Ezra 1:9

9 And this is the number of them: thirty bowls of gold, a thousand bowls of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty cups of gold,

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.


FOOTNOTES:

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

Ezra 1:9 In-Context

7 And king Cyrus brought forth vessels of the temple of the Lord, which Nabuchodonosor had taken from Jerusalem, and had put them in the temple of his god.
8 Now Cyrus king of Persia brought them forth by the hand of Mithridates the son of Gazabar, and numbered them to Sassabasar the prince of Juda.
9 And this is the number of them: thirty bowls of gold, a thousand bowls of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty cups of gold,
10 Silver cups of a second sort, four hundred and ten: other vessels a thousand.
11 All the vessels of gold and silver, five thousand four hundred: all these Sassabasar brought with them that came up from the captivity of Babylon to Jerusalem.
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