet greater things.
14. 5:14
    • Then the seer awoke.
    • An extreme fearfulness went through all his body.
    • His mind was troubled so that it fainted.
15. 5:15
    • The angel that had come to talk with him held him.
    • The angel comforted him.
    • The angel set him upon his feet.
16. 5:16
    • On the second night Salathiel the captain of the people came to him.
    • Salathiel asked him where he had been.
    • Salathiel asked why his countenance was so heavy.
17. 5:17
    • Salathiel asked whether he did not know that Israel is committed to him in the land of their captivity.
18. 5:18
    • Salathiel told him to get up and eat bread.
    • Salathiel told him not to forsake them.
    • Salathiel likened such forsaking to a shepherd who leaves his flock in the hands of cruel wolves.
19. 5:19
    • The seer told him to go away from him and not come near him.
    • Salathiel heard what he said.
    • Salathiel went away from him.
20. 5:20
    • The seer fasted seven days, mourning and weeping.
    • Uriel the angel had commanded him to do so.
21. 5:21
    • After seven days the thoughts of his heart were very grievous to him again.
22. 5:22
    • His soul recovered the spirit of understanding.
    • He began to talk with the Most High again.
23. 5:23
    • He addressed the Lord that bears rule.
    • Of every wood of the earth and all its trees God has chosen for himself one only vine.
24. 5:24
    • Of all the lands of the whole world God has chosen for himself one pit.
    • Of all the flowers of those lands God has chosen for himself one lily.
25. 5:25
    • Of all the depths of the sea God has filled for himself one river.
    • Of all built cities God has hallowed Sion to himself.
26. 5:26
    • Of all the fowls that are created God has named for himself one dove.
    • Of all the cattle that are made God has provided for himself one sheep.
27. 5:27
    • Among all the multitudes of people God has gotten for himself one people.
    • God loved this people.
    • God gave this people a law that is approved of all.
28. 5:28
    • The seer asked why God has given this one people over unto many.
    • Upon the one root God has prepared others.
    • The seer asked why God has scattered his only people among many.
29. 5:29
    • Some gainsaid God's promises.
    • They did not believe God's covenants.
    • They have trodden down God's people.
30. 5:30
    • If God so much hated his people, he ought rather to punish them with his own hands.
31. 5:31
    • When he had spoken these words, the angel that came to him the night before was sent to him.
32. 5:32
    • The angel told him to hear, and said he would instruct him.
    • The angel told him to hearken to what he says, and said he would tell him more.
33. 5:33
    • The seer said, Speak on, my Lord.
    • The angel said he is sore troubled in mind for Israel's sake.
    • The angel asked whether he loves that people better than he that made them.
34. 5:34
    • The seer answered no.
    • He said he had spoken out of very grief.
    • He said his reins pain him every hour.
    • He said he labours to comprehend the way of the Most High.
    • He said he labours to seek out part of God's judgment.
35. 5:35
    • The angel said he cannot do so.
    • The seer asked why.
    • The seer asked to what end he was born.
    • The seer asked why his mother's womb was not then his grave.
    • He said that then he would not have seen the travail of Jacob and the wearisome toil of the stock of Israel.
36. 5:36
    • The angel told him to number the things that are not yet come.
    • The angel told him to gather together the dross that is scattered abroad.
    • The angel told him to make the withered flowers green again.
37. 5:37
    • The angel told him to open the places that are closed.
    • The angel told him to bring forth the winds that are shut up in them.
    • The angel told him to show him the image of a voice.
    • The angel said that then he would declare to him the thing he labours to know.
38. 5:38
    • The seer addressed the Lord that bears rule.
    • He asked who may know these things except him that has not his dwelling with men.
39. 5:39
    • He said that he himself is unwise.
    • He asked how he then could speak of the things he is asked about.
40. 5:40
    • The angel said that just as he can do none of the things spoken of, so he cannot find out God's judgment.
    • The angel said he cannot find out, in the end, the love God has promised to his people.
41. 5:41
    • The seer said that God is nigh to those that are reserved till the end.
    • He asked what those who have been before him, those who are now, and those who shall come after shall do.
42. 5:42
    • The angel said he will liken his judgment to a ring.
    • There is no slackness of the last.
    • There is no swiftness of the first.
43. 5:43
    • The seer asked whether God could not have made at once those that have been made, those that are now, and those that are to come.
    • He asked this so that God might show his judgment the sooner.
44. 5:44
    • The angel answered that the creature may not haste above the maker.
    • The world may not hold at once those that shall be created in it.
45. 5:45
    • The seer recalled that God said to his servant that God gives life to all.
    • God has given life at once to the creature he created.
    • The creature bore it.
    • The seer said that even so the creature might now also bear at once those that are present.
46. 5:46
    • The angel told him to ask the womb of a woman.
    • He told him to ask her why, if she brings forth children, she does not do it together but one after another.
    • He told him to pray her to bring forth ten children at once.
47. 5:47
    • The seer said she cannot.
    • He said she must do it by distance of time.
48. 5:48
    • The angel said that even so he has given the womb of the earth to those that are sown in it in their times.
49. 5:49
    • A young child may not bring forth the things that belong to the aged.
    • Even so God has disposed the world which he created.
50. 5:50
    • The seer said that since God has now given him the way, he will proceed to speak before him.
    • He said that our mother, of whom God told him that she is young, now draws nigh unto age.
51. 5:51
    • The angel told him to ask a woman that bears children.
    • The angel said she will tell him.
52. 5:52
    • The angel told him to ask her why those she has now brought forth are like those that were before but less of stature.
53. 5:53
    • The angel said she will answer that those born in the strength of youth are of one fashion.
    • Those born in the time of age, when the womb fails, are otherwise.
54. 5:54
    • The angel told him to consider that they are less of stature than those that were before them.
55. 5:55
    • Those that come after them are less than they.
    • This is as creatures which now begin to be old and have passed over the strength of youth.
56. 5:56
    • The seer addressed the Lord and besought him.
    • He asked that, if he has found favour in God's sight, God would show his servant by whom he visits his creature.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1

