Ezra 6 Study Notes

6:1-5 The first version of the Decree of Cyrus (1:2-4) was written in Hebrew and reflected a strong Jewish perspective. The second version given here, in Aramaic, explicitly decreed that funding for the temple would be paid from the royal treasury. Some scholars have dismissed this version as a literary fiction because they assume a Persian king would have no interest in paying to rebuild a temple in Jerusalem. Yet archaeological evidence shows that Persian kings, including Darius, were involved in state-supported reconstruction of temples outside Persia. Presumably, subjects are easier to govern when they are allowed to worship as they please.

6:3 The phrase let its original foundations be retained translates a difficult and uncertain Aramaic phrase. Other translations assume the text is corrupted and change the term foundations (Aramaic ’ushohe) to fire-offerings (Aramaic ’eshohe), thus reading “and where the fire-offerings are brought.”

The dimensions of the temple listed here are problematic. Only its width and height are mentioned, suggesting a cube that would be far larger than Solomon’s glorious temple, which was “ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high” (1Kg 6:2). The text in Ezr 6:3 might reflect an ancient scribal error. It is most likely that the second temple would either be identical in size to Solomon’s or smaller due to economic necessity.

6:4 The construction technique of three layers of cut stones and one of timber was based on the construction of Solomon’s temple (1Kg 6:36). This translation reflects a slight change of the Aramaic text from “new (Aramaic chadath) timber” to “one (Aramaic chad) of timber.” Unseasoned wood would not be used for such important construction.

6:6-7 Just as God was watching over his people (5:5) while they waited for Darius’s decision, so his care for them was seen in Darius’s decision that prohibited Tattenai and the other Persian officials from hindering the construction of the temple.

6:8-10 Darius’s decree not only provided funds for reconstruction but for the daily sacrificial offerings as well. His motivation was not wholly altruistic, but that the people would pray for . . . the king and his sons. While Darius was a devotee of Ahuramazda, he was willing to take spiritual support from any source.

6:11-12 The unusual terms in this Aramaic phrase (raised up; he will be impaled on it) have led some to translate it as “he will be set upon it (the beam) and struck,” that is, flogged. However, impaled is probably correct. The Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Darius impaled three thousand rebellious Babylonians when he recaptured the city.

6:13-15 Tattenai and his Persian colleagues knew how dangerous it was to disobey the king of Persia. The construction of the temple was done according to the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and King Artaxerxes of Persia. The mention of Artaxerxes is odd since he became king a half-century after the temple was completed. Chapters 1-6 were probably the last chapters of Ezra-Nehemiah to be written. The author of this section, well aware both of Artaxerxes’s opposition (4:6-22) and his support (7:11-26), included Artaxerxes in the list of those whose decrees involved the construction of the temple, even though his support came long after the events described in 6:13-15. Construction was most likely completed on March 12, 515 BC.

6:16-18 In the OT law, the people were commanded to worship and celebrate their festivals with joy (Dt 12:7,12,18; 16:11,14). Just as the dedication of the first temple filled the people with joy (1Kg 8:66), and as the rededication of the temple and the restoration of Passover in Hezekiah’s day brought joy (2Ch 30:21), so now with the second temple, the people responded with great joy.

6:19-20 The author had used Aramaic from 4:8 through 6:18 since he was working with official Persian correspondence written in Aramaic. With that correspondence completed, he returned to Hebrew. The new temple allowed the full implementation of the sacrificial system that existed before the disaster of 586 BC when the first temple was destroyed. This celebration of Passover (Hb pesach)—probably April 21, 515 BC—would have been a momentous occasion for God’s people to remember their forefathers’ deliverance from Egypt as well as their own deliverance from exile.

6:21 The OT law allowed even resident aliens to celebrate Passover (Ex 12:48-49) as long as they were circumcised. Those who had separated themselves at least included proselytes. Likely it also included Israelites who had never been exiled but had remained in the land and continued to worship the God of Israel.

6:22 The Festival of Unleavened Bread began the day after Passover (Ex 12:14-20). The reference to King Darius of Persia as the Assyrian king seems unusual since the Assyrian Empire had collapsed more than a century earlier, but just as the Babylonians saw themselves as the successors of the Assyrians, so the Persian kings regarded themselves as the successors of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.