Additions to Daniel<\/p>\n
Matthias Henze<\/p>\n
The book of Daniel is significantly longer in the Greek and Latin versions of the Bible than it is in the Masoretic Text (MT), where it is written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Differences between the three versions include some short insertions, and in chapters 4\u20136, the text of Daniel in the Old Greek is completely different from what appears in the MT. However, the most significant difference is that the Greek and Latin Bibles contain three longer Additions as well: The Story of Susanna, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews, and Bel and the Dragon.
\nThe three Additions closely resemble the stories about Daniel in Dan. 1\u20136. They are set in the Jewish Diaspora; they portray Daniel interacting with foreign monarchs; and in Bel and the Dragon, Daniel is thrown into the lions\u2019 den, much as in Dan. 6. The Additions do not appear to be dependent on the Hebrew\/Aramaic book, however. Rather, they are independent compositions that resulted from an ongoing process of composing stories associated with Daniel, a popular biblical and literary character in the Jewish Diaspora. These stories had become part of the \u201creceived\u201d (or canonical) Greek Jewish biblical tradition by the 1st century BCE.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Collins, J. J. Daniel. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.
\nGruen, E. S. Heritage and Hellenism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\nMoore, C. A. Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
\nNickelsburg, G. W. E. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.<\/p>\n
The Story of Susanna and the Elders<\/p>\n
The apocryphal Story of Susanna and the Elders is about a devout Jewess in Babylon who is unjustly accused of adultery and condemned to death, but ultimately proven innocent and vindicated when Daniel intervenes at the last moment.<\/p>\n
Date of Composition<\/p>\n
Susanna\u2019s date of composition is not known, though the 3rd or 2nd century BCE is likely. The two extant Greek versions diverge significantly from one another. In the Old Greek, Susanna follows the book of Daniel as chapter 13, together with Bel and the Dragon, whereas Theodotion places Susanna before chapter 1, presumably because Daniel is here called \u201ca young lad\u201d (Sus. 45). Theodotion is significantly longer than the Old Greek and adds numerous details.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
In genre and setting, the story of Susanna resembles the legends about Daniel in Dan. 1\u20136, as well as other Jewish novels of the period, such as Esther (including the Greek Additions) and the apocryphal books of Judith and Tobit. That a woman plays a leading role links this story to books such as Esther, Ruth, and Judith, though by comparison Susanna remains rather passive. She is set apart not by her deeds (it is Daniel, after all, who rescues her), but by her piety.
\nNot much is known about the origin of the story. Composed originally in Hebrew, or perhaps in Aramaic, no Semitic source text survives, and\u2014like the other two Additions to Daniel\u2014the story is now preserved in two Greek versions: the Old Greek and the later Theodotion. Modern interpreters have found in Susanna the Jewish reworking of a pagan folklore motif about the wise and righteous protagonist who is accused and condemned to death but rescued by God and ultimately vindicated (cf. Gen. 37\u201350; Ahiqar; Wis. 2\u20135). Many scholars also suggest that Susanna is a Pharisaic work written as a polemic against Sadducean court procedures. The Pharisees encouraged more demanding examination of witnesses (cf. M. Sanh. 5:1\u20132; M. Avot 1:8\u20139; J. Sanh. 6:3, 23B) and ruled that false witnesses in a capital case must be executed even if the defendant had not yet been executed (M. Mak. 1:4).<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1\u20134 These verses, which are attested only in Theodotion (the Old Greek lacks an introduction), set the scene for the book. Susanna, the daughter of righteous parents, is the wife of an eminent Jew living in Babylon. Three of Susanna\u2019s attributes are emphasized from the outset, all typical of the Jewish novella and with parallels in related literature, and all essential for the plot of the story: Susanna is \u201ca very beautiful woman\u201d (repeated in v. 31; cf. Esther 2:7; Tob. 6:12; Jdt. 8:7); she has been raised by her parents \u201caccording to the law of Moses,\u201d which means that she is very pious, even in the face of persecution (cf. Jdt. 8:6\u20138; Dan. 3:17); and she is married to a husband of great wealth and social standing, in whose house the Jews gather frequently (cf. Esther 2:15\u201318; Jdt. 8:7). Unlike the other Jewish novels to which Susanna can be compared\u2014Esther, Dan. 1\u20136, Tobit, Judith\u2014the story of Susanna and the Elders unfolds entirely in the Jewish world of the Diaspora community. There is no Gentile king here, no threat to Jewish existence, no rivalry between Jewish protagonists and Gentile court officials. By focusing exclusively on the Jewish community, the storyteller exposes some of the community\u2019s most precarious shortcomings: in spite of their social standing, the two elderly judges are corrupt; the community\u2019s judicial system is defunct; and the same assembly that is quick to condemn Susanna has the elders executed only a few verses later and praises God \u201cwho saves those who hope in him\u201d (Sus. 60).
\n5\u201314 Two of the judges appointed that year, who gather daily in Joakim\u2019s house to administer justice, fall in love with Susanna and, without telling anyone, lust after her (cf. Exod. 20:17). One day, when they discover their shared passion, they conspire how they can find Susanna alone.
\n5. Wickedness came forth from Babylon The storyteller prefaces his account of the two elders with a derogatory remark, so the reader already anticipates their wicked intentions. The origin of the saying is unknown, though the portrayal of the two scoundrels is remarkably reminiscent of the two false prophets mentioned in Jer. 29, which contains a letter sent by Jeremiah to the exiles in Babylon. In it the prophet accuses the two prophets of telling lies and committing adultery with their neighbors\u2019 wives (Jer. 29:20\u201323). Earlier in the same chapter of Jeremiah, the prophet encourages the exiles to build houses and plant gardens (Jer. 29:4\u20137), which reinforces the impression that the setting of the story of Susanna presupposes a world similar to that of Jeremiah\u2019s letter and may even have been modeled after it.
\n15\u201327 The scene is rather terse in the Old Greek. There, the elders simply approach Susanna and try to force her into having intercourse with them, with no further description of the circumstances. Only Theodotion has the famous episode of Susanna\u2019s bath in the orchard (Sus. 15\u201318), which is well known from artistic and musical depictions of the story. The erotic element of the bath scene has been compared to the Greek romance. But the first crucial moment in the story is not a scene of sexual pleasure or violence but of theological decision (cf. Gen. 39:9). Being raised according to the law of Moses (Sus. 3), Susanna knows that the punishment for adultery is death (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22), though her wording suggests that it is not death she fears but sin against God, another indication of her piety (cf. B. Sanh. 74A).
\n24. with a loud voice Susanna cries out, which in and of itself is an affirmation of her innocence (cf. Deut. 22:24), and at once the elders too begin to shout, though not out of innocence but\u2014as the text puts it\u2014\u201cagainst her.\u201d When help rushes in, it is only the elders who tell their fabricated version of the story.
\n28\u201341 During the gathering of the community, the elders bring their case against Susanna and again tell their story. The narrator leaves no doubt about their true intentions and again introduces the scene with a derogatory remark, noting that the elders come to Joakim\u2019s house to have her \u201cput to death\u201d (Sus. 28). The scene of the trial differs in the two Greek versions. The Old Greek specifies, for example, that Susanna came to her trial together with her parents, 4 children, and 500 maids. In the Old Greek, the elders demand that Susanna be stripped naked in front of the assembly, \u201cin order that they could be sated with lust for her beauty\u201d (v. 32; cf. Ezek. 16:37\u201339; Hos. 2:4\u20135; M. Sot. 1:5\u20136), while Theodotion inserts the phrase \u201cfor she was veiled\u201d (Sus. 32), implying that Susanna merely had to take off her veil to expose her face.
\n34. laid their hands on her head This gesture carries a wide range of meanings in the Jewish Bible, and its meaning here is not clear. This is the only explicit bodily contact between the seducers and Susanna, though it is also possible that the gesture follows an ancient rite, according to which witnesses lay their hands on the victim\u2019s head in a capital case before the punishment is carried out (see Lev. 24:14); according to Deuteronomy, two witnesses are required for a capital punishment (Deut. 17:6; 19:15).
\n42. with a loud voice Once again Susanna cries out, though this time in prayer. The prayer is not a prayer for intercession, as is sometimes asserted (Susanna does not ask God to intercede), but another affirmation of Susanna\u2019s innocence. Susanna chooses to defend herself against the twisted accusations of the elders not by addressing the elders directly or, for that matter, by bringing her plea before the assembly that just condemned her. Instead, she says a prayer before God, the supreme Judge (cf. Jdt. 9:2\u201314; Add. Esth. 14:3\u201319). Since God knows all secret things, she prays, God surely knows that Susanna is innocent. Before she prays, Susanna \u201clooked up toward heaven\u201d (Sus. 35), which recalls the earlier description of the two lecherous elders, who, overcome by their lust, \u201cturned away their eyes from looking to heaven\u201d (v. 9). The contrast between them could not be more stark.
\n46. he shouted with a loud voice At the last minute, God stirs up the holy spirit in Daniel (in the Old Greek, an angel gives Daniel a spirit of understanding), and so it is now Daniel who shouts, rebuking the assembly for not having cross-examined the elders properly on their false testimony.
\n50\u201364 Daniel separates the two judges and interrogates them independently (cf. Deut. 19:15\u201321; M. Sanh. 5:1\u20133). Each questioning consists of two parts: Daniel first denounces each of the elders for his lifelong perversion of justice and effectively convicts him prior to the interrogation, but then proceeds to ask him under which tree the purported sexual encounter took place. Each gives a different location, and so their perjury is quickly exposed. Each interrogation has a certain comic effect and revolves around a pun: the name of each tree anticipates the elder\u2019s punishment. The Greek for \u201cmastic tree\u201d (sc\u00eenon) is a play on the verb \u201che will split\u201d (sci\/sei), and the Greek for \u201coak\u201d (pr\u00eenon) is a play on the verb \u201cto saw\u201d (pri\/w). It has been suggested that the Greek wordplay proves that the story of Susanna was originally composed in Greek, but this ignores the possibility that the Greek translator introduced the pun into the story.
\n62. they put them to death The punishment of the elders corresponds to the punishment they had intended for Susanna: they are executed in her stead (cf. Dan. 6:25 NJPS; Bel 22, 42; Esther 7:10). This punishment accords with Deut. 19:16\u201321, which stipulates that one shall do to the false witness as he intended to do to the wrongly accused, though the ways of dealing with false witnesses had been much mitigated by Rabbinic times, and they would hardly have been executed (M. Sanh. 5:1\u20132). According to the M. Mak. 1:4, witnesses are only punished under Deut. 19:19 if a second set of witnesses proves that the first witnesses were not present at the crime scene and could not have witnessed it. If witnesses simply contradict each other, however, they do not receive the punishment they attempted to mete out. Some scholars believe that the book of Susanna was excluded from the biblical canon by the Rabbis because it contradicts this Rabbinic law. In Rabbinic tradition, which generally represents the Pharisaic view, false witnesses are only killed if the defendant has been sentenced but not yet executed, as is the case here. According to the Sadducees, however, false witnesses are only executed if the defendant had already been executed but not if their lie was caught beforehand (M. Mak. 1:6). The Susanna narrative follows the Pharisaic view.
\n64. that day onward Daniel had a great reputation among the people The two Greek versions end on different notes. The Old Greek ends in praise of the youth and with the admonition, \u201clet us watch out for young able sons\u201d (Sus. 62), whereas Theodotion concludes with a praise of Daniel.<\/p>\n
The Prayer of Azariah and The Song of the Three Jews<\/p>\n
The apocryphal Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews is inserted into the Aramaic narrative between Dan. 3:23 and 3:24, where it appears as Dan. 3:24\u201390 in the Greek and Latin Bibles. Daniel 3 tells the story of Daniel\u2019s three companions, who refuse to worship a golden statue set up by Nebuchadnezzar in the province of Babylon. In Dan. 3:23 the three young men are tied up and thrown into a fiery furnace, and in 3:24\u201325 the Babylonian king is astounded to see four men (the three companions and an angel) walking freely and unharmed in the flames. The insert in the Greek text bridges the somewhat abrupt transition from Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s fury to his astonishment, and tells the reader what happened in the furnace and underscores the miraculous nature of the episode. Furthermore, ancient readers may have been bothered that Nebuchadnezzar praises God (Dan. 3:28) while the three companions are silent (see B. Sanh. 92B). The Rabbis similarly insert prayers into the mouths of the three companions (B. Pes. 118A).<\/p>\n
The Greek Versions<\/p>\n
Composed originally in Hebrew, no Semitic source text of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews survives. The Prayer is now preserved in two Greek versions: the Old Greek and the later Theodotion. The two Greek versions diverge only slightly from one another, which suggests that they both go back to the same Semitic original. The medieval Chronicle of Jerahmeel includes an Aramaic version of Daniel 3 with the Prayer.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews consists of three parts. The first part is the Prayer of Azariah (vv. 1\u201322). In form, this prayer is a communal confession of sin, with the community (not Azariah, as the narrative introduction would suggest) as its subject. Such prayers are common in post-exilic literature. The Prayer closely adopts the covenant theology characteristic of its period. It follows the theology of the book of Deuteronomy, according to which obedience brings the blessings of the covenant, and disobedience, its curses. The second part is a short prose insert that describes the extreme heat of the furnace and explains the mysterious appearance of the angel (vv. 23\u201327). The third part, finally, is the Song of the Three Jews (vv. 28\u201368).<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1\u20132. They walked around The Prayer begins with a brief narrative introduction. As the three young men walk around unharmed in the midst of the flames, Azariah begins to pray and blesses God. In Dan. 1:7, the king\u2019s chief officer changes the names of Daniel and the three youths, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, to Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, but the Prayer uses only their Hebrew names (vv. 2, 66). Daniel is conspicuous for his absence from both Dan. 3 and from the Prayer.
