Ezra 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

King Darius orders a search of the royal records, and the original decree of Cyrus authorizing the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem is found at Ecbatana. Darius then orders the officials west of the Euphrates to leave the builders alone, to pay their costs from royal taxes, and to supply their offerings daily, with a penalty for anyone who interferes. The elders finish the temple in the sixth year of Darius, dedicate it with sacrifices, and set the priests and Levites in their assigned groups. The returned exiles then keep the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • Darius the king issued a decree.
   • A search was made in the house of the archives where the treasures were stored in Babylon.
2. 6:2
   • A single scroll was found at Achmetha, in the fortified palace in the province of Media.
   • A record was written in the scroll.
3. 6:3
   • In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem.
   • The decree said the house was to be rebuilt.
   • The house was the place where they offer sacrifices.
   • The decree said its foundations were to be firmly laid.
   • The decree set its height at sixty cubits.
   • The decree set its width at sixty cubits.
4. 6:4
   • The decree specified three courses of great hewn stone.
   • The decree specified one course of new timber.
   • The decree said the expenses were to be paid from the king's house.
5. 6:5
   • The decree said the gold and silver vessels of the house of God were to be returned.
   • Nebuchadnezzar had taken those vessels out of the temple in Jerusalem.
   • Nebuchadnezzar had carried those vessels to Babylon.
   • The vessels were to be brought back to the temple in Jerusalem, each to its place.
   • The vessels were to be deposited in the house of God.
6. 6:6
   • Darius addressed Tatnai, governor of the region beyond the river.
   • Darius addressed Shethar-boznai.
   • Darius addressed their companions, the Apharsachite officials beyond the river.
   • Darius commanded them to keep away from that place.
7. 6:7
   • Darius commanded them to leave the work on that house of God alone.
   • Darius commanded that the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build that house of God on its site.
8. 6:8
   • Darius issued a decree stating what they were to do for those elders of the Jews regarding the building of that house of God.
   • The expenses were to be paid to those men from the king's goods, from the tribute of the region beyond the river.
   • The expenses were to be paid promptly and in full.
   • The purpose was that the work not be hindered.
9. 6:9
   • Whatever was needed was to be supplied: young bulls, rams, and lambs for burnt offerings to the God of heaven.
   • Wheat, salt, wine, and oil were also to be supplied.
   • The supplies were to be given according to the word of the priests at Jerusalem.
   • The supplies were to be given to them day by day.
   • The supplies were to be given without fail.
10. 6:10
    • The purpose was that they might offer sacrifices of pleasing aroma to the God of heaven.
    • The purpose was that they might pray for the life of the king and of his sons.
11. 6:11
    • Darius issued a decree concerning anyone who alters this word.
    • A beam of timber is to be torn out of that man's house.
    • The beam is to be set upright and the man fastened upon it, whether by hanging or impaling.
    • That man's house is to be made a refuse heap for this offense.
12. 6:12
    • Darius invoked the God who caused his name to dwell there to overthrow any king or people who puts out a hand to alter this decree.
    • Darius invoked that God against any king or people who puts out a hand to destroy that house of God at Jerusalem.
    • Darius declared that he himself had issued the decree.
    • Darius commanded that it be carried out with diligence.
13. 6:13
    • Tatnai the governor beyond the river, Shethar-boznai, and their companions acted according to what Darius the king had sent.
    • They did so with diligence.
14. 6:14
    • The elders of the Jews built and prospered.
    • They prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and of Zechariah son of Iddo.
    • They built and finished the house.
    • They did so according to the command of the God of Israel.
    • They did so according to the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.
15. 6:15
    • The house was finished on the third day of the month Adar.
    • That was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
16. 6:16
    • The children of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles kept the dedication of this house of God.
    • They kept the dedication with joy.
17. 6:17
    • At the dedication of this house of God they offered a hundred bulls.
    • They offered two hundred rams.
    • They offered four hundred lambs.
    • They offered twelve male goats as a sin offering for all Israel.
    • The twelve goats corresponded to the number of the tribes of Israel.
18. 6:18
    • They appointed the priests in their divisions.
    • They appointed the Levites in their courses.
    • The appointment was for the service of God at Jerusalem.
    • The appointment followed what is written in the book of Moses.
19. 6:19
    • The exiles kept the Passover.
    • They kept it on the fourteenth day of the first month.
20. 6:20
    • The priests and the Levites had purified themselves together.
    • All of them were clean.
    • They slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves.
    • The verse does not name who slaughtered beyond 'they', though those slaughtering are distinguished from their brothers the priests.
21. 6:21
    • The children of Israel who had returned from the exile ate it.
    • All who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the land and joined them also ate it.
    • Those who separated themselves did so to seek the LORD, the God of Israel.
22. 6:22
    • They kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days.
    • They kept it with joy.
    • The LORD had made them joyful.
    • The LORD had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them.
    • The turning of the king's heart was to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

The "house of the rolls" was the royal archive, where official documents were kept on scrolls alongside the treasury. Persian administration ran on written records, and a decree issued decades earlier could be located and checked.