"Tokens" in 1611 English means signs or portents, not keepsakes. The King James "shall be taken in a great number" reflects one reading of the Latin; other copies read that they will be seized with great amazement, and the plain wording follows that.

5:2

"Iniquity" means wickedness, or doing what is wrong on purpose.

5:3

"To have root" pictures a kingdom planted firmly in the ground. Some Latin copies read "to reign" here instead, and the two words are close in Latin, so the line may mean the land you now see ruling.

5:4

In writing of this kind a trumpet blast announces each stage of the end, so "the third trumpet" marks the third stage of the countdown. Some Latin copies read simply "after the third period."

5:5

Blood running out of wood and a stone that speaks belong to a standard ancient list of prodigies, unnatural happenings collected and reported as warnings of coming disaster. "The stone shall give his voice" means its voice; in 1611 "his" still served as the possessive of "it."

5:6

"Whom they look not for" means whom they do not expect. Birds leaving a region all at once was read in the ancient world as an omen of disaster.

5:7

The "Sodomitish sea" is the Dead Sea, called that because Sodom was thought to have stood on or beside it. Its water is far too salty for fish to live in, so a sea that throws out fish is a thing against nature.

5:8

"Menstruous women" are women in their monthly period. "Monsters" translates the Latin monstrum, which meant a birth so misshapen that it was read as an omen; the English word comes from that Latin and did not yet mean a beast.

5:9

"Sweet" water is fresh water, the opposite of salt. "Wit" in 1611 means intelligence or good sense, not humor. "His secret chamber" means its own inner room.

5:10

"Incontinency" means lack of self control of any kind, not only sexual looseness.

5:11

"Righteousness" means doing what is right, honest and fair.

5:13

"I have leave" means I am permitted. "Fast even days" stands for seven days: the Latin reads seven, and verse 20 has Ezra fast exactly seven.

5:14

"Fearfulness" here means terror, the physical sensation of being afraid, not a timid disposition.