\n3\u201310 The psalm itself begins with an affirmation of God\u2019s justice. God is just and his judgment is true. Israel is currently delivered into the hands of her enemies and lives under an unjust king. However, Israel deserves her present plight, because the people have broken the law and have not kept the commandments.
\n11\u201313. do not give us up forever \u2026 you promised The prayer continues with a plea to God not to abandon Israel or annul the covenant, for the sake of God\u2019s name and for the sake of God\u2019s covenantal promise to Abraham to make him a great nation (cf. Gen. 15:5).
\n14\u201317. For we, O LORD, have become fewer The psalmist continues his plea for mercy. Israel has become the smallest of all nations, without a leader, a prophet, or even a way to bring offerings. In language borrowed from David, the finest biblical poet and model penitent (cf. Ps. 51:16\u201317; 141:2), the psalmist asks that \u201ca contrite heart and a humble spirit\u201d be acceptable to God in place of the sacrifices of lambs and bulls. Some modern interpreters assert that the three young men offer not only their contrite hearts, but even their lives to God, as they are ready to die in the fiery furnace, with the result that sacrifice in the Prayer is replaced with martyrdom (in a similar vein, see Dan. 11:33\u201335).
\n18\u201322 The Prayer of Azariah ends with a prayer for deliverance. The congregation is now ready to seek God\u2019s presence and appeals to God to be merciful.
\n21\u201322. let them be disgraced Instead of putting Israel to shame, it is Israel\u2019s enemies who deserve to be shamed (cf. Ps. 25:3; 40:15). In these two verses the congregation asks for its enemies to be overthrown, so that all nations come to realize that the God of Israel alone is God. This fits well with the literary context of the Prayer as it stands today, within Daniel, since the stories in Dan. 1\u20136 frequently end with a doxology from the foreign monarch in praise of the universal sovereignty of the God of Daniel. However, several factors indicate that the Prayer was most likely not composed for its present context, but existed independently at some point and was only later interpolated here. One is its Deuteronomic theology, expressed as the belief that the people\u2019s current affliction is the result of Israel\u2019s sin\u2014a theology nowhere to be found in Dan. 1\u20136 (although it has a striking parallel in Dan. 9:4\u201319). Another factor is that the situation presumed in the Prayer is at odds with the present plight of Azariah. According to the Prayer of Azariah, Israel is currently living among her enemies under a wicked king. The king in question could of course be Nebuchadnezzar, the king in Dan. 3, but in Dan. 1\u20134, Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s encounter with Daniel in general is rather amicable. The Prayer\u2019s implied context better matches the general conditions of the Jews during post-exilic times, particularly during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd century BCE; the Prayer may have been composed then, although we cannot be certain. A final indication that the Prayer is most likely a secondary insertion lies in its very form, a communal confession of sin and a petition for mercy, not exactly the kind of prayer one would expect from a young man in a fiery furnace.
\n23\u201327 The two parts\u2014Prayer of Azariah, and the Song of the Three Jews\u2014are bridged by a short prose narrative. The prose section links not only the two psalms but also the Addition as a whole to its narrative context in Dan. 3. It describes the extreme heat of the furnace and the appearance of the angel.
\n23\u201325 These verses exaggerate the gigantic proportions of the blaze and relate how the king\u2019s servants keep adding more fuel to the fire, including napthta (possibly petroleum; cf. also 2 Macc. 1:30\u201336), pitch, tow, and brushwood. As a result, the flames reach a height of close to 80 feet, or 49 cubits, so that even some of the royal workers are consumed by the fire (similarly in Dan. 3:22).
\n26\u201327. But the angel of the LORD came down Here is the surprising appearance of an angel, also noticed by Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. 3:24\u201325 (cf. also Sus. 44\u201345 in the Old Greek). The angel appears in order \u201cto be with Azariah and his companions\u201d and to drive the flames out of the furnace, so that the young men can survive.
\n28. Then the three with one voice praised \u2026 glorified \u2026 blessed The angel\u2019s intervention inspires the three young men to sing a long hymn glorifying God. This verse forms a short narrative introduction to the Song of the Three Jews.
\n29\u201368 The Song of the Three Jews is a hymn of praise that calls on the entire creation to join in the praise of God, much like Ps. 148, which may have inspired its composition. Unlike the Prayer, the Song does not presuppose a situation in which the community is persecuted and lives under a wicked king. Apart from an editorial gloss at the end (vv. 66\u201368), it has nothing in common with Dan. 3. The Song therefore is most likely an independent composition that may well have originated in a context different from the Prayer. Because of its timeless motifs and the lack of any historical references, the Song\u2019s date of composition is difficult to determine.
\n29\u201334 These verses open the hymn with a sequence of blessings that amount to a majestic doxology in praise of God, who is enthroned in the heavenly Temple and praised by the universe (cf. Ps. 96; 97).
\n35\u201365 This section is distinct in form, in that each line ends with an identical antiphonal refrain, \u201csing praise to him and highly exalt him forever,\u201d a liturgical form known from Ps. 136 in the biblical Psalter. This part can further be subdivided into three, roughly parallel sections. Verses 35\u201351 call on the heavens and all that is in them\u2014angels; waters above the heavens; powers; sun, moon, and stars; rain and wind, and so on\u2014to join in the hymn of praising God. Verses 52\u201360 then turn to the earth and all that is in it\u2014mountains, all that grows on the ground, seas and rivers, whales and all that swim in the waters, and so on. The last to be called on to praise God are \u201call people on earth\u201d (v. 60). The order in which the constituents of creation are listed roughly follows their order in the Creation account in Gen. 1 (cf. Ps. 104). Verses 61\u201365, finally, present an appeal to Israel to join in the hymn\u2014Israel, the priests of the LORD, the servants of the LORD, the spirits and souls of the righteous, and those who are holy and humble in heart.
\n66\u201368. Bless the LORD, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael The conclusion of the Song of the Three Jews brings the reader back to the situation that provoked the Song in the first place. The three men call on themselves to exalt God and to thank him for delivering them from the fiery furnace. Verses 67\u201368 recall Ps. 136:1\u20133. The Song\u2019s final three verses feel somewhat strained. They interrupt the cadence created by the recurring refrain in the main section of the Song, and may well have been added by a redactor who adopted a previously existing hymn and tried to tie it into its new literary context. Despite the evident liturgical character of the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews, neither text became part of the Jewish liturgy. However, the Song is attested in some Christian hymnals and liturgies, where it is known as the Benedicite opera omnia. In addition, many of the themes and formulas found in these texts are common to other Second Temple prayers and remain part of subsequent Jewish liturgy.<\/p>\n
Bel and the Dragon<\/p>\n
The apocryphal story Bel and the Dragon consists of two roughly parallel tales. In the first (vv. 1\u201322), Daniel uncovers the ongoing fraud committed by the Babylonian priests of the idol Bel, who secretly consume the daily food rations prepared for their idol while claiming that it is Bel who eats them. In the second tale (vv. 23\u201342), Daniel kills a large serpent that is worshiped by the Babylonians. Daniel is then thrown into the lions\u2019 den but survives miraculously, while the prophet Habakkuk provides him with food.<\/p>\n
Provenance<\/p>\n
The original language of Bel and the Dragon is unknown, though Hebrew or Aramaic seems most likely. Bel and the Dragon is preserved in two Greek versions, the Old Greek (OG) and Theodotion, where the story is placed at the end of the book of Daniel. Rabbinic literature retells part of the dragon story in Hebrew (Gen. Rab. 68) and Aramaic (J. Ned. 3:2, 37D) and the entire addition is found in Syriac in a medieval midrashic collection. The date of composition is likewise unknown, with most scholars proposing the 3rd or 2nd century BCE.
\nSome interpreters have suggested that Bel and the Dragon is drawn in part from Isaiah, in which the God of Israel also speaks to Cyrus (Isa. 45:1), telling him that there is no other god besides the God of Israel (45:5\u20136), who is the Creator (45:18). Furthermore, Isa. 46:1 LXX opens with the words, \u201cBel has fallen.\u201d All these aspects of Isaiah have close parallels in Bel and the Dragon. Other interpreters have pointed to Jeremiah, where the inhabitants of Zion mourn their own defeat by King Nebuchadnezzar, by comparing the Babylonian tyrant to a \u201cdragon\u201d (also translated as \u201cmonster,\u201d see Gen. 1:21; Isa. 27:1; 51:9) who has \u201cfilled his belly with my dainties\u201d (Jer. 51:34). Of course, Bel and the Dragon may have been inspired by more than one motif or text. The reader is struck, above all, by the book\u2019s lightheartedness and humor\u2014completely absent from any of its alleged biblical base texts such as Job, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.
\nBel and the Dragon has some obvious affinities with Dan. 6: both have as their central motif the lions\u2019 den (Bel 31\u201332; Dan. 6:17\u201324); both are legends set at the court of a foreign monarch (Bel 3\u20135; Dan. 6:1\u20133); in both stories the king\u2019s signet ring is instrumental (Bel 14, 17; Dan. 6:18); and both stories end with the death of the accusers and their families (Bel 42; Dan. 6:25). Bel and the Dragon and Dan. 6 have therefore been called \u201cvariations\u201d or \u201cduplicate narratives\u201d of the same story, with Bel and the Dragon the more developed of the two narratives. But we should be careful not to exaggerate the similarities; nor assume that the parallels imply that one version developed out of the other. Neither story shows clear signs that it depends on the other.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
The two tales contained within Bel and the Dragon may well have originated independently (in the Old Greek version the king remains anonymous; in the Theodotion version the king of the first tale is Cyrus the Persian, whereas in the second episode he remains nameless). Yet in their present form they are woven into a single story by a number of elements: the central topic of both tales is the satirical polemic against idols and idolatry, a prominent theme in exilic and post-exilic literature; both tales draw a sharp contrast between the worship of idols and Jewish monotheism, insisting that only Daniel worships \u201cthe living God\u201d (v. 25) besides whom there is no other God (v. 41; see also Isa. 45:5\u20136); and the tales are linked by the motif of food\u2014which Bel cannot consume, which promptly destroys the giant serpent, and which Daniel receives from Habakkuk.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1\u20132. When King Astyages was laid to rest The two Greek versions introduce the story rather differently. Verse 1 of the Old Greek begins, \u201cFrom a prophecy of Habakkuk,\u201d thereby attributing Bel and the Dragon to the corpus of texts associated with the prophet Habakkuk; even though the two tales were originally independent, the superscription treats them as a unit. Verse 2 introduces Daniel as if he was unknown to the reader, \u201cThere was a certain person, a priest, whose name was Daniel.\u201d The verse then continues to speak of Daniel as \u201ca companion of the king of Babylon,\u201d suggesting that the king in Bel and the Dragon is a Babylonian king. Theodotion, by contrast, begins verse 1 with a superscription that is modeled after the prophetic books of the Bible, \u201cAnd King Astyages was added to his ancestors, and Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom.\u201d According to Theodotion, then, the king of Bel and the Dragon is the Persian King Cyrus. In 550 BCE, Cyrus dethroned Astyages (585\u2013550 BCE), the last king of Media. Here, Bel and the Dragon differs from the book of Daniel, where Cyrus replaces an otherwise unknown \u201cDarius the Mede\u201d (Dan. 6:1, 6:28).
\n3\u201322 This brief episode is a fine example of an idol parody. The idol in question, Bel (meaning \u201clord\u201d), was the Akkadian equivalent to the Canaanite god Baal. In Babylon, the same deity was known as Marduk, or Merodach (see also Isa. 46:1; Jer. 50:2; 51:44). Herodotus describes a massive statue of solid gold, sitting at a golden table on a golden chair in a temple in the center of Babylon, which still received offerings in the days of Cyrus and was later destroyed by Xerxes (Hist. 1.183).
\n7. only clay inside and bronze outside Daniel ridicules the idol in a phrase reminiscent of the argument against idols in Isa. 40:18\u201320 (see also Dan. 2:33).
\n22. Therefore the king \u2026 gave Bel over to Daniel, who destroyed it The God of Daniel emerges as the clear winner in this story. But Bel is not the only loser; the Gentile king, Cyrus, comes across as gullible and easily manipulated (see especially Bel 4, 6, 8, 18). In fact, Daniel laughs outright at him twice in this short episode, first after the king claims that Bel must be truly a living god, since the food he is served disappears (v. 7), and then again when the king sees the food gone and hastily proclaims that \u201cthere is no deceit\u201d in Bel (v. 18)\u2014only to discover, of course, that he had been deceived all along by the priests. Thus, both Bel and the Gentile monarch become the target of our author\u2019s penetrating ridicule. (For another such example involving a Gentile king, see 1 Esd. 3\u20134).
\n23. Now in that place there was The second tale begins abruptly, without any transition. It can be subdivided into three scenes: Daniel blows up the dragon (Bel 23\u201327); Daniel survives in the lions\u2019 den (vv. 28\u201332); and Daniel receives food from the prophet Habakkuk and is vindicated (vv. 33\u201342).
\na great dragon, which the Babylonians revered The serpent as deity has deep roots in the ancient Near East. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish), Bel\/Marduk, the chief deity of Babylon, is said to have vanquished Tiamat, the embodiment of primordial chaos. Remnants of the motif of the serpent as a mythological monster are found in the Hebrew Bible; cf. Job 7:12; Ps. 74:13\u201314; 104:26; Isa. 27:1.
\n24\u201325. living god \u2026 living God Echoing verses 4\u20135 in the story of Bel, the double use of this phrase\u2014with the crucial difference between \u201cgod\u201d and \u201cGod\u201d\u2014is key in the Theodotion version of this first scene of the Dragon story.
