Ezra 1:9

9 This is the number of them: thirty gold platters, one thousand silver platters, 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 King Cyrus also brought out the articles of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem and put in the temple of his gods;

8 and Cyrus king of Persia brought them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9 This is the number of them: thirty gold platters, one thousand silver platters, twenty-nine knives,

10 thirty gold basins, four hundred and ten silver basins of a similar kind, and one thousand other articles.

11 All the articles of gold and silver were five thousand four hundred. All these Sheshbazzar took with the captives who were brought from Babylon to Jerusalem.