5:16

"Captain of the people" means their civil leader, not a military rank. Most Latin copies name this man Phaltiel; Salathiel is the name the book attaches to Ezra himself in its opening verse. "Countenance" is the face, and "heavy" means downcast.

5:17

The captivity is the exile in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem, which is where the book places Ezra. Salathiel is saying that the exiled community is Ezra's responsibility.

5:18

"Eat bread" means take a meal; bread stands for food in general. Ezra has been fasting.

5:19

Other copies of the Latin have Ezra say "come not nigh me for seven days, and then thou shalt come to me," which fits the seven day fast he begins in the next verse.

5:20

Uriel is the angel sent to answer Ezra's questions, named at the start of chapter 4. The name is Hebrew for "God is my light."

5:23

"Wood" here means a forest, not the material. This begins a chain of single chosen things that runs to verse 27.

5:24

"Pit" translates the Latin fovea, a dug hollow in the ground. The list calls for one chosen piece of land, and the word is usually taken that way; some read it as a hollow or valley.

5:25

"Sion" is Zion, the hill in Jerusalem on which the temple stood, used as a name for the city itself. "Hallowed" means set apart as holy.

5:27

"A law that is approved of all" means approved by all; in 1611 "of" often does the work of "by."

5:28

The Latin of this line is uncertain. "Upon the one root hast thou prepared others" is also read as "you have dishonored the one root above all others."

5:29

"Gainsay" means to contradict or speak against. What was "trodden down" is ambiguous: it may be the promises and covenants themselves, or the people who believed them.

5:30

Ezra is saying that if God is angry with his own people, God should punish them himself rather than let cruel foreign armies do it.

5:33

"Sore troubled" means severely distressed; "sore" is an old intensifier meaning badly or deeply.

5:34

"Reins" are the kidneys. Older English, following Hebrew usage, treated them as the seat of a person's deepest feeling and conscience, so "my reins pain me" means the grief is felt in his core.

5:35

"Jacob" and "the stock of Israel" both stand for the nation: Jacob was renamed Israel in Genesis, and his descendants were called by both names. "Stock" means a family line or stem, as of a tree. "Travail" means hard suffering and labor.

5:36

"Dross" is the waste skimmed off molten metal, but the Latin word here means drops, as of scattered rain. The angel is listing tasks no human being can do.

5:37

Ancient descriptions of the world pictured the winds as kept shut in storerooms and let out when needed; those are "the places that are closed." "Shew me the image of a voice" asks for a picture of a sound, another impossible task.

5:38

"He that hath not his dwelling with men" means one who does not live among human beings, that is, God and those in heaven.

5:41

"Reserved till the end" means kept back, left alive, until the last days. Ezra's question is about the generations who die before that point.

5:42

The comparison is to a circle: on a ring no point is first and none is last, so no generation counts as early or late. The Latin word can also mean a crown or a wreath, which is likewise a circle.

5:44

"The creature" means anything created, not an animal, and it keeps that broad sense through the rest of the chapter. "May not haste above" means cannot go faster than; in 1611 "may not" commonly means "cannot."

5:45

This verse is tangled in the Latin and the copies differ. The thrust of Ezra's argument is that if creation could carry all living things at once when it began, it could carry every generation at once now.

5:46

The womb is the part of a mother's body where a baby grows before it is born.

5:48

The angel calls the earth a womb, and people the seeds sown, or planted, in it. Each seed comes up at its own time.

5:49

"May not bring forth" means cannot produce. Some copies read that a young child cannot bear children, and neither can a woman grown old, which matches the picture of the earth's womb.

5:50

"Our mother" is the earth, spoken of through this whole passage as a woman who bears children and grows old.

5:52

The King James line "Wherefore are unto they whom thou hast now brought forth" is garbled in the printing. The question being put to the woman is why the children she bears now are smaller than the ones born earlier.

5:53

"Of one fashion" means of one kind or sort.

5:54

The idea that each generation is physically smaller than the one before it, because the world itself is aging, was common in ancient writing, and it is the point the comparison turns on.

5:56

To "visit" in older English means to come to someone, whether to help or to judge. Ezra is asking through whom God comes to the world he made.