\n27. pitch, fat, and hair It is not clear how this combination would kill the dragon. In Rabbinic versions of this story, the dragon is fed skins of camels filled with straw and hot coals (J. Ned. 3:2, 37d) or straw with nails hidden inside (Gen. Rab. 68).
\n28. The king has become a Jew The destruction of their god by their Gentile king is, for the Babylonians, a clear sign that the king has become a Jew. The Old Greek adds, not without irony, that the pit was intended for the king\u2019s conspirators, and that Daniel was thrown to the lions in order to deprive him of \u201cthe good fortune of a burial\u201d (v. 32).
\nThis accusation is reminiscent of the story in 2 Macc. 9:17, in which Antiochus IV Epiphanes promises to convert to Judaism if the God of Israel cures him of his affliction (cf. Jdt. 14:10; Dan. 4).
\n33\u201342 The Habakkuk scene begins abruptly and may well be an interpolation. Its main connection with Bel and the Dragon is the subject of food.
\n36. Then the angel \u2026 took him by the crown of his head Cf. Ezek. 8:3.
\n38. You have remembered me, O God Daniel\u2019s recognition of God\u2019s role in saving him creates another affinity with Dan. 6 (see Dan 6:22\u201323).
\n40\u201342. the king came to mourn.\u2026 Then he \u2026 threw into the den those who had attempted his destruction The reversal of fortunes described in Bel 40\u201342 forms another affinity with the story in Dan. 6 (see Dan. 6:21\u201325).
\n41. You are great, O LORD, the God of Daniel Bel and the Dragon concludes with the king\u2019s solemn acclamation of the uniqueness of Daniel\u2019s God (cf. Isa. 45:3\u20135). Similar doxologies are found in the book of Daniel; see Dan. 2:47; 3:28\u201329; 4:35\u201337; 6:26\u201327. Bel and the Dragon as a whole thus ends as a conversion story.<\/p>\n
1 Esdras<\/p>\n
Sara Japhet<\/p>\n
The apocryphal book 1 Esdras (or Esdras A) is not included in the Hebrew Bible but forms part of the Septuagint (LXX). The name of the work is derived from its position in the LXX: after Chronicles and before Ezra-Nehemiah, designated there as Esdras B or Esdras B\u2013C. In the Vulgate the book appears after Ezra-Nehemiah and is designated 3 Esdras.
\n1 Esdras is a history, one expression of the wider literary corpus of late biblical historiography. It is an account of the history of Israel from the 18th year of Josiah\u2019s reign (622 BCE) to the ministry of Ezra the scribe during the reign of Artaxerxes (458\u2013457 or 398\u2013397 BCE), that is, a period of about 170 or 230 years. It is better defined as \u201ccorrective history,\u201d designed to provide a revised history of a period already told, written from a new vantage point and responding to the reality, views, and aspirations of the author\u2019s time.
\nThe work is written in a specific literary technique, which recent scholarship describes as \u201crewritten Bible.\u201d The major part of 1 Esdras is built from texts borrowed from the biblical books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, presented either literally or slightly changed, and only a relatively small part of the book consists of passages peculiar to this book.
\nBy its topic and contents 1 Esdras is a story of destruction and restoration. It is structured in three parts and describes the history of Israel as a process of three stages, presented as a historical continuum: (1) the end of the Judean kingdom, which includes the history of the last kings, the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, and the exile of the people (1 Esd. 1); (2) the physical restoration of Judah and Jerusalem, which includes the return from exile, the rebuilding of the Temple and Jerusalem, and the resettlement of the land of Judah, all achieved during the reigns of Cyrus and Darius (1 Esd. 2\u20137); and (3) the full religious and spiritual restoration of the Judean community under the leadership of Ezra through the firm establishment of religious norms and practices expressed in the exclusion of all foreign elements and the establishment of the Law as the guiding power in the life of the community (1 Esd. 8\u20139).<\/p>\n
Authorship and Provenance<\/p>\n
Most of 1 Esdras is borrowed from the biblical books of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah; only a relatively small part of the book consists of passages unique to it. Chapter 1 (except for 1:22\u201323) is taken from 2 Chron. 35\u201336, and 1 Esd. 2 and 5:7\u20139:55 are taken from Ezra 1\u201310 and Neh. 7:72\u20138:13a. The rest of the book, 1 Esd. 1:21\u201322 and 3:1\u20135:6, is composed of two literary elements: the story of the three guardsmen, taken basically from another, unknown source, and short passages written by the author of 1 Esdras himself. With the absence of comparative material, the distinction between these literary elements cannot always be achieved with certainty, in particular within the story of the three guardsmen (3:1\u20134:63).
\nSince the greater part of 1 Esdras is an almost literal repetition of passages from Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, the question of the relationship between these works attracted the attention of scholars from the earliest beginnings of research and was extensively dealt with. The prevalent view for many years was that 1 Esdras was a fragment of a larger work, designated \u201cthe Chronistic History,\u201d which consisted of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah as one continuous composition. As a result of this foundational premise, 1 Esdras was not studied as a work by itself but rather as a witness of the supposed Chronistic History, of which it was regarded as a fragment. The major questions posed by scholars revolved around matters of priority\u2014which version is closer to the original Chronistic History: the canonical works of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles or 1 Esdras? This question was applied to all aspects of the books: the accuracy of the text, the originality of the literary format, and the reliability of the historical account. There are three main issues regarding the literary format: the originality of the story of three guardsmen\u2014found in 1 Esdras but absent from Ezra-Nehemiah; the originality of Nehemiah\u2019s memoirs, found in Ezra-Nehemiah but absent from 1 Esdras; and the order of the events, with the different position in 1 Esdras of Ezra 4. In practice, 1 Esdras was mostly regarded as a version or an edition, by which the original reading of the supposed Chronistic work was reconstructed.
\nRecent studies of the late biblical historiography, however, demonstrate that Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles were two independent works, written by different authors at different periods, and that the supposed Chronistic History was nothing but an unfounded scholarly construct. The consequences of this change for 1 Esdras are obvious: it cannot consist of a fragment of a work that never existed! The view of 1 Esdras as a work in its own right has become even clearer with the realization that it consisted of one composition within a vast literary corpus\u2014peculiar of its time\u2014written in the literary technique of \u201crewritten Bible.\u201d With this in mind, the translation and commentary below regards 1 Esdras not as a fragment of a biblical work, actual or constructed, but as a work in and of itself, and all its peculiarities understood and explained from this vantage point.
\nIn considering the provenance and date of 1 Esdras, a clear distinction should be made between the original book, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Greek translation. While the provenance of the Greek translation can be set in the 2nd century BCE, perhaps in Egypt, there are no explicit historical or linguistic data by which the date of the book itself may be fixed. Nevertheless, some pertinent considerations\u2014the distance of 1 Esdras from the actual Persian background, the reflection of Hellenistic concepts and terminology, the book\u2019s rather free handling of the transmitted materials and the details of the historical account, the book\u2019s specific view of the history of the restoration period, and the conclusion of 1 Esdras with the office of Ezra the scribe and priest as the model of the high priesthood\u2014may lead to a probable conclusion. All these considerations point to the height of the Hellenistic period in the 3rd century BCE, in Jerusalem, as the most probable date and place of the book\u2019s composition.<\/p>\n
Translation and Transmission<\/p>\n
The Greek translation of 1 Esdras is a work in itself, independent of the LXX translations of Ezra-Nehemiah or Chronicles. Compared with the Greek translations of the LXX, the Greek of 1 Esdras\u2014although still reflecting on many occasions the original Semitic language at its base\u2014is less literal, more fluent, and rather elegant. Yet, there are still cases in which the text is less than clear, and the causes of these unsmooth texts are not always apparent: they may reflect difficult, inexplicable, or perhaps corrupt Semitic readings in the translator\u2019s Vorlage; they may stem from the translator\u2019s misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the original texts; or they may be a result of errors introduced into the text during the process of transmission. All these possibilities should be taken into consideration.
\nStudies of the Greek idiom of 1 Esdras demonstrate its peculiar vocabulary and syntax and its similarities with other books of the Apocrypha\u2014in particular the books of Maccabees\u2014as well as with the language of the Greek papyri of the time. The scholarly consensus is that the Greek idiom reflects the specific form of the language prevalent in Egypt in the 2nd century BCE.
\nIn addition to Greek, 1 Esdras is extant in Latin, Syriac (but not in the Peshitta), Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic\u2014all deriving from the Greek. There are two critical editions of 1 Esdras: the 1935 edition by Brooke and McLean, and the 1974 edition by Hanhart. The editions differ in their methodology, their division of verses, and many details. The translation and commentary below are based on Hanhart.
\nOne problem facing the translator of 1 Esdras is that of names. Ezra-Nehemiah, and following it 1 Esdras, abounds with lists of names. 1 Esdras renders these names with a variety of methods, and no one consistent method can be recognized in its presentation. In some cases the names are presented in a straightforward transliteration of the Hebrew; for other names 1 Esdras uses conventional Greek forms, which appear also in the Septuagint, such as Zorobabel for Hebrew Zerubbabel, Nabouchodonosor for Hebrew Nebuchadnezzar, Esdras for Hebrew Ezra, the names of the Persians kings: Cyrus for Hebrew Koresh, Dareios for Hebrew Daryavesh, Artaxerxes for Hebrew Artachshasta. Less common names are given a Greek style by their formation with Greek phonetic equivalents or simply by the addition of a Greek suffix. There is no way to determine whether the forms suggested by 1 Esdras were actual executions of the names in the author\u2019s time (like the name Je[ho] shua, consistently presented as Jesous) or theoretical formulations with no realization in the actual speech. Moreover, names in general are susceptible to textual corruptions, perhaps more than any other element of the language, and this is also the case in 1 Esdras. The textual corruptions may have occurred during any phase of transmission\u2014of the Hebrew Vorlage or the Greek version. Another aspect of the problem is the differences between Greek manuscripts of 1 Esdras regarding the forms of the names. Given the problems inherent in the presentation of names, one would have perhaps expected that 1 Esdras would refrain from presenting the full scope of unfamiliar names and shorten some of the lists, but the opposite is the case. It seems that 1 Esdras regarded the lists of names as an important component of the historical account that gave it an aura of authenticity and included in its presentation the complete lists found in its sources.
\nThe modern translator to English faces a serious problem in the presentation of the names: should she\/he attempt to restore the forms as presented in the Masoretic Text (as followed, for instance by the Anchor Bible), or should she\/he adhere to the forms of the Greek text as presented in 1 Esdras? After much consideration I decided to leave most of the names in their Greek form, trusting that the modern reader would not only be able to identify Cyrus, Darius, or Jeremiah (rather than Yirmiahu), Isaiah (rather than Yishaiahu), but would actually prefer them in view of their use in standard English translations. As a rule I refrained from restoring the Hebrew forms of the names, but there are some exceptions to this rule, such as the name Ezra, for which I followed my predecessors and used the Hebrew form Ezra rather than the Greek form Esdras. I also refrained from correcting the text when it seemed corrupt. I applied a number of considerations and tried to do my best; the degree of my success should be judged by the readers.<\/p>\n
Theology and Purpose<\/p>\n
Because of the limited scope of the author\u2019s writing, scholars were at a loss in discovering the book\u2019s purpose and theological message. Even when the nature of the book as a work of its own was recognized, its purpose remained a puzzle, and scholars complained that \u201cwe should perhaps conclude that \u2026 it is a mistake to look for a purpose at all.\u201d My own contention is that the author of 1 Esdras succeeded in expressing his purpose, theology, and historical perspective, by employing four means:<\/p>\n
1. Literary extent of the historical account and the selection of the borrowed material, especially the author\u2019s choice to base his description of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah on that of Chronicles rather than on 2 Kings; the beginning of the story with the climax of Josiah\u2019s reign, at the celebration of the Passover; the omission of the story of Nehemiah and the presentation of Nehemiah himself as a person of secondary significance in the time of Zerubbabel; and the conclusion of the historical account with the leadership of Ezra and the reading of the Law.
\n2. Modifications, short additions and omissions, introduced into the borrowed texts, which alter the contents and message of the borrowed material. The size of these changes varies from single words to phrases and full sentences, but they are extensive. Since the work is found only in Greek translation, it is not always possible to establish the origin of the diverse reading: the book\u2019s author, the Greek translator, or perhaps a textual corruption in the transmission of the text.
\n3. Rearrangement of the material by transfer of borrowed passages to other positions in the story and their integration in different literary and historical contexts, mainly (a) the transfer of Ezra 4:6\u201324 after Ezra 1, thus relegating the adversary\u2019s intervention in the building of the Temple and the Persian king\u2019s command to stop the building to a much earlier phase in the story of the restoration, the result of which is a different chronology of the events in the early stages of the restoration period; and (b) the continuation of Ezra 10 with Neh. 7:72\u20138:13a, after the omission of Nehemiah\u2019s story.
\n4. Author\u2019s additions: a short passage in 1 Esd. 1:22\u201323, some additions to the story of the three guardsmen, and occasional additions throughout the whole account.<\/p>\n
Thus, although the major part of 1 Esdras is built of borrowed texts, it nevertheless expresses a peculiar view of the history of the restoration period.