6:2

Achmetha is Ecbatana, in what is now northwest Iran, the capital of the Medes before Cyrus conquered them and afterwards a summer residence of the Persian kings. Cyrus issued his decree in his first year, so the document had been filed there rather than in Babylon, where the search began.

6:3

Cyrus's first year as ruler of Babylon was 538 BC. A cubit was about eighteen inches, roughly the length of a forearm, so sixty cubits is about ninety feet. These figures are larger than Solomon's temple (sixty cubits long, twenty wide, thirty high) and read like the maximum size the crown was willing to fund rather than a description of what was actually built; the decree gives no length.

6:4

Alternating courses of stone with a layer of timber was a standard building technique of the period, giving walls some flexibility. "The king's house" means the royal treasury, not a building.

6:5

Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian king who captured Jerusalem and destroyed the temple in 587/586 BC, carrying its gold and silver equipment to Babylon. Returning captured temple goods to their sanctuaries was a deliberate policy of Cyrus after he took Babylon.

6:6

"Beyond the River" was the formal name of the Persian province west of the Euphrates, covering Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, "beyond" as seen from the Persian court. Tatnai was its governor and Shethar-boznai apparently his senior officer. The word behind "Apharsachites" is an untranslated title of some class of officials; its exact sense is unknown.

6:7

Elders were the older men who led the families and towns. They settled arguments and spoke for the people when officials came.

6:8

The money is to come from the taxes the province already collects, so the local officials who had tried to stop the work are now required to fund it.

6:9

A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar rather than eaten. "The God of heaven" was the usual way of naming the Jewish God in Persian-era official documents, a title an imperial administrator would recognize and use.

6:10

Persian kings routinely subsidised the temples of subject peoples in exchange for prayers offered on behalf of the crown; the request here is a standard clause, not a private piety. "Sacrifices of sweet savours" refers to the smoke of the offering, described in Israelite texts as a pleasing smell to God.

6:11

The penalty is impaling on a beam torn from the offender's own house, a known Persian punishment, followed by the demolition of the house itself. The Aramaic word behind "dunghill" means a refuse or dung heap: the site is not merely leveled but degraded.

6:12

"Caused his name to dwell there" is a Hebrew way of saying God has claimed the place as his own. "Put to their hand" simply means to take action against it.

6:14

Haggai and Zechariah were prophets active around 520 BC urging the rebuilding; both of their books survive in the Bible. Artaxerxes reigned much later (465–424 BC), long after the temple was finished; his name appears here because he too later authorised support for it, so the list runs beyond the moment being described.

6:15

Adar was the twelfth month of the Jewish calendar, falling in February–March. The sixth year of Darius I is 516/515 BC, about seventy years after the temple was destroyed.

6:16

The Levites were members of the tribe of Levi who served at the temple in supporting roles (music, gatekeeping, slaughtering and preparation) while the priests, a family within that tribe, handled the altar itself.

6:17

A sin offering (better, a purification offering) was made to cleanse people or objects from ritual impurity so that worship could proceed. Twelve goats stand for all twelve tribes of Israel, although in practice those who returned from exile came mainly from Judah, Benjamin and Levi. The totals are modest beside the thousands offered at Solomon's dedication.

6:18

Priests and Levites were organized into fixed groups that took turns serving at the temple on a rota. "The book of Moses" means the first five books of the Bible, the law traditionally credited to Moses.

6:19

Passover is the annual commemoration of Israel's escape from Egypt, kept on the fourteenth day of the first month (Nisan, falling in March–April). It comes about a month after the temple was finished.

6:20

Being "clean" here is a ritual condition, not hygiene: a state of fitness to handle holy things, reached by washing and by avoiding certain contacts beforehand. In the Hebrew it is the Levites who slaughter the Passover animals for everyone, including for the priests, a departure from the older practice in which each household killed its own lamb.

6:21

"Uncleanness" again means ritual impurity, the customs and worship of the surrounding peoples, not dirt or immorality as such. The verse allows that people not from the exile community could join in, provided they made that break.

6:22

The Feast of Unleavened Bread ran for the seven days following Passover, during which no yeast was used in bread. "The king of Assyria" means the Persian king Darius: Assyria had long since fallen, but its name survived as a label for whatever empire ruled Mesopotamia, much as later writers speak of the ruler of that whole region.