Ezra 1:9

9 And this is the number of the vessels; golden vials, thirty; silveren vials, a thousand; great knives, nine and twenty; (And this is the number of the vessels; thirty gold basins, one thousand silver basins; twenty-nine other kinds of vessels;)

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 king Cyrus brought forth the vessels of the temple of the Lord (And King Cyrus brought forth the vessels from the Temple of the Lord), which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem, and had set them in the temple of his god.

8 And Cyrus, the king of Persia, brought forth those vessels by the hand of Mithredath, the son of Gizbar; and numbered those to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. (And Cyrus, the king of Persia, put Mithredath, the treasurer, in charge of these vessels; and Mithredath listed them for Sheshbazzar, the governor of Judah.)

9 And this is the number of the vessels; golden vials, thirty; silveren vials, a thousand; great knives, nine and twenty; (And this is the number of the vessels; thirty gold basins, one thousand silver basins; twenty-nine other kinds of vessels;)

10 (small) golden basins, thirty; (small) silveren basins, two thousand four hundred and ten; and other vessels, a thousand; (thirty gold bowls; four hundred and ten silver bowls; and a thousand other vessels;)

11 all the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. And Sheshbazzar took all these vessels, with them that went up from the transmigration of Babylon, into Jerusalem. (in all, there were five thousand four hundred gold and silver vessels. And Sheshbazzar took all of these vessels with him, when he, and others of the captivity, left Babylon, and went to Jerusalem.)