\nThe purpose and message of 1 Esdras may be learned from the overall historical presentation and from the three foci of the historical account: the historical continuity, the figure and significance of Zerubbabel, and the figure and leadership of Ezra the priest and scribe.<\/p>\n
Historical Continuity<\/p>\n
1 Esdras presents an immediate continuity between the destruction of the Judean kingdom by the Babylonian kings and the restoration of Judah at the time of Cyrus and portrays the history of the restoration against the background of the destruction. The account opens with the celebration of the Passover in Josiah\u2019s 18th year, which signifies the climax of Josiah\u2019s reign and the beginning of the decline, and goes on to describe the quick decline toward the final destruction\u2014the conquest of the land of Judah, the end of the Davidic dynasty, the destruction of Jerusalem, the burning down of the Temple, and the exile of the remaining population. It then moves directly to Cyrus\u2019s declaration and the process of restoration. The immediate historical continuity between destruction and restoration is also underlined by several aspects of the story. First is the insistence on the correspondence between destruction and rehabilitation, through the transfer of the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the beginning of the restoration period at the time of Zerubbabel, the omission of the story of Nehemiah, and the suppression of Nehemiah\u2019s building of the wall and all his other projects. This continuity is also expressed in the emphasis of 1 Esdras that the rebuilt Temple of the restoration was a direct continuation of the first. According to 1 Esdras, in the first period of the restoration Judah returned to its former state of physical well-being in every way, and the consequences of the destruction were fully reversed: Jerusalem and the Temple were rebuilt, the vessels were returned, and the exiles settled back in their original localities.<\/p>\n
ZERUBBABEL<\/p>\n
A well-known feature of 1 Esdras is the elaboration and glorification of the figure of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel. Although some scholars express doubts regarding the originality in 1 Esdras of the story of the three guardsmen and of some references to Zerubbabel in the story, the tendency to glorify Zerubbabel is undeniable. The buds of this tendency may be found already in Ezra-Nehemiah, but it is further developed in 1 Esdras. From a quantitative point of view, the insertion of the story of the three guardsmen makes Zerubbabel the major figure of the entire period. More importantly, Zerubbabel is presented as \u201cthe wisest of all\u201d and as a man who relinquished the glorious future that awaited him as a viceroy of Darius and who preferred to put himself at the service of his people. His Davidic ancestry is fully recorded, he is explicitly presented as the governor of Judah, he is awarded the title \u201cservant of the LORD,\u201d the term of his office is prolonged at both ends, and he is described as having taken part in all the events of the restoration during the time of Cyrus and Darius.<\/p>\n
EZRA<\/p>\n
While all the material related to the activity of Ezra is borrowed from Ezra-Nehemiah, with no additions and only light variations, Ezra\u2019s figure and historical significance are differently portrayed. By the omission of Nehemiah\u2019s memoirs and the positioning of Nehemiah himself as a secondary figure in the time of Zerubbabel, Ezra remains the single leader in the last phase of the historical account, and by the change in his titles he is presented not just as \u201cpriest\u201d and \u201cscribe\u201d but as \u201chigh priest\u201d wearing the sacred vestments and \u201creader of the Law.\u201d His activities are the last phase in the restoration of the Judean community.
\nWhen all these features are taken together the result is a new picture of the restoration period. In the first part of the period described, Judah was ruled by Davidic kings, but their reign ended with a disaster. In the second period, under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the Temple was built and the land of Judah and the city of Jerusalem were physically rehabilitated under the auspices of the Persian rulers. The climax of the historical process, however, was reached in the third period, with the firm establishment of the religious norms and conduct in Judah under the leadership of Ezra. The political power in this period, as in the preceding one, was that of the Persian emperors who gave Ezra an extensive bill of rights, but the leader of the people of Judah was Ezra the high priest.<\/p>\n
With the culmination of the historical process the author of 1 Esdras arrived at his goal: the actual situation in Judah in his own time, with the land of Judah ruled by Hellenistic kings and the hegemony over the people of Judah invested in the hands of the high priests. The course of Israel\u2019s history under God\u2019s providence led from the period of the kingdom\u2014which turned out to be a failure\u2014through the restoration of Judah and the return of the exiles in the time of Zerubbabel to the ultimate leader, the high priest Ezra. Thus the history of the restoration as presented in 1 Esdras offers the means of legitimization for the political order of the author\u2019s time; it grants sanction to the ideology that supported this reality and to the exclusive rule of the high priests.<\/p>\n
Reception and Influence<\/p>\n
Since 1 Esdras was not included in the Hebrew Bible, it was lost from the Jewish literary corpus at an early, but unknown date. Its Greek translation, however, was included in the LXX and received there a priority of place, before the Greek translation of Ezra-Nehemiah. 1 Esdras\u2019s status and significance in the early period are best illustrated by Josephus\u2019s including it\u2014together with Ezra-Nehemiah\u2014in his account of the Persian period and preferring its historical presentation to that of Ezra-Nehemiah.
\n1 Esdras\u2019s later history was less spectacular: it was lost to the mainstream of Rabbinic Judaism and also did not fare very well in the Christian tradition. Although it was part of the LXX, translated into Latin and quoted by early Greek and Latin church fathers, it was criticized by Jerome and later excluded from the canon by the Council of Trent (1546). It was nevertheless printed as an appendix in small letters in the Tridentine Bible and came to occupy a peculiar secondary position in the Christian Bible.
\nAs for the Jewish literary tradition, the book itself indeed remained lost, but its contents became known through the book of Josippon (Josephus Gorionides)\u2014composed in Italy in the 10th century and wrongly regarded as the work of Josephus\u2014which became the main Jewish source for the history of the Second Temple period. In its account of the Persian period the author of Josippon drew not only from Josephus\u2019s Jewish Antiquities, but also from 1 Esdras itself, probably in its Latin translation. However, although Josippon was known to Jewish sages of the Middle Ages and explicitly referred to by several of them (e.g., Rashi and others), there is no reflection in their allusions and quotations of the sections of Josippon dependent on 1 Esdras. 1 Esdras returned, so to speak, to the corpus of Jewish literature only with modern translations of the Apocrypha.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Coggins, R. J., and M. A. Knibb. The First and Second Books of Esdras. Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
\nCook, S. A. \u201c1 Esdras.\u201d Vol. 1. In The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, edited by R. H. Charles, 1\u201358. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913.
\nDe Troyer, K. \u201cZerubbabel and Ezra: A Revived and Revised Solomon and Josiah? A Survey of Current 1 Esdras Research.\u201d Currents in Biblical Research 1 (2002): 30\u201360.
\nEskenazi, T. C. \u201cThe Chronicler and the Composition of 1 Esdras.\u201d Catholic Biblical Quarterly 48 (1986): 39\u201361.
\nFried, Lisbeth S., ed. Was 1 Edras First: An Investigation into the Priority and Nature of 1 Edras. Atlanta: SBL, 2011.
\nJaphet, S. \u201c1 Esdras: Its Genre, Literary Form, and Goals.\u201d In Was 1 Esdras First: An Investigation into the Priority and Nature of 1 Esdras, edited by Lisbeth S. Fried, 209\u201323. Atlanta: SBL, 2011.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cSheshbazzar and Zerubbabel against the Background of the Historical and Religious Tendencies of Ezra-Nehemiah, 2.\u201d Zeitschrift f\u00fcr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 95 (1983): 218\u201329.
\nMyers, J. M. 1 and 2 Esdras: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Anchor Bible 42. Garden City: Doubleday, 1974.
\nTalshir, Z. 1 Esdras: A Text Critical Commentary. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2001.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. 1 Esdras: From Origin to Translation. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999.
\nWilliamson, H. G. M. \u201cThe Problem with 1 Esdras.\u201d In After the Exile: Essays in Honour of Rex Mason, edited by J. Barton and D. J. Reimer, 201\u201316. Macon GA: Mercer University Press, 1996.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1:1\u201355 The Bible contains two different accounts of the last phases of the Judean kingdom: 2 Kings 23\u201325 and 2 Chron. 35\u201336. Although it is clear\u2014and universally agreed\u2014that the account in Chronicles is based on 2 Kings, there are extensive differences between the two, in both the general view of the period and various details. 1 Esdras derives its account from Chronicles rather than from Kings and seems to have done so for two main reasons: the description of Josiah\u2019s Passover, which covers only three laconic verses in 2 Kings 23:21\u201323 and 19 verses in 2 Chron. 35, and the view of the destruction, which differs not merely in a series of details, but in the general view of the destruction, its stages, and its place in the history of Israel. First Esd. 1 follows faithfully 2 Chron. 35\u201336, with quite a few changes of detail, some omissions, and an additional passage (1 Esd. 1:21\u201322).
\n1:1\u201331 The reign of Josiah is the watershed in the history of Judah. The political and religious peak of his reign was followed by an accelerated decline toward destruction and exile. Unit structure: Josiah\u2019s Passover (1:1\u201320 = 2 Chron. 35:1\u201319), theological evaluation (1:21\u201322), and Josiah\u2019s end (1:23\u201331 = 2 Chron. 35:20\u201326).
\n1:1\u201320 The peak of Josiah\u2019s reign was the celebration of the Passover in his 18th year. This date also marked the beginning of the decline, and this is where 1 Esdras begins its story. The focus of the account is the Passover sacrificial ritual, while the historical aspect of the festival, its origin in the Exodus from Egypt, is not even hinted at in the whole chapter. While the focus of 1 Esdras is the same as in 2 Chron. 35, 1 Esdras is shorter and exhibits less interest in the ritual procedure. The Passover account emphasizes the following points: (1) the location of the Passover and its date: Jerusalem, on the 14th of the first month; (2) the insistence that everything was done as ordained: according to the precepts of Moses, the command of David, and the order of Josiah; (3) the role of the Levites, who acted as the king\u2019s right hand in implementing his command; and (4) the historical uniqueness of the event: nothing like it has taken place, neither before nor after. Unit structure: introduction\/general framework (1:1), address to Levites (1:2\u20136), preparations (1:7\u201310), sacrifice and celebration (1:11\u201317), and conclusion and evaluation (1:18\u201320).
\n1:1. Josiah kept the Passover The introductory verse\u2014taken with a very slight change from 2 Chron. 35:1\u2014emphasizes the location of the Passover in Jerusalem and the date of the festival (the prescribed 14th day of the first month). Both points originally had a polemic edge, but while the location of the Passover in Jerusalem, following the finding of \u201cthe book,\u201d is the point in 2 Kings 23:21, the date is of particular interest for the Chronicler\u2019s account because of the contrast between Josiah\u2019s Passover and that of Hezekiah, which was celebrated on the 14th of the second month (2 Chron. 30:15). The polemic edge is lost in 1 Esdras; it does not tell about the finding of \u201cthe book\u201d prescribing the centralization of the festivals in the \u201cchosen place,\u201d and it does not include Hezekiah\u2019s Passover. The introductory verse remains a neutral statement of introduction.
\n1:2\u20133. having stationed the priests These introductory verses, taken from 2 Chron. 35:2\u20133 but differently structured, join together the priests and the Levites, referred to separately in 2 Chron. 35:2\u20133. Josiah\u2019s address, however, is directed\u2014as in 2 Chron. 35\u2014only to the Levites. The peculiar issue of 1 Esd. 1:3 is the reference to the Ark. Already in 2 Chron. 35:3 the reference to the Ark is somewhat problematic because according to its literal meaning the change from carrying the Ark on the Levites\u2019 shoulders to depositing it in the Temple occurred in the time of Josiah. Nevertheless, the message of Chronicles seems clear: the change in the roles of the Levites is the result of the change in the historical circumstances; since their original role as bearers of the Ark came to an end, they became available for other functions, to serve \u201cthe LORD your God and His people Israel\u201d (2 Chron. 35:3). This explanation becomes blurred in 1 Esdras, which seems to refer to the very act of depositing the Ark in the Temple and to the need of the Levites to sanctify themselves for this purpose. The Levites are identified in 1 Esd. 1:3 as hierodouloi (Temple servants). This term is used in 1 Esdras as a technical definition of the Nethinim, one of the lower classes of Temple personnel eventually absorbed into the broader class of Levites, and this was probably the rendering of 1 Esdras, which already assumes the integration of the different classes into the Levitical class. In speaking about the priests, 1 Esdras added a reference to their ritual garments\u2014a matter that it emphasizes throughout the story.
\n1:4\u20136. you need not carry it The address to the Levites is cited almost verbatim from 2 Chron. 35:3b\u20136. The Levites, who are viewed as newcomers to the Passover ritual, are instructed by the king regarding their general role\u2014the service of the LORD and the people\u2014and in particular their task of slaughtering the Passover animals, which is emphasized throughout the account. According to earlier sources the slaughtering was performed by laymen (Exod. 12:6; 34:25); the transfer of this task to the Levites resulted most probably from the centralization of the Passover celebration in Jerusalem. All the new aspects of the Passover\u2014its celebration in the central Temple, the transfer of the slaughtering to the Levites, and the ensuing results for the entire ritual\u2014are repeatedly presented as the fulfillment of ancient commands and arrangements. The organization of the Levites into divisions is ascribed to the command of David and followed by the instruction of Solomon, the slaughtering of the sacrifices by the Levites is ascribed to Moses, and the entire ritual procedure is described as \u201cthe command of King Josiah\u201d (1 Esd. 1:16 = 2 Chr 35:16).
\n1:7\u20139. and Josiah gave According to 2 Chron. 35:7\u20139 the king contributed sacrificial animals for the people who were present, and the officials contributed animals for the people, priests, and Levites. This matter is differently presented in 1 Esdras: the king\u2019s donations were intended for everyone\u2014people, priests, and Levites\u2014and the officials donated to their own people: \u201cthe overseers of the Temple\u201d to the priests, and \u201cthe officers of the thousands\u201d to the Levites. The definition of the Levite leaders as \u201cofficers of the thousands\u201d is rather unusual and may refer to army officers (1 Chron. 27:1).
