Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

6:1-2 The search for Cyrus's decree is made first in Babylonia, where Cyrus had declared himself king in 539 b.c. and where many exiled Jews lived. But the scroll containing the record of the decree was found in Ecbatana (v. 2), a summer residence of the Persian kings, where Cyrus may have gone soon after his triumph over Babylon. The province of Media (v. 2) was formerly the seat of an empire itself, but Cyrus had made it part of the Persian realm. Leather scrolls are known to have been used in Persia for official documents in Aramaic. The document now discovered is called a record (v. 2) and is apparently a memorandum concerning the decree rather than the decree itself (which would probably have been written on a clay tablet).

6:3-5 This record is not identical with the decree as recorded in 1:2-4. It makes new stipulations about the building, its location, its size, and its materials. This may be because a copy of the original decree had been found (see note on 6:1-2), and additional instructions may have been added to it for a particular recipient or destination. Moreover, different copies of Cyrus's original decree may have been made, varying in wording according to the purpose for each copy (the one in 1:2-4 included wording for public proclamation, while this version in 6:3-5 was an official version for royal archives). The size of the temple might be specified in order to limit it, since public funds were being used to pay for it. The absence of a length dimension is odd, and the greater breadth than Solomon's temple is unexpected (1 Kings 6:2), especially in view of Ezra 3:12.

6:4 The prescription of three layers of great stones and one layer of timber exactly follows the construction of the older temple (1 Kings 6:36; 7:12), which was modeled after temples in other lands (cf. 1 Kings 5:1-12). While the original decree had required people in Babylon to support the cost of the exiles' project (Ezra 1:4), this record requires that the cost be met from the royal treasury.

6:6-12 Darius now instructs Tattenai and his fellow officials to allow the work to continue.

6:7 Governor of the Jews refers to Zerubbabel (Hag. 1:1). Nothing is known of what became of the first governor, Sheshbazzar.

6:8-10 Darius not only confirms Cyrus's decree but also provides for costs to be met from taxes raised in Beyond the River itself (v. 8). He also provides for materials for sacrifice in perpetuity (v. 9), with the political stipulation that the Jews pray for the life of the king and his sons (v. 10)--showing that Darius's generosity was part of his policy to sustain Persian power.

6:11-12 Darius makes in effect a further decree, backed up with a typical threatened sanction (v. 11). The final warning borrows language from the Jews' own way of speaking about God's presence in Jerusalem (the God who has caused his name to dwell there, v. 12; cf. Deut. 12:5); Darius strikingly acknowledges the efficacy of the God of Jerusalem in his own place (although, like Cyrus in Ezra 1:3, he might not be claiming that there is only one true God).

6:13-22 Darius's decree is implemented, the temple is completed and dedicated, and Passover is kept.

6:13 Tattenai and his fellow officials respond quickly to Darius's decree.

6:14 the elders of the Jews built and prospered. That is, they were successful in their building. Their success came through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. This passage emphasizes that God--here represented as speaking through his prophets--is the real influence behind events. The God of Israel has also given a decree that the work should proceed. But the actions of the kings of Persia on the Jews' behalf, in the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia, are also acknowledged. The inclusion here of Artaxerxes, who ruled after the events of this chapter, anticipates his decree in support of Ezra's mission (7:11-26).

6:15 The month of Adar (February/March) was the last month of the year, and the dedication of the temple falls fittingly in it, just before the celebrations of the new year that would follow. The sixth year of the reign of Darius was 515 b.c., almost exactly 70 years after the destruction of the first temple (586), thus fulfilling the prophecy of 70 years of exile (one way of reading Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10; see Introduction: Purpose, Occasion, and Background, and note on Jer. 25:11).

6:16-17 the people of Israel. Even though the returned exiles consisted of only three tribes (see note on 1:5), they are taken to represent all 12 tribes, the number of the tribes of Israel (6:17). The other divisions, the priests and the Levites and the laity, are a typical way of describing the whole community in Ezra. with joy. See note on vv. 19-22. The dedication (Hb. hanukkah) of this house (v. 17) follows its completion, and is celebrated with lavish sacrifices, as Solomon's temple had been (see 1 Kings 8:62-64). (The later Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, however, was based not on this dedication but on the rededication of the temple under the Maccabees in 164 b.c.; see Intertestamental Events Timeline.) The sin offering for all Israel (Ezra 6:17) recalls the sin offering prescribed for the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:15-16) and is appropriate at this rededication following God's former judgment on his people. Here again the symbolic unity of Israel is emphasized.

6:18 The priests and Levites are set in their divisions, i.e., according to the roster for duty in the temple, as King David had once done (1 Chronicles 23-27). The phrase as it is written in the Book of Moses applies to the general assignment of the priests and Levites to their respective duties (Numbers 3; 8) rather than to the system of divisions outlined in Chronicles.

6:19-22 (The narrative returns to Hebrew in v. 19; see note on 4:7-8.) The Passover is kept on its appointed date, followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread (6:22), which lasts for seven days (Lev. 23:5-6). The priests and Levites had purified themselves and were clean (Ezra 6:20); i.e., they had made the necessary ritual preparations. The participants are the people of Israel, the returned exiles again representing the whole, and the people of the land who had joined them (see note on v. 21). the Lord had made them joyful (v. 22). He had fulfilled his prophecies and answered his people's prayers. There is spontaneous joy when God's people see evidence that he is working in the world. The reference to the king of Assyria (v. 22) at first seems odd because kings of Persia have supported the Jews in Ezra. The reference here, however, is based on the continuity of the various empires. The king of Persia now ruled over the territorial empire of the Assyrians, and thus he could be called "king of Assyria" (cf. Herodotus, History 1.178, in a discussion of Cyrus's conquests, where Babylon is called the strongest city "in Assyria"). This wording emphasizes the turn in fortunes, under God, since the Assyrians had been used as God's agent of punishment centuries before (Neh. 9:32; Isa. 10:5-11).

6:21 Remarkably, the returning Jews are joined by every one who had . . . separated himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to worship the Lord. This shows that the community was essentially religious, rather than based merely on physical birth and lineage, and that outsiders could convert into it.