Ezra 6:20

20 For the priests and Levites together had consecrated themselves; all of them were clean. And they slaughtered the Passover sacrifice for all of the returned exiles, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves.

Ezra 6:20 Meaning and Commentary

Ezra 6:20

For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of
them were pure
They were all to a man pure, and all purified as one man; all were of one mind to purify themselves, and took care to do it, and did it with as much dispatch as if only one man was purified; so that they were more generally prepared for service now than in the times of Hezekiah, ( 2 Chronicles 29:34 ) ( 30:3 )

and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity,
and for their brethren the priests and for themselves;
which seems to have been done by the Levites, for themselves and for the priests, and for all the people, who were not so pure as the priests and Levites; or otherwise they might have killed it themselves, ( Exodus 12:6 ) , as Bochart ^F14 thinks.

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 50. col. 576.

Ezra 6:20 In-Context

18 Then they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their sections for the work of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses.

19 On the fourteenth day of the first month the returned exiles observed the Passover feast.

20 For the priests and Levites together had consecrated themselves; all of them were clean. And they slaughtered the Passover sacrifice for all of the returned exiles, for their brothers the priests, and for themselves.

21 The {Israelites} who returned from the exile and all those who separated themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the earth to seek Yahweh the God of Israel, ate.

22 With joy they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread [for] seven days, because Yahweh had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them in order to help them with the work of their hands on the house of the God of Israel.