Ezra 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter introduces Ezra, a priest descended from Aaron and a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses, who goes up from Babylon to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes of Persia, along with priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, and temple servants. It gives the text of the king's letter, which lets any Israelite volunteer travel with Ezra, sends silver and gold for offerings at the temple, orders the treasurers west of the Euphrates to supply Ezra up to set limits, exempts temple workers from taxes, and tells Ezra to appoint judges and teach God's law. The chapter ends with Ezra praising the LORD for moving the king to honor the temple and for granting him favor before the king and his officials.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • After these events, Artaxerxes was reigning as king of Persia.
   • Ezra was the son of Seraiah.
   • Seraiah was the son of Azariah.
   • Azariah was the son of Hilkiah.
2. 7:2
   • Hilkiah was the son of Shallum.
   • Shallum was the son of Zadok.
   • Zadok was the son of Ahitub.
3. 7:3
   • Ahitub was the son of Amariah.
   • Amariah was the son of Azariah.
   • Azariah was the son of Meraioth.
4. 7:4
   • Meraioth was the son of Zerahiah.
   • Zerahiah was the son of Uzzi.
   • Uzzi was the son of Bukki.
5. 7:5
   • Bukki was the son of Abishua.
   • Abishua was the son of Phinehas.
   • Phinehas was the son of Eleazar.
   • Eleazar was the son of Aaron.
   • Aaron was the chief priest.
6. 7:6
   • This Ezra went up from Babylon.
   • Ezra was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses.
   • The LORD, the God of Israel, had given the law of Moses.
   • The king granted Ezra everything he asked for.
   • The king granted Ezra's requests because the hand of the LORD his God was upon Ezra.
7. 7:7
   • Some of the people of Israel went up to Jerusalem.
   • Some of the priests went up to Jerusalem.
   • Some of the Levites went up to Jerusalem.
   • Some of the singers went up to Jerusalem.
   • Some of the gatekeepers went up to Jerusalem.
   • Some of the temple servants went up to Jerusalem.
   • This going up happened in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
8. 7:8
   • Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month.
   • That fifth month was in the seventh year of the king.
9. 7:9
   • Ezra began the journey up from Babylon on the first day of the first month.
   • Ezra came to Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month.
   • Ezra's journey succeeded because the good hand of his God was upon him.
10. 7:10
    • Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of the LORD.
    • Ezra had set his heart to do the law of the LORD.
    • Ezra had set his heart to teach statute and judgment in Israel.
11. 7:11
    • What follows is the copy of the letter King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra.
    • Ezra was a priest.
    • Ezra was a scribe.
    • Ezra was a scribe of the words of the commandments of the LORD and of his statutes to Israel.
12. 7:12
    • The letter is from Artaxerxes, king of kings.
    • The letter is addressed to Ezra the priest, scribe of the law of the God of heaven.
    • The Aramaic greeting is ambiguous: it can mean the scribe is perfect or complete in that law, or it can be read as a salutation of peace, followed by a word meaning 'and now' or marking the time.
13. 7:13
    • Artaxerxes issues a decree.
    • Any of the people of Israel in the king's realm who freely choose to go to Jerusalem may go with Ezra.
    • Any of the priests who freely choose to go to Jerusalem may go with Ezra.
    • Any of the Levites who freely choose to go to Jerusalem may go with Ezra.
14. 7:14
    • Ezra is sent by the king.
    • Ezra is sent by the king's seven counsellors.
    • Ezra is sent to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
    • The inquiry is to be according to the law of Ezra's God.
    • The law of Ezra's God is in Ezra's hand.
15. 7:15
    • Ezra is to carry silver and gold.
    • The king and his counsellors have freely offered that silver and gold to the God of Israel.
    • The dwelling of the God of Israel is in Jerusalem.
16. 7:16
    • Ezra is to carry all the silver and gold he can find in the whole province of Babylon.
    • Ezra is to carry the freewill offering of the people.
    • Ezra is to carry the freewill offering of the priests.
    • The people and priests offer willingly for the house of their God in Jerusalem.
17. 7:17
    • With this money Ezra is to buy promptly bulls, rams, and lambs.
    • With this money Ezra is to buy their grain offerings and their drink offerings.
    • Ezra is to offer them on the altar of the house of your God in Jerusalem.
18. 7:18
    • Whatever seems good to Ezra and his brethren to do with the rest of the silver and gold, they may do.
    • They are to do it according to the will of their God.
19. 7:19
    • Vessels are given to Ezra for the service of the house of his God.
    • Ezra is to deliver those vessels in full before the God of Jerusalem.
20. 7:20
    • Whatever else is needed for the house of Ezra's God, which Ezra has occasion to supply, he is to supply.
    • Ezra is to supply it out of the king's treasure house.
21. 7:21
    • Artaxerxes the king issues a decree.
    • The decree is addressed to all the treasurers beyond the River.
    • Whatever Ezra the priest, scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of them is to be done promptly.
22. 7:22
    • The limit is up to one hundred talents of silver.
    • The limit is up to one hundred cors of wheat.
    • The limit is up to one hundred baths of wine.
    • The limit is up to one hundred baths of oil.
    • Salt is to be supplied without any limit written down.
23. 7:23
    • Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven is to be done diligently for the house of the God of heaven.
    • Artaxerxes asks why there should be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons.
24. 7:24
    • The treasurers are notified of the following.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the priests.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the Levites.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the singers.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the gatekeepers.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the temple servants.
    • It is not lawful to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the servants of this house of God.
25. 7:25
    • Ezra is to appoint magistrates and judges.
    • Ezra is to do this according to the wisdom of his God which is in his hand.
    • The magistrates and judges are to judge all the people beyond the River.
    • The magistrates and judges are to be all those who know the laws of Ezra's God.
    • Ezra and his associates are to teach those who do not know the laws.
26. 7:26
    • Whoever does not keep the law of Ezra's God is to be judged.
    • Whoever does not keep the law of the king is to be judged.
    • Judgment is to be executed on him promptly.
    • The judgment may be death.
    • The judgment may be uprooting, which can mean banishment or bodily punishment.
    • The judgment may be confiscation of goods.
    • The judgment may be imprisonment.
27. 7:27
    • The LORD, the God of our fathers, is blessed.
    • The LORD put such a thing as this in the king's heart.
    • The purpose was to beautify the house of the LORD in Jerusalem.
28. 7:28
    • The LORD extended steadfast love to Ezra before the king.
    • The LORD extended steadfast love to Ezra before the king's counsellors.
    • The LORD extended steadfast love to Ezra before all the king's mighty officials.
    • Ezra was strengthened because the hand of the LORD his God was upon him.
    • Ezra gathered leading men out of Israel to go up with him.

