Ezra 7 Study Notes

7:15-17 Funds for Ezra’s journey to Jerusalem and the purchase of sacrificial animals there came from the royal treasury and from gifts gathered from the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

7:18 The king trusted Ezra completely. According to the will of your God probably refers to the Mosaic law.

7:19 It is not clear what the royal articles (Aramaic ma’n) were. In 5:14 the same term is used to describe the gold and silver articles looted from the temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and returned by King Cyrus (1:7).

7:20 Amazingly, the king gave Ezra a “blank check.”

7:21-22 The provisions that Ezra was entitled to were used daily in the sacrifices at the temple. The quantities listed here would be sufficient for approximately two years. The 7,500 pounds (lit “a hundred talents”) of silver seems out of proportion to the other items. The entire annual tax for the “Beyond the River” region was 350 talents. A textual corruption, common when scribes were copying numbers, may explain the seemingly implausible amount of silver. A gift of even ten talents of silver (750 pounds) would have been generous.

7:23 King Darius had asked the Jewish community to pray for the king and his sons (6:10). Now Artaxerxes commanded that the regular sacrifices and worship be properly maintained.

7:24 Persian texts and Greek writings about Persian practice confirm that exemption from taxes was granted to temples and the sacred personnel who served there.

7:25 The charge given to Ezra here is not clear. He was to appoint magistrates and judges, but it is not certain how their roles related to those of the regular Persian judges and officials. Probably these judges and magistrates dealt only with cases specific to the OT law.

7:26 Those who refused to keep the law were subject to typical Persian punishments. Imprisonment was not stipulated in OT law, but it did occur in preexilic Israel, for example, in the case of Jeremiah the prophet (Jr 37-38).

7:27-28 With the completion of the official letter written in Aramaic (vv. 12-26), the author reverts to Hebrew. Here in v. 27 begin the first words of Ezra in the Ezra Memoir (see “Structure” in the Introduction).