\n1:10. while all these were proceeding The verse is an epitome of 2 Chron. 35:11\u201312a, but rather than describing the execution of the ritual, it functions as a conclusion of the preparations: everyone took his place, ready to perform the ritual in strict adherence to the Law of Moses. The verse is famous for two features: \u201cunleavened bread\u201d and \u201cin the morning.\u201d Both readings are generally regarded as misreadings by the Greek translator: ma\u1e63\u1e63ot (unleavened bread) in place of mi\u1e63wat (the command of), and boqer (morning) in place of baqar (cattle). One wonders, however, whether at least the first reading is not an intentional correction, intended to leave out \u201cthe command of the king\u201d before the reference to \u201cthe book of Moses.\u201d The omission of 2 Chron. 35:11\u201312a leaves out of the story the technical aspects of the sacrificial procedure: the actual slaughtering by the Levites, the transfer of the blood to the priests in order to throw it on the altar, the flaying of the animals\u2019 hides, and the distribution of the prepared sacrifices to the people. The omission could have been motivated either by 1 Esdras\u2019s lack of interest in the technical issues of the sacrifice or by these details not being in harmony with the practice of the time.
\n1:11. and they roasted This is the only reference to actual sacrificial ritual in 1 Esdras, but it relates only to the postsacrificial stage\u2014the roasting of the meat and its distribution. The mention of \u201cpleasing odor\u201d at this stage is rather out of place, for it is the burning of the fats rather than the preparation of the meat for consumption that is expected to produce a \u201cpleasing odor to the LORD\u201d; it is more often regarded as an inner-Greek corruption.
\n1:12\u201315. after that they prepared These verses, an almost literal repetition of 2 Chron. 35:14\u201315, highlight the diligence, efficiency, and commitment of the Levites. All the other classes of the cult personnel\u2014priests, Temple singers, and gatekeepers\u2014could go on with their regular tasks and still take part in the celebration of the Passover, because all their needs were provided by the Levites, repeatedly designated \u201ctheir brothers.\u201d \u201cSingers\u201d in earlier sources are always presented in 1 Esdras as \u201cTemple singers,\u201d to distinguish them from secular singers (seen in 5:41). Another change is made in the title of the leaders of the Temple singers. They are not presented as \u201cseers,\u201d as in Chronicles, but as part of the king\u2019s retinue; they are nevertheless presented as David\u2019s associates in the original establishment of the Temple singers\u2019 role.
\n1:16. the (sacrificial) ritual The conclusion of the Passover ritual makes clear that everything was carried out according to the instruction of the king.
\n1:17. and the sons of Israel The celebration of the Passover is followed by a seven-day celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The significance of this part of the festival is played down, and no details are provided regarding the place of the celebration: did the people go back to their settlements, as prescribed in Deut. 16:7, or did they stay in Jerusalem, as in the Passover celebrated by Hezekiah (2 Chron. 30:21\u201327)?
\n1:18\u201320. such a Passover The conclusion of the story highlights the uniqueness of Josiah\u2019s initiative. It repeats in two different ways that nothing like it was ever celebrated in the kingdom of Israel, neither in the pre-Davidic period, represented in Chronicles by the prophet Samuel, nor by any of the kings. From the perspective of 1 Esdras, which views the event from a later chronological point than the one presupposed in Chronicles, the uniqueness of the event was not only in comparison with the past but also in comparison with the future: nothing like it\u2014under the leadership of a Davidic king in an independent kingdom\u2014would ever occur again at any historical time. 1 Esdras introduces a slight but revealing modification to the text taken from 2 Chron. 35:18\u201320, which mentions three groups among the participants: Judah, all Israel that were present (i.e., people from outside of Judah who came to Jerusalem from northern Israel), and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 1 Esdras mentions only two groups: \u201cthe Judeans and all Israel who were present in their residences in Jerusalem.\u201d Although the term \u201cIsrael\u201d is preserved, it does not refer to anyone outside the boundaries of Judah. Only the people who lived in Judah and Jerusalem celebrated the Passover in Josiah\u2019s time; no one else.
\n1:21\u201322 This theological observation is the only relatively extensive passage that 1 Esdras adds to the account of the last kings of Judah. It is placed at the turning point in the history of Judah, after the account of Josiah\u2019s unique performance and his strict adherence to the \u201cLaw of Moses\u201d and \u201cthe command of David\u201d and before the account of his last war and untimely death. A note with the same theological role is found at the same place in the story in 2 Kings 23:25\u201327, where the exemplary figure and deeds of Josiah are balanced against the sins of Manasseh and God\u2019s decision is pronounced to \u201cbanish Judah from My presence.\u201d The Chronicler omitted this note from the parallel narrative because of the contradiction between its theological message and his own views of God\u2019s justice and providence. 1 Esdras reintroduces the theological note but rephrases it.
\nand the deeds of Josiah 1 Esdras does not mention Manasseh explicitly but seems to refer to him in mentioning those who \u201cintentionally grieved\u201d the LORD (2 Kings 21:6 = 2 Chron. 33:6) and did \u201cgreater evil than the nations\u201d had done (2 Kings 21:9). Also peculiar to 1 Esdras is the reference to writing. The deeds of Josiah were \u201crecorded\u201d for the benefit of later generations\u2014the penchant of 1 Esdras to writings and records is amply illustrated in the book. The text of 1 Esdras is difficult; I tried to clarify it by the addition of a few words, certainly implied but not explicitly written.
\n1:23\u201331 Josiah\u2019s war against the king of Egypt, described briefly in 2 Kings 23:29\u201330, is greatly elaborated in 2 Chron. 35:20\u201324a. The laconic remark that Pharaoh killed Josiah upon seeing him (2 Kings 23:29b) is amplified in Chronicles to include the Egyptian king\u2019s address, sent to Josiah by messengers, a description of Josiah\u2019s response (2 Chron. 35:21\u201323), the account of Josiah\u2019s death, and a short introduction. The significance of these additions lies in their theological role: Josiah\u2019s death in the war was not a random, military act of Pharaoh, but punishment from God for Josiah\u2019s sin: disobedience to the word of the LORD. The Chronicler needed this addition to settle the incongruence between Josiah\u2019s untimely death and his conception of God\u2019s justice and providence. According to the Chronicler\u2019s concepts of God\u2019s justice, Josiah\u2019s death could be explained only as punishment, which necessarily was preceded by sin. The Chronicler provided these necessary supplements in his account of the event. 1 Esdras follows the story of Josiah\u2019s death as presented in 2 Chronicles, but further clarifies and emphasizes its theological message through small additions and changes. Unit structure: Josiah\u2019s death in war (1:23\u201329), mourning over Josiah (1:30), and the record of Josiah\u2019s reign and deeds (1:31).
\n1:23. and after all this Following 2 Chron. 35:20, 1 Esdras prefaces the story with a short introduction; it does not mention that Pharaoh\u2019s destination was a war against Assyria, but adds to the 2 Kings account the location of the battle: Carchemish on the Euphrates. Contrary to 2 Chronicles, however, 1 Esdras systematically omits the name of the Egyptian king and refers to him as Pharaoh or \u201cthe king of Egypt.\u201d
\n1:24\u201326. and the king of Egypt The main thrust of Pharaoh\u2019s address is that he was sent to battle by God and should not be disturbed on the way. Pharaoh refers to his God as \u201cthe LORD who is with me\u201d; the Chronicler identified this God with the God of Josiah but used the general title \u201cGod.\u201d In all the occurrences of this title\u2014five times in this short passage\u20141 Esdras replaces \u201cGod\u201d by the title \u201cthe LORD God\u201d or simply \u201cthe LORD,\u201d the title of the God of Israel. According to 1 Esdras, Pharaoh\u2019s God was the God of Israel, and he was hastening him to wage war on the Euphrates. Moreover, rather than \u201cJosiah \u2026 [was] heedless of Necho\u2019s words from the mouth of God\u201d (2 Chron. 35:22), 1 Esdras reads \u201cJosiah \u2026 did not heed the words of the prophet Jeremiah from the mouth of the LORD.\u201d 1 Esdras does not specify where and when Jeremiah spoke to Josiah about this issue, but the message is clear: Josiah should have listened to the LORD\u2019s warning and retreated from battle, but he did not. The tragic outcome was thus fully justified.
\n1:26\u201329. but Josiah Although there are some differences in detail between 1 Esdras and 2 Chron. 35:22\u201324a, the general picture is similar: Josiah was wounded in battle, was moved to Jerusalem, and died there.
\n1:30\u201331. they mourned for Josiah The account of the mourning over Josiah\u2014the most detailed and comprehensive description of mourning in the Bible, exceeding even that of Moses (Deut. 34:8)\u2014was introduced into the story by the Chronicler, and 1 Esdras followed. The statement that this mourning was established \u201cforever\u201d and has been practiced \u201cto this day\u201d raises the historical question regarding the actual practice of this mourning at the time of the Chronicler, or even later at the time of 1 Esdras. There is no historical evidence for the persistence of this practice, but the later Midrash identifies the lament \u201cI am the man\u201d in Lam. 3 as Jeremiah\u2019s lament over Josiah; the notes of 2 Chronicles and 1 Esdras may perhaps reflect the origins of this tradition. \u201cLaments\u201d mentioned in 2 Chron. 35:25 and traditionally explained as the title of the book of Lamentations is replaced in 1 Esdras by \u201cthe Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah.\u201d
\n1:31. these things are recorded The laconic note about the recording of Josiah\u2019s deeds in 2 Kings 23:28 is broadened in 2 Chron. 35:26 and then somewhat rephrased in 1 Esdras by the reference to \u201chis understanding of the Law of the LORD.\u201d
\n1:32\u201355 The records of the last four kings of Judah are greatly abbreviated in 2 Chron. 36 and further changed in 1 Esdras. The names and relationships of the last reigning kings are attested in the Bible in three different constellations and further changed in 1 Esdras. According to 2 Kings 24 three of Josiah\u2019s sons became kings: Josiah\u2019s immediate follower was Jehoahaz, his second son (who according to Jer. 22:11 was also called Shallum); Jehoahaz was followed by his elder brother Eliakim\/Jehoiakim; who was then followed by his son, Josiah\u2019s grandson, Jehoiachin (Coniah in Jer. 22:24 and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. 3:16\u201317). The last king, Zedekiah (originally Mattaniah), was Jehoiachin\u2019s uncle, a third son of Josiah (2 Kings 24:17). The order and names of the kings are preserved in Chronicles but the last king, Zedekiah, is described there as Jehoiachin\u2019s brother, that is, Jehoiakim\u2019s son rather than his brother (2 Chron. 36:10; also 1 Chron. 3:16). Another tradition, preserved in 1 Chron. 3:15, enumerates four sons of Josiah\u2014Johanan (not known from any other source), Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum (= Jehoahaz?)\u2014and presents another Zedekiah as son of Jehoiakim. 1 Esdras has a different constellation altogether: the follower of Josiah is called Jeconiah rather than Jehoahaz, and he is followed by Joakeim (= Jehoiakim) his brother; the following king is Joakeim\u2019s son\u2014as elsewhere\u2014but he is called Joakeim II, rather than Jehoiachin; and the relationship of the last king, Zedekaiah, whether son of Jehoiakim (as in Chronicles) or his brother (as in Kings), is not mentioned. It seems that 1 Esdras\u2019s new constellation is an attempt to harmonize the different traditions and to upgrade Jehoiachin somewhat, who becomes Josiah\u2019s son rather than his grandson. All these changes, however, are not expressed in the actual account, which follows the main lines of 2 Chron. 36. Unit structure: Jechonia (1:32\u201334 = 2 Chron. 36:1\u20133 [Jehoahaz]), Joakeim (1:35\u201340 = 2 Chron. 36:4\u20138a [Jehoiakim]), Joakeim II (1:41\u201343 = 2 Chron. 36:8b\u201310a [Jehoiachin]), and Zedekiah (1:44\u201355 = 2 Chron. 36:11\u201321).
\n1:32\u201334. and some of the people \u201cThe people of the land\u201d of 2 Chron. 36:1 are presented here as \u201csome of the people,\u201d probably because the meaning of the term \u201cthe people of the land\u201d had changed over the years and did not fit anymore. It is also changed in 1 Esd. 5:69 (= Ezra 4:4) by its formulation in the plural. Another difference in this account is the omission of the king\u2019s exile to Egypt (in 2 Kings 23:34, \u201cwhere he died,\u201d omitted in Chronicles).
\n1:36. Joakeim fettered the officers The report of 2 Chron. 36:4b that the Egyptian king deported Jehoahaz to Egypt is turned in 1 Esdras into a rather obscure note about some acts of Jehoiakim himself: he \u201cfettered the officers\u201d and took his brother Zarios \u201cout of Egypt.\u201d Neither the episode nor a brother of Jehoiakim by the name Zarios are known from any other source.
\n1:38\u201339. Nabouchodonosor, king of Babylon The Chronicler reformulated the history of Jehoiakim and made it similar to that of Jehoiachin his son: Jehoiakim was exiled to Babylon, together with some of the Temple vessels. 1 Esdras follows this view, and the details found in 2 Kings 24:1b\u20134, 7 are omitted in both sources.
\n1:41\u201343. and Joakeim his son Except for the change in the king\u2019s name, 2 Chron. 36:8b\u201310a is repeated literally. The title of the Temple vessels throughout the book is \u201cthe holy vessels.\u201d
\n1:44\u201355 The reign of Zedekiah is the account of the end of the kingdom of Judah, which according to the Chronicler\u2019s view was God\u2019s punishment for the sins of one generation, that of Zedekiah. He thus enumerates in detail the sins of this generation and of all segments of the Judean society. The Chronicler\u2019s description of the destruction itself, however, is shorter than its parallel in Kings, and the 24 verses (2 Kings 24:18\u201325:21) are condensed into 10 (2 Chron. 36:11\u201320a) and reformulated. Chronicles also omitted the continuation of the story in Kings, about the fate of Gedaliah and Jehoiachin (2 Kings 25:21\u201330) and replaced it by a short conclusion that refers to the end of the servitude and the beginning of Cyrus\u2019s declaration (2 Chron. 36:20b\u201323). This picture, with small modifications in detail, is followed in 1 Esdras. Unit structure: Zedekiah\u2019s reign and sins (1:44\u201349), the Chaldean invasion and its cruelties (1:50\u201353), and the length of the servitude (1:54\u201355).