Words Worth Explaining

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

7:1

"Long after these events" covers a gap of roughly sixty years between the end of the last chapter and this one. Artaxerxes I ruled Persia from about 465 to 424 BC; Persia was then the empire that governed Judah. The list of fathers that follows is not complete, compared with the fuller list in 1 Chronicles 6 it skips several generations. Ancient genealogies were often shortened like this; the point is to establish that Ezra belonged to the priestly line, not to count every man in it.

7:5

Aaron was the brother of Moses and the first chief (high) priest. Only men descended from him could serve as priests, so tracing Ezra's ancestry back to Aaron is what establishes his right to the office.

7:6

"Came up" is the standard way of speaking of travel to Jerusalem, which sits in hill country; people always "go up" to it and "go down" from it. Babylon was where the people of Judah had been deported a century and a half earlier, and many still lived there. A "scribe" here is not merely a copyist but a scholar, a trained expert in the written Law who could interpret and teach it. "The LORD" spelled in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Hebrew tradition avoided pronouncing aloud. "The hand of the LORD his God upon him" is a Hebrew idiom for God's active help and favor, not a description of anything physical.

7:7

Four groups of temple staff, in descending rank. Levites were members of the tribe of Levi who were not descended from Aaron; they assisted the priests with the practical work of the temple. Singers were the trained temple musicians, and gatekeepers guarded its entrances and controlled who came in, both were hereditary jobs, not casual roles. The "temple servants" render a Hebrew word, Nethinim, meaning roughly "the given ones": a hereditary class of lower temple workers, probably descended from non-Israelites assigned to the sanctuary long before.

7:8

Months are counted by the Hebrew calendar, which begins in spring; the fifth month falls in roughly July–August. The seventh year of Artaxerxes I would be about 458 BC.

7:9

The first day of the first month is around late March or early April. The journey therefore took four months, covering something like nine hundred miles by the northern route that followed the Euphrates rather than crossing the desert directly.

