Ezra 1:9

9 And this is the number of them: there were thirty gold plates, a thousand silver plates, twenty-nine knives,

Ezra 1:9 Meaning and Commentary

Ezra 1:9

And this is the number of them
Of the vessels delivered, as follows:

thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers of silver;
these, according to Ben Melech, were vessels in which water was put to wash hands in; but rather they were, as Aben Ezra observes from the Jerusalem Talmud ^F18, vessels in which they gathered the blood of lambs and bullocks slain for sacrifices:

nine and twenty knives;
which, because the handles of them were of gold or silver, were valuable, and might be very large knives, and what the priests used in slaying and cutting up the sacrifices.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 T. Hieros. Yoma, fol. 41. 1.

Ezra 1:9 In-Context

7 And Cyrus the king got out the vessels of the house of the Lord which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods;

8 Even these Cyrus made Mithredath, the keeper of his wealth, get out, and he gave them, after numbering them, to Sheshbazzar, the ruler of Judah.

9 And this is the number of them: there were thirty gold plates, a thousand silver plates, twenty-nine knives,

10 Thirty gold basins, four hundred and ten silver basins, and a thousand other vessels.

11 There were five thousand, four hundred gold and silver vessels. All these were taken back by Sheshbazzar, when those who had been taken prisoner went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.