\n1:45\u201346. and he did evil The general statement of 2 Kings 24:19 that Zedekiah \u201cdid what was displeasing to the LORD\u201d is spelled out in 2 Chronicles as two different sins: disobedience to the LORD\u2019s will transmitted to him by Jeremiah, and violation of the oath to Nebuchadnezzar sworn by the name of God, thus desecrating God\u2019s name. More importantly, Zedekiah\u2019s transgressions are presented as having been committed intentionally: \u201cHe stiffened his neck and hardened his heart.\u201d To this description 1 Esdras adds that it is the Law of the LORD that Zedekiah intentionally transgressed. The insistence and obstinacy of Zedekiah\u2019s conduct evoked and justified God\u2019s fierce anger and retribution.
\n1:47. and the leaders According to the Chronicler\u2019s concept of God\u2019s justice, each segment of society is punished for its own sins, and there is no transference of sin or punishment from one to the other. He thus continues to describe the sins of the people, represented by their leaders, and of the priests in order to explain Judah\u2019s severe fate. He also specifies that they defiled God\u2019s Temple, a sin that not only evoked God\u2019s anger against the perpetrators but justified the destruction of the Temple itself.
\n1:48\u201349. the God of their fathers The worst aspect of the king\u2019s and the people\u2019s sin is their refusal to repent. The tone of theodicy is the strongest in this passage: God did everything in his power to avoid the catastrophe, as his mercy and compassion overrode the strict attribute of justice. God offered the people the means to prevent the impending fate by constantly sending prophets to warn them and make them repent, but the people not only refused to heed the prophets but scorned them and the word of God they were declaring. Punishment was inevitable.
\n1:50\u201353. they killed their young men Second Kings reported in detail many facts related to the end of the kingdom: the fate of Zedekiah himself (25:4\u20137), the details of the copper objects plundered from the Temple (25:13\u201317), the names and titles of the leaders brought before the Babylonian kings and executed (25:18\u201321), and poor farmers being left in the land (25:12). It also referred to the aftermath of the destruction and to the fate of Gedaliah in Judah (25:22\u201326) and of Jehoiachin in Babylonia (25:27\u201330). The Chronicler omitted all these details and presented in an elevated style, influenced by that of Lamentations, only the main points of the destruction. This is the record, with some changes of detail, followed by 1 Esdras. The punishment included everyone and everything: death; plunder; destruction of the Temple, city walls, and towers; and the utter destruction of every valuable object. The survivors who escaped death were deported to Babylon.
\n1:54. and they became slaves The story does not end with the destruction but with the prospect of restoration. The length of desolation is calculated from two perspectives: the prediction of Moses, repeated almost literally, that the land would lay waste in order to make up for all the Sabbatical years that the people did not observe (Lev. 26:34\u201335, 43), and Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy that the \u201cthese peoples\u201d will bear the yoke of the Babylonian servitude for 70 years (Jer. 25:11; 29:10). Our text combines the two perspectives and presents them as Jeremiah\u2019s prophecy; the precise historical term and the identity of the liberator are specified: the rise of the Persian kingdom.
\n2:1\u201325 The transition from destruction to restoration is made already in Chronicles, where the historical account ends with the first sentences of Cyrus\u2019s declaration. 1 Esdras follows this clue and moves directly from the end of Chronicles to the beginning of Ezra, where it presents the history of the restoration in two phases: the rebuilding of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem in the time of Cyrus and Darius, based primarily on Ezra 1\u20136 with additions and a change of order, and the activity of Ezra in the time of Artaxerxes, based on Ezra 7\u201310 + Neh. 7:72\u20138:13a. The beginning of the story follows Ezra 1 almost verbatim: the restoration was initiated by Cyrus, who issued a declaration in the first year of his reign as king of the Babylonian Empire allowing the Judeans to return to Judah and build the Temple in Jerusalem. It was followed by the people\u2019s prompt response and the delivery of the sacred vessels to Sheshbazzar (Sanabassaros in 1 Esdras), who brought them back to Jerusalem. At this point, however, 1 Esdras departs from the historical sequence presented in Ezra and rather than continuing with the return from Babylon (Ezra 2), the erection of the altar, and the laying of the Temple foundations (Ezra 3), moves to the interference of the local opponents of Judah, the correspondence between the provincial authorities and King Artaxerxes, and the cessation of building and restoration, as depicted in Ezra 4:6\u201324. Unit structure: Cyrus\u2019s declaration and its aftermath (2:1\u201314), and letter of accusation to Artaxerxes and its aftermath (2:15\u201325).
\n2:1\u201314 Upon conquering Babylon and assuming the rule of the Babylonian Empire, Cyrus adopted all the titles of the former Babylonian kings, as illustrated by the epigraphic evidence; only later was the title \u201cking of Persia\u201d adopted by Darius. In our pericope (but not in 6:16 = Ezra 5:13) Cyrus is presented four times by the anachronistic title \u201cking of the Persians.\u201d This fact, together with considerations relating to the contents, style, and vocabulary of the declaration, leads many scholars to regard the declaration of Ezra 1:2\u20134 as an inauthentic document, composed by the author of Ezra-Nehemiah on the basis of Ezra 6:3\u20135. Other scholars, however, attribute the differences between the two versions to their different format, goal, and addressees. Be that as it may, these considerations do not apply to 1 Esdras, who simply reproduced Ezra 1 as is. Unit structure: Cyrus\u2019s declaration (2:1\u20136), popular response to the declaration (2:7\u20138), and delivery and return of the holy vessels (2:9\u201314).
\n2:1\u20132. in the first year Cyrus\u2019s declaration is dated in the first year of his reign (the date repeated in 6:23 = Ezra 6:3), the first year of his reign over the Babylonian Empire (538 BCE). Cyrus\u2019s act is presented in a theological framework: it was not a political initiative motivated by pragmatic considerations, but the result of the \u201carous[ing] of the spirit\u201d by the God of Israel, the purpose of which was to \u201caccomplish the word \u2026 of Jeremiah.\u201d It thus expresses the dominant concept of biblical historiography that all historical events are fulfillment of preceding words of God.
\n2:3\u20134. thus says Cyrus The words attributed to Cyrus make him recognize that his achievement of world domination was not his own but was made possible by the act of God, and it is at God\u2019s command that he was initiating the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. As appropriate for the Persian period, the title of this God in Ezra 1:2 is \u201cGod of heaven,\u201d repeated in several places in Ezra-Nehemiah and other contemporary sources. This title is generally avoided by 1 Esdras and is either omitted, changed, or replaced by other titles. Here it is replaced by \u201cthe LORD Most High\u201d (\u2018el \u2018elyon; e.g., Gen. 14:18\u201322). This consistent change discloses the distance from the Persian period and its theological vocabulary.
\n2:5. now, if any of you The festive, theological introduction is followed by Cyrus\u2019s actual permissions granted to the Judean community in Babylon: to go up to Jerusalem, to build the Temple, and\u2014in the next verse\u2014to transfer money and goods from the Diaspora to Jerusalem and Judah. A comparison with Cyrus\u2019s grants in 6:23\u201325 (= Ezra 6:3\u20135) discloses the emphasis laid here on the return of the people. It is placed here as the first item, but not even hinted at in the other version. It also points clearly to the addressees of the declaration: the Judeans in exile, for whom the building implied as a matter of fact a return to Judah, rather than those in Judah itself.
\n2:6. now, those who live Cyrus\u2019s generous permission to the Judeans to transfer money and goods from Babylon to Jerusalem seems to replace his own commitment to cover the expenses of the building from the resources of the Persian government, as mentioned in the other version of the declaration (6:24 = Ezra 6:4). This view of the matter may be interpreted in two ways: as a reflection of a later realization that the promised governmental support was in fact never implemented or as a wish to compare the return from Babylon to the Exodus from Egypt, when the departing Israelites carried with them money and goods given by their Egyptian neighbors (Exod. 12:35\u201336).
\n2:7\u20138. the heads of the fathers\u2019 houses The declaration is met with immediate response from both the Judeans and their neighbors. The Judeans, having been inspired by God, consisted of members of three tribes: Judah and Benjamin are mentioned explicitly, and the tribe of Levi is presented in its division into two professional classes: priests and Levites. Their neighbors followed suit and, as suggested by Cyrus, helped the departing Israelites.
\n2:9\u201311. and King Cyrus Cyrus accompanied the series of permissions with a special gesture: the delivery to the returning Judeans of the Temple vessels plundered by the Babylonians. In 6:23\u201325 (Ezra 6:3\u20135) the return of the vessels is included in the declaration itself, whereas here it is described as an additional act of Cyrus. From a literary point of view it seems that the author of Ezra 1 reformulated and restructured the memorandum of 1 Esd. 6:23\u201325. The bureaucratic procedure is well illustrated: from Cyrus to his treasurer, and from him to the leader of the Judeans. As in many other cases in 1 Esdras, the names of the protagonists are differently presented, but their identity may be established by comparison to Ezra. The name Sanabassaros seems to be a conflation of Sheshbazzar (Ezra 1:8) and Shenazzar (1 Chron. 3:18).
\n2:12\u201313. this was their number The official list has the impressive number of over 5,000 small vessels, most of them silver, but also a great number of golden vessels and \u201cothers.\u201d The text of 1 Esdras\u2014including the names of the vessels and their numbers\u2014differs in detail from that of Ezra 1:9\u201311a and may perhaps reflect a better version of the list.
\n2:14. were brought back According to Ezra 1, the vessels were indeed brought back to Jerusalem by Sheshbazzar, a fact confirmed by 1 Esd. 6:18\u201319 (= Ezra 5:15\u201316). Their return is also mentioned by the prophet Isaiah (52:11). Notwithstanding its own mention of the return of the vessels, 1 Esdras later on attributes the actual return of the vessels to Zerubbabel, who received them from Darius (4:44, 57). The issue of \u201cthe vessels,\u201d already of great significance in Ezra, is further elaborated in 1 Esdras, and their place in the story is augmented. According to this version, Cyrus took the vessels from their place in Babylon and intended to return them but did not accomplish it; the vessels were later transferred to Zerubbabel, who brought them to Jerusalem. 1 Esdras tries to harmonize the two views but the harmonization is only partly successful, as is evidenced by the present verse.
\n2:15\u201325 The correspondence with Artaxerxes, which resulted in the complete cessation of the work, is transferred to this place in 1 Esdras from Ezra 4:6\u201324. Its original place in Ezra 4 is already problematic: from a historical perspective it places Artaxerxes between Cyrus and Darius rather than in his correct chronological place after Xerxes, Darius\u2019s successor; from the perspective of its contents it is supposed to interrupt the building of the Temple, while in fact it deals throughout with the building of the city. The answer to these difficulties\u2014as has been long recognized\u2014is that following his wish to illustrate the interventions of Judah\u2019s enemies by official documents and not having one in his possession, the author of Ezra-Nehemiah used a document from a later period and introduced it at this place. 1 Esdras moves the correspondence to the time of Cyrus but the historical results are even grimmer. Not only does it place Artaxerxes in this unhistorical date, but it contrasts with his own view of the building procedure. 1 Esdras postpones the beginning of the work to the time of Darius, after the appointment of Zerubbabel (4:43\u201345, 51, 63); the stopping of the building at this point remains entirely out of place. While the majority of scholars regard the order of the events as presented in Ezra 4 to be more original than that of 1 Esdras, some scholars are of the opinion that the original order is preserved in 1 Esdras. It seems that no solution would solve all the difficulties in the historical and literary presentations, but two further considerations favor viewing Ezra as original and the change of order in 1 Esdras as a tendentious and distant reworking. First, the new order serves 1 Esdras\u2019s tendency to present the building of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem as one contemporary enterprise, united from the very beginning of the period. Cyrus\u2019s declaration mentioned only the Temple, but in order to join the building of the city to that of the Temple 1 Esdras introduces immediately after Cyrus\u2019s declaration the correspondence with Artaxerxes, which dealt with the building of the city, and also inserts into it references to the Temple. This line is followed later on in the account, most prominently by the omission of the story of Nehemiah, the builder of Jerusalem. Second, there is the identification of King Artaxerxes, whose insertion at this point immediately after Cyrus is extremely difficult. The solution seems to be offered by an assumption, followed explicitly in later Jewish sources but may go back to earlier times, that \u201cArtaxerxes\u201d was not the name of any Persian king but a general title, used for any king, like \u201cPharaoh\u201d for the Egyptian kings (Seder Olam Rabbah 30:12). This understanding of the name, which provided the framework for the Rabbinic chronology of the Persian period, was of course possible only when the Persian period and the literature relating to it were observed from a distance and the identity of the Persian kings had already been forgotten. If this assumption is applied to 1 Esdras, the \u201cArtaxerxes\u201d of the following passage could be any king at that date\u2014either Cyrus himself, who changed his mind, or even better, his son Cambyses, who followed him. This is indeed the picture presented by Josephus. This hypothesis does not explain all the tensions in 1 Esdras, but together with its view of the process of restoration, it does ease them to a great extent. Unit structure: letter of accusation to Artaxerxes (2:15\u201320), the king\u2019s response (2:21\u201324), and cessation of the work (2:25).
\n2:15. in the time of Artaxerxes The source of 1 Esdras in Ezra 4:6\u201324 mentioned three different letters: one at the time of Xerxes, presented in general terms (4:6), and two at the time of Artaxerxes (4:7, 4:8\u201324), of which the third is prefaced by a long introduction and cited in full. 1 Esdras has only one letter, with a rather simple introduction. Nevertheless, even the short introduction, which omits many of the details of Ezra 4:9\u201310, contains allusions to the two other letters: the topic of the letter, defined as \u201cthose residing in Judah and Jerusalem,\u201d is taken from the letter to Xerxes (Ezra 4:6), and the list of the senders of the letter includes three names taken from the first letter to Artaxerxes (Ezra 4:7); they are not mentioned in the correspondence itself.
\n2:16. to King Artaxerxes The letter begins with a formal address, absent from Ezra 4:11, and presents the names of the senders, taken from Ezra 4:9. Of the long list of peoples and functions mentioned in Ezra 4:9\u201310, our verse retains only the \u201cjudges\u201d and relates them to \u201cCoelesyria and Phoenicia\u201d (1 Esdras\u2019s Greek equivalent of the administrative term \u201cBeyond the River\u201d) the name of the satrapy in the Persian period\u2014repeated in 1 Esdras seven times (2:20, 23; 4:48; 6:28; 7:1; 8:64).
\n2:17. now, be it known The accusation is straightforward: the newcomers from Babylon are building the city of Jerusalem. To the details of Ezra 4:12\u2014building the city, repairing the walls, and laying the foundations\u20141 Esdras adds repairing of the marketplaces and the specification of the general term \u201cfoundations\u201d as referring to the foundation of the Temple, thus combining into one the building of the city and the Temple. Already at this stage of stating the facts, the city is described as \u201crebellious and evil,\u201d anticipating the following accusations.
\n2:18. now, if this city Judah\u2019s opponents strike immediately at a sensitive spot for the Persian king, the threat embodied in a fortified city to the financial interests of the kingdom. They also add to it the possibility of an actual rebellion, not mentioned in Ezra 4:13. They do not, however, substantiate their claims with any actual facts; rather, they refer the king to the history of Jerusalem, advising him to look for precedents of such a possible scenario.
\n2:19. and you will find The opponents connect the present-day desolation of the city to its history. Judging from this history, a fortified Jerusalem would strive for independence, and this is something that the king would certainly wish to avoid. The accusers speak very generally of \u201cold times\u201d and do not mention any specific period or event, but their confident reference to the royal \u201cmemoranda\u201d may imply that what they have in mind is the Judean struggle for independence at the time of Zedekiah, which ended with the Babylonian conquest.
\n2:20. now therefore we inform you The accusers conclude their letter with the claim that a far-reaching threat to the welfare of the empire is inherent in the building of Jerusalem, a threat to the emperor\u2019s dominion of the whole satrapy of Coelesyria and Phoenicia.
\n2:21\u201323. then the king wrote back The king followed the advice of his officials in Samaria and ordered a search in the state archives. His results were even broader than those made by the accusations of his officials, and his response was rather concise. He confirmed that \u201cthis city resisted kings from of old,\u201d but also that it posed a serious rival to the empire\u2019s welfare, as there were kings there who actually \u201cexacted tribute\u201d from the entire satrapy. We have no way to confirm the king\u2019s claim\u2014such an extensive dominion of the kingdom of Judah is not attested anywhere\u2014unless we go very far back in history to the stories about the united kingdom, which would indicate that the Persian king consulted not only his royal memoranda, but also Jewish historical sources.
\n2:24. so now I have ordered The king makes no attempt to hear the other side; his reaction is completely in line with the accusers\u2019 position and his conclusion is straightforward: the rebuilding of the city must be stopped immediately! The tone of the king\u2019s letter and his general stand toward Jerusalem can be well understood if placed in their original position, in the early days of Artaxerxes, with their political problems and unrest. His order to stop the building of the city would also provide a suitable background for the later appeal of Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem and build it. In its present position in 1 Esdras, however, after the benevolent attitude of Cyrus toward Judah, it is completely incomprehensible and defies any historical reasoning. Such lack of historical logic would not bother the author of 1 Esdras, who was far removed from the Persian period.
\n2:25. then, when the document The effect of the king\u2019s message was immediate: the building was stopped by force. Unfortunately, the voices of the local Judean governor and the Judean community are not presented, neither in the original version of this episode nor in 1 Esdras.
\n3:1\u20134:63 The story of Darius\u2019s three bodyguards, known by several similar titles, is peculiar to 1 Esdras. Its basis is formed by a universal wisdom tale about a competition for the title \u201cthe wisest man in the kingdom\u201d; the means by which this title with all its ancillary benefits is to be awarded is a rhetorical debate on the topic of who or what is the strongest thing in the world. This debate is the focus and target of the story. The speeches included in the story are of a most general character and apply to issues common to all human beings in a variety of social and political backgrounds. This universal wisdom tale was secondarily adapted to a specific historical context by the identification of some of the protagonists with known historical figures and by its insertion into a specific point in the history of the restoration. The episode is placed in Darius\u2019s palace in the second year of his reign, and the protagonists are King Darius and Zerubbabel. Some of these adaptations, like the identity of the king, run smoothly and create no literary or historical problems. The secondary character of other details, like the identification of the \u201cthird guardsman\u201d with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, remains apparent. The multilayered character of the story demonstrates that it was not written originally by the author of 1 Esdras but, following his literary procedure in the entire work, taken from an existing story and adapted to his own needs. Although the general contours of the story are clear, with the absence of any other version of the story, it is difficult to distinguish between the original format of the story and its adaptations. One interesting question about this story relates to its original language. Although some earlier scholars claimed that it was written originally in Greek, it has been convincingly shown that both the adaptations of 1 Esdras and the original story were written in a Semitic language, still reflected in the Greek translation. Because of their similarity and reciprocal influence it is not easy to decide whether this language was Hebrew or Aramaic. The author of 1 Esdras was obviously versed in both languages, as both served as his sources in Ezra-Nehemiah. The affinity between the story and other biblical texts was observed long ago, and sometimes one can hear in the literary texture echoes of complete verses from earlier literature. I will refer to the most obvious of these echoes in the commentary. Unit structure: competition between the bodyguards (3:1\u201316a), speeches (3:16b\u20134:41), outcome of the competition (4:42\u201357), and thanksgiving and rejoicing (4:58\u201363).
\n3:1\u201316a As in many other wisdom tales, the episode is placed in the king\u2019s court, in the framework of a banquet. However, rather than forming part of the banquet\u2019s entertainment, the competition between the bodyguards is placed in the private precincts of the king, as a kind of aftermath of the banquet. Moreover, the competition takes place after the banquet\u2019s guests have already departed, and when Darius decided to go on with the competition and assume the role of judge, he again summoned all his officials who had just departed. The connection between the banquet and the debate is superficial, and the king\u2019s banquet was added under the influence of similar stories, perhaps specifically the story of Esther. The logic of the story raises several questions. The initiative to draw up a competition and set its conditions are said to have come from the bodyguards themselves, perhaps out of boredom in their nightly shift. But this is a rather unusual picture: is it thinkable that the bodyguards would dictate to the king what to do and specifically how to reward the one declared wisest? Moreover, Darius is described as having awakened twice\u2014could it not be a result of some textual corruption through translation or transmission? Unit structure: Darius\u2019s banquet (3:1\u20133), terms of the competition (3:4\u20139), statements by guardsmen (3:10\u201312), and setting of the speeches (3:13\u201316a).
\n3:1\u20133. King Darius held Darius\u2019s banquet is dated to his second year, and the opening of the story lays emphasis on the large gathering of every official and person of distinction in Darius\u2019s empire. The only information about the banquet itself is that \u201cthey ate and drank and \u2026 departed\u201d\u2014in contrast to the elaborate description in Esther 1:3\u20139. The description of Darius\u2019s empire as comprising 127 provinces is anachronistic, for at that time the empire did not reach these extreme boundaries and Darius had not yet organized the empire along these lines; it is clearly influenced by Esther 1:1.
\n3:3. and they ate The author\u2019s interest is to set the background of the competition rather than describe the banquet itself, and even the duration of the banquet is not mentioned (in Esther, the banquet of Xerxes lasted 180 days throughout the empire, followed by a seven-day banquet in the capital). The reference to Darius\u2019s waking up at this point is not clear. Is it a preemptive allusion to what will take place later (3:9), or is it a reference to a kind of sleeplessness (cf. Esther 6:1) that has been mistranslated? The immediate continuation of the story takes place, however, during his sleep.
\n3:4. then the three young men According to this story the king\u2019s bodyguard consisted of three men. It makes sense that the unit should be larger than one man, for both security and convenience, but in this case it is possible that the number was indicated by literary conventions rather than actual historical circumstances.
\n3:5. let each one of us The bodyguards suggest the idea of the competition and its conditions. The topic is expressed quite concisely, but the conditions are described in great detail. The judicial procedure is suggested in a most general way: the \u201cstatement appears wiser,\u201d without any reference to the manner in which this will be decided. The person who will become obligated by the results of the competition is expressly the king: \u201cTo him King Darius will give.\u201d This manner of proposing the conditions of the competition perhaps suits the wisdom tale, but certainly not actual historical circumstances.
\n3:6. he will wear The gifts awarded by the king all revolve around the winner\u2019s status as a member of the royal entourage, expressed in the standard signs of this office. Externally, these signs include clothes and accessories: purple clothes, golden cups, a golden couch, and a chariot with golden bridles (Esther 1:6; 8:15; Dan. 5:7, 16, 29 [\u201cthey clothed Daniel in purple\u201d]; Song 3:10). The other symbols of royalty are the turban, described in the Bible as part of the high priest\u2019s attire (Exod. 28:4, 37; Ezek. 21:31), and the golden necklace, presented as a special royal sign (Dan. 5:7, 16, 29; Gen. 41:42).
\n3:7. he will sit Finally, the winner\u2019s status is explicitly defined: \u201csit next to Darius\u201d (i.e., be second to the king) and \u201ckinsman of Darius.\u201d Both titles belong to the terminology of the court, the second more specifically of the Persian court. For \u201csecond to the king,\u201d see Gen. 41:40, 43; 1 Sam. 23:17; 2 Chron. 28:7; Esther 10:3. In Esther 1:14, seven \u201cministers of Persia and Media\u201d who sat in the \u201cfirst place in the kingdom\u201d are described as \u201cha[ving] access to the royal presence.\u201d It is rather strange that the extension of such exceptional distinctions would be decided by the guardsmen themselves (contrast Dan. 5:7; Gen. 41:40; Esther 6:6\u201310).
\n3:8\u20139. then each of them The judicial procedure is clarified: the decision is to be made by the king and the \u201cthree officials of Persia,\u201d the highest authority of the empire besides the king himself (Dan. 6:3). The procedure is not confirmed by the story itself.
\n3:10\u201312. one wrote The reader expects to find three candidates for the title of \u201cthe strongest.\u201d The story, however, presents four, making the last speaker first suggest one idea and then go back on his own words and suggest another. This structure by itself may suggest that the fourth item was not original to the story and was added at some point, perhaps even by the author of 1 Esdras himself. As we will see later, there is also an essential difference in perspective and context between the three first candidates on the one hand and the fourth on the other.
\n3:13\u201316. when the king woke up The story then proceeds smoothly: the king wakes up, reads the statements, summons his officials, and asks the three youths to vindicate their views by oral presentations. The stage is prepared for the main part of the wisdom tale, the speeches about \u201cthe strongest.\u201d
\n3:16b\u20134:41 The three first speeches are set in a similar rhetorical framework: after a short introduction presenting the speaker and his topic, the speech begins with an exclamation, follows with a presentation of the arguments, and ends with another exclamation. The fourth speech deviates from this rhetorical framework. It begins indeed with a vocative \u201cO men!\u201d but moves immediately to the presentation of the arguments and mentions the topic, truth, only later (3:23). Also the end of the fourth speech differs from that of the others, as it consists of a blessing rather than of the standard exclamatory address.
\nThere is, however, a literary link between the third and fourth speeches. Differently from his two predecessors, the third speaker does not limit his arguments about the power of women to general statements and ends his speech with an actual example from the private precincts of the ruling king. This part of the third speech (4:29\u201331) serves as a springboard for the fourth speech, which follows after a short pause. It seems therefore that not only the fourth speech but also the end of the third are part of a secondary literary layer, which set the wisdom tale in a specific historical context. To this layer we should also ascribe the gloss in 4:13. The fourth speech differs from the first three also by its perspective. Wine, king, and women are presented from the perspective of the common experience of men in their physical and social reality. The fourth item, truth, by contrast, is an abstract spiritual concept and belongs to another sphere. The argument moves from the practical aspects of human life to the spiritual foundations of the world, from the sphere of the secular to the sphere of religion. One question posed by the speeches is their present order. The logic of the story demands a gradual progress between them, with each later speaker referring to the arguments of his predecessor. This happens only partially in the present order. The first speech about wine already refers to the king, the topic of the following speech, but the second speech, on the power of the king, does not refer to the speech that preceded it. This may suggest that the original order of the speeches was different, king first and wine second. On the other hand, at least in its present form there is a strong connection between the second speech about the king and the following one about women. Another aspect of this question is the length of the speeches, which become longer as they proceed, and the speech about wine is indeed the shortest. Thus, in the absence of further evidence this matter cannot be fully settled. Unit structure: the power of wine (3:16b\u201323), the power of the king (4:1\u201312), the power of women (4:13\u201332), and the power of truth (4:33\u201341).
\n3:16b\u201323 The speech on the power of wine is a unified rhetorical piece, led by one major idea: wine\u2019s detrimental influence over humans and its destructive effect on the conventional social order and propriety. The detrimental power of wine is alluded to in the Bible (Isa. 5:1; 28:1, 7; Prov. 20:1; 31:4\u20135), but there it is balanced by the pleasure of wine and its positive effect on human well-being (Ps. 104:15; Eccles. 9:7; 10:19). This point is absent from the present speech. Unit structure: introduction (3:16b), wine\u2014the great equalizer of minds (3:17\u201318), wine\u2014the cause of illusionary happiness (3:19\u201320), wine\u2014the cause of ruthless and unrestrained behavior (3:21\u201322), and conclusion (3:23).