7:10

"Rules and decisions" translates two standard legal terms: fixed statutes on the one hand, and case-by-case judgments handed down by a court on the other. Together they are a way of saying the whole body of the Law.

7:11

From verse 12 through verse 26 the book of Ezra switches out of Hebrew and into Aramaic, the everyday and official language of the Persian empire. The change of language signals that what follows is a quoted government document rather than the narrator's own words.

7:12

From here to the end of verse 26 the original text is in Aramaic, not Hebrew, Aramaic was the official language of government across the Persian empire, so the document is quoted in the language it would actually have been written in. "King of kings" was a standard Persian royal title: the Persian ruler governed many subject kings. The King James "perfect peace, and at such a time" is an attempt at an obscure Aramaic greeting formula that opened official letters; its exact sense is uncertain, and "Greetings" is as much as can be said with confidence.

7:13

"Of their own freewill" is the legal point: nobody was being deported or ordered to move. Persian policy generally allowed subject peoples to restore their local temples and go home, a cheap way of buying loyalty across an enormous empire.

7:14

The Persian king's inner council of seven nobles is mentioned by Greek historians as well; it was a recognized body, not a vague group of courtiers. "Which you have with you" translates "which is in your hand", the Law is being treated as a written code Ezra physically carries and will apply as an imperial standard.

7:15

A "freely given" gift is a voluntary donation, as opposed to the offerings the Law required. Persian kings routinely funded the temples of subject peoples; this was normal imperial policy, and such grants were recorded in official documents like this one.

7:16

The "province of Babylon" was the Persian administrative district around the city of Babylon, where most exiled Jews were still living. A "freewill offering" is a voluntary gift, given because the donor chose to give it, as distinct from the contributions the Law required.

7:17

Bulls, rams and lambs were the animals prescribed for the main sacrifices. A grain offering (the King James calls it a "meat offering," using "meat" in its older sense of food in general) was flour with oil and incense. A drink offering was wine poured out beside the altar. Both accompanied animal sacrifices as a fixed part of the ritual, which is why the money has to cover all three.

7:19

These are the temple's metal bowls, dishes, basins and implements used in the sacrifices. Nebuchadnezzar had carried off the originals when Jerusalem fell; returning such articles was part of Persian policy, and an earlier consignment is described in chapter 1.

7:20

The "king's treasure house" is the royal treasury of the province, funded by taxes, not the king's private purse. Ezra is effectively being given a line of credit against imperial revenue.

7:21

"West of the Euphrates", literally "Beyond the River", was the formal name of a Persian province covering Syria, Phoenicia and Judah. It is named from the viewpoint of the imperial capitals in the east, so "beyond" means the far, western side. Treasurers were the provincial officials who held the tax revenue.

7:22

A talent was a weight of roughly seventy-five pounds, so a hundred talents of silver is around three and a half tons, an enormous sum, and this is stated as a ceiling on what the treasurers may hand over, not a fixed grant. The "large measure" of wheat is a cor, about six bushels or 220 liters. A bath was a liquid measure of about six gallons or 22 liters. Salt is left unlimited because it was required with every offering and was cheap.

7:23

The reasoning here is standard for Persian decrees: an offended god was thought to bring disaster on whoever failed to maintain his worship, so funding local temples was ordinary political prudence. The phrasing reflects the king's outlook, not the writer's argument.

7:24

Three separate levies of the Persian tax system, a land or property tax, a payment in kind or per head, and a road or transit toll. Exempting temple personnel from all three was a recognized privilege that Persian rulers granted to sanctuaries.

7:25

"Magistrates" are officials with legal power to hear and settle cases. Ezra is being authorized to build a working court system for the Jewish population of the whole western province, using the Law of Moses as its legal code, which amounts to a substantial grant of self-government under imperial protection.

7:26

The Aramaic word rendered "banishment" here is uncertain; it may mean exile from the land, or it may mean corporal punishment such as flogging. Both readings are defensible and the text does not settle it.

7:27

At this point the text switches back from Aramaic to Hebrew, and from a quoted royal document to Ezra speaking in his own voice about himself, the "I" from here on is Ezra.

7:28

"Mighty princes" means the senior nobles and officials of the Persian court, not princes in the sense of the king's sons. "The hand of the LORD my God was upon me" is the same idiom as in verse 6: God's help and favor.