\n3:17. O men! The speech begins, appropriately, with an exclamatory statement and moves immediately to the leading idea: the power of wine lies in its ability to confuse the minds of human beings. After drinking wine, a man \u201cis not himself\u201d anymore.
\n3:18. it turns the mind The first illustration of wine\u2019s power is its equalizing effect, as it erases all social distinctions. The highest persons on the social ladder and the lowest persons on this ladder are influenced by wine in the same way; they all become equal in their state of confusion\u2014king and orphan, slave and free, poor and rich. While the last two couplings are rather standard, the first is somewhat unusual and presents a social situation in which the orphan is the weakest member of the society. (For a similar pair, although differently qualified, see Eccles. 4:13.)
\n3:19\u201320. it turns the mind toward feasting Wine creates a false feeling of strength and happiness. It makes people leave the realities of the world and move to a happy, unrealistic world of freedom and joy. They forget their obligations, either financial or social, the hierarchical order of society, and their place in it, and become in this imaginary existence happy, free, and rich.
\n3:21\u201322. and when they drink Wine exerts its power also on human personality and behavior: it makes people lose control of their actions and act with unbalanced temper and violence. Moreover, they cannot even be reproached for their behavior under the influence of wine because they lose the sense of responsibility and the more positive emotions of love and friendship. When they sober up from the wine they do not remember what they have done.
\n3:23. O men! The speaker ends his speech with a concluding exclamatory address: the thing that is capable of exerting such an influence on human beings and human society is surely the strongest!
\n4:1\u201312 The leading idea of the second speech is the unlimited control of the king over the lives and actions of his subjects. This power is presented from a negative perspective: the king\u2019s subjects are devoid of personal freedom and lack the ability to choose and decide; all their actions, good or bad, are dictated by the king\u2019s orders. The speech is built around the contrast between the king\u2019s dominion and his subjects\u2019 obeisance and is rather daring in its critique of the social and political order. While the speech about wine brought to light the weakness of human nature, which turns upside down under the influence of wine, one may sense a tone of criticism in the description of the king\u2019s unjustified total power. Unit structure: introduction (4:1), the king\u2019s dominion over his subjects (4:2\u20133), the power of the king over his army (4:4\u20135), the power of the king to exact tribute (4:6), the total submission of the many to the will of the one (4:7\u201310a), the protection of the king\u2019s body (4:10b\u201311), and conclusion (4:12).
\n4:2. O men! The second speaker begins his speech in an argumentative tone and starts from an accepted general maxim\u2014the power of people. The line of his argument is simple: people are the strongest creatures of the world, but since they are dominated by the king\u2019s will, he is the supreme power on earth. The statement about human rule of the world sounds like an echo of the story of the creation: \u201cLet them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth.\u2026 Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth\u201d (Gen. 1:26, 28 NRSV). However, while this blessing invests in human hands only the dominion over the world\u2019s living creatures, the second speech describes humans as rulers of \u201cthe land and the sea and all things in them.\u201d This general statement is then illustrated from several perspectives.
\n4:4\u20135. if he tells them The first illustration of the king\u2019s power is his military activities and his power over his soldiers: his decision to act violently and wage war is fully obeyed and carried out, even at the price of the soldiers\u2019 lives. The speech presents the king\u2019s wish to wage war as a whimsical, personal decision, with no justification of any kind. His army will do whatever he commands them and make the greatest effort to satisfy his goals, with no questions asked or disobedience considered. Moreover, the gains of war in spoil and other things are also the king\u2019s, as everything is brought to him by his forces.
\n4:6. those who do not serve Second to the army are the civilians who do not serve in the army. They too are obedient to the king\u2019s command and express it by the tribute they pay. Not only are they careful to offer the yield of their labor to the king, but they also keep an eye on each other. No one is exempt from this obligation.
\n4:7\u201310a. he is but one man The speaker expresses his amazing observation of the king\u2019s ability to dominate. Although he is but one man, everything that he commands, positive or negative, is blindly obeyed! The speaker does not explain the source of this authority, its social framework, or its religious foundations, nor does he present the subjects\u2019 obeisance as exacted by force. It is an unexplained, subservient obeisance to this one man, the king.
\n4:10b\u201311. furthermore, he reclines As a final point the speaker turns to the efforts made to guard the king\u2019s person and welfare. The king is just a human being and his behavior is no different from that of any man, as he satisfies his needs in food, drink, and sleep. Nevertheless, every effort is made to keep him safe and secure. He is guarded around the clock, and his guards keep their shifts faithfully, with no negligence. This final remark alludes to the narrative framework of the episode\u2014the competition between the king\u2019s bodyguards.
\n4:12. O men! The speech ends with an exclamation: a man who is obeyed in this way is certainly the strongest.
\n4:13\u201332 The arguments of the third speech relate to its two predecessors, particularly to the second: the king is indeed the strongest among human beings, but all men, including the king, are dominated by women. The speech is composed of two parts: general arguments in support of the case, and an illustration of the argument by a specific example. The second section alludes to the actual circumstances of the ruling king and paves the way to the historical adaptation of the story. Unit structure: introduction (4:13), women are the masters of men (4:14), women as mothers (4:15\u201317), the power exerted by feminine beauty (4:18\u201319), a man\u2019s attachment to his wife (4:20\u201327), the episode in the king\u2019s chambers (4:28\u201331), and conclusion (4:32).
\n4:13. then the third one The standard presentation of the speaker is disturbed here by the identification of the speaker by name: \u201cHe was Zorobabel.\u201d With this note the historical setting of the episode is resumed and brought to the attention of the reader: it was an actual event, within a historical framework.
\n4:14. O men! The speech begins in an exclamatory formulation, followed by a series of rhetorical questions that connect the speech to the previous ones. The point of departure for the questions is a confirmation of the preceding claims: king and wine are indeed powerful, but both, and mankind in general, are dominated by a stronger power\u2014women.
\n4:15\u201317. women gave birth The source of women\u2019s power is the combination of biological and social facts: they give birth to human beings and raise their offspring. The speaker does not explain how these facts endow women with power\u2014is it a biological tie, a psychological attachment, or the result of social conditioning? The final statement that \u201cmen cannot exist without women\u201d has a double entendre: they cannot exist biologically because they are borne by women, and they cannot exist socially and psychologically because their needs are provided by women.
\n4:18\u201319. and if they have gathered The speaker then goes on to describe the attraction of men to women: a beautiful woman would make a man prefer her to all his material treasures, not as an act of will but as an internal, psychological drive.
\n4:20\u201321. a man leaves behind From the attraction of the feminine beauty the speaker moves to the attachment of man to his wife. In a statement that alludes to Gen. 2:24, he states as a fact that a wife is more important to a man than are his parents and his country; it is with her that he prefers to live his life until death.
\n4:22. it should hence be known After presenting \u201cthe facts of life,\u201d the speaker turns again to the audience: they should acknowledge their master! From the neutral description of facts, the speaker moves to a critical perspective: men are practically and psychologically subservient to women; all their actions, good or bad, are motivated by their wish to serve and satisfy women\u2019s pleasure.
\n4:23\u201324. a man takes his sword A man is ready to do everything, to face danger and hardships, to behave in an antisocial and dangerous manner, all in order to please a woman.
\n4:25\u201327. a man loves his own wife A man\u2019s \u201cbeloved\u201d is his wife, for whose sake he would do everything in his power. For her sake he would risk his most valued material and spiritual possessions: sanity, freedom, integrity, social ethics, and even life.
\n4:28. and now Instead of the expected final exclamation about the power of women, the speaker opens with a new address and presents to the audience an illustration of his claims, taken from the nearest surroundings: the king and his concubine. If you were convinced, he says, that the king is the strongest of men, let us examine how this great man becomes weak by his attachment to a woman!
\n4:29\u201331. I saw him and Apame This is the most daring part of the speech: a detailed description of the king\u2019s behavior in his most private domain. He is presented as a play tool in the hands of his concubine, a slave of her whims. The authenticity of the scene is strongly emphasized by the identification of the participants by name and descent: the revered King Darius and Apame, daughter of Barthakos. Scholars have tried to identify the concubine and her father with known historical figures but so far these attempts bear no convincing conclusions. Whether because of our limited knowledge, because the names were corrupted in their Greek transcription, or\u2014more radically\u2014because they were fictitious in the first place, aimed to enhance the rhetorical force of the speech\u2014the fact is that so far they remain unidentified.
\n4:32. O men! At this point the speech is concluded with the standard exclamation: are not women the strongest! However, the other part of the conclusion, the reference to the speaker\u2019s silence, is omitted, because this is not, indeed, the true conclusion of his address, which will come later, in 4:41.
\n4:33\u201341 The finale of the third speech was an act of courage already hinted at in the figure of the speaker. As a bodyguard with the closest proximity to the king, he was expected to keep his observations to himself and act with discretion. In sharing with the public his impressions of the king\u2019s behavior, he transgressed his primary obligation to discretion and put in jeopardy both the king\u2019s authority and his own life. Will the king forgive him for this transgression? Being fully aware of his position and taking advantage of the public\u2019s embarrassment at the situation, he begins to justify his disclosure by turning to the true value that guided his actions, truth. From a literary point of view, the last part of the speech on women and the speech about truth are thus tightly connected. In the context of the debate, the topic and arguments of the fourth speech are of a deconstructive nature. Human reality is set aside, and the question of the strongest is approached from an ontological-philosophical perspective: what is the strongest and most lasting value in the whole universe? Unit structure: introduction (4:33), truth\u2014the supreme power (4:34\u201335), comparison between truth and everything else (4:36\u201338), apotheosis of truth (4:39\u201340), and the judgment (4:41).
\n4:33. then, as the king The shocking impact of the last part of the speech about women is expressed by the silence of the audience, including the king and his officials. The young man takes advantage of the embarrassing moment and continues his words.
\n4:34. O men! The speaker first posits the results of his earlier arguments and restates the power of women. However, in a swift turn of mind and with no interruption, he regains the attention of the crowd by leaving the format of the speeches followed so far and moving to a new and different reasoning. His gaze is turned to the universe: earth, heaven, and sun. The speaker\u2019s words are replete with biblical allusions. The description of the course of the sun seems a combination of two verses: Ps. 19:7 and Eccles. 1:5. The allusion to the height of the skies and the width of the earth echoes Job 11:9, where they are compared to God\u2019s acts.
\n4:35. is not he great? The rhetorical manipulation of the speaker is transparent. He refers most explicitly to a \u201che,\u201d the supreme transcendent power who created earth, heaven, and sun, but contrary to one\u2019s expectations refrains from identifying the creator as \u201cGod\u201d or, at least in the context of Wisdom Literature, as Wisdom. The identification of the supreme creating power as \u201ctruth\u201d is certainly conditioned by the context, the juxtaposition of the authority of the king with the true source of authority, the genuine supreme power, truth.
\n4:36. the whole earth The speaker goes on to list the virtues of truth: she is called upon, praised, and revered by the most powerful forces because of her essential quality: justice. Truth is the measure for all beings.
\n4:37\u201338. wine is unrighteous All the previous candidates for the title of strongest, in the order of their presentation, are then compared with truth with the rod of justice. They are all unrighteous, and so are human beings in general, including the king. Because of its very essence as a corrupt creature, humanity is destined to perish; only truth will prevail and rule forever.
\n4:39\u201340. there is no partiality The speech ends with an apotheosis of truth in two stages. First is her justice in judgment, acknowledged and valued by everyone. The phrasing of these statements is almost a literal repetition of the attributes of God listed by King Jehoshaphat in his instruction to the judges: \u201cFor there is no perversion of justice with the LORD our God, or partiality, or taking of bribes\u201d (2 Chron. 19:7 NRSV; cf. Deut. 10:17). Then comes a general apotheosis of her strength, dominion, authority, and eternity, an apparent epitome of David\u2019s blessing of God in 1 Chron. 29:10\u201313: \u201cBlessed are you, O LORD, the God of our ancestor Israel, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all\u201d (NRSV). The fourth speech ends with an exclamation that at last discloses the figure intended all along and identified by the attribute of truth\u2014\u201cBlessed be the God of truth!\u201d This attribute is based on Chronicles, in the designation of God as \u201cthe God of truth\u201d (2 Chron. 15:3, rendered \u201cthe true God\u201d by English translations). The speech on truth is an exemplary piece of Jewish rhetoric. It is fused with biblical concepts of the God of Israel, the one and only God, the creator of heaven and earth. It acclaims one of the most important tenets of Judaism\u2014God\u2019s justice in his rule of the world, compared with the injustice of humanity\u2014and it judges all human beings by the same rod of justice before God. However, up to the very end the speech is phrased in general terms and presents its topic in the most universal framework of human existence.
\n4:41. and he stopped speaking The last exclamatory blessing of God concludes the speech with no need to confirm that \u201ctruth is the strongest.\u201d One can hear the raised voice and the devotion put into the climactic ending of the speech, greatly emphasized by the silence that followed. The reaction of the audience is expected and self-evident. It is a public acclamation of the higher values of human life and is the final conclusion of the competition: \u201cTruth is great and strongest of all!\u201d
\n4:42\u201357 The king joins the judgment of the crowd to announce the outcome of the competition. The circumstances of the fourth speech and the inherent criticism of the king\u2019s behavior are all put aside and forgotten. The king is ready to fulfill his promises, to bestow on the winner all the signs of victory as set in the conditions of the competition. However, this becomes unnecessary because the third guardsman\u2014who is Zerubbabel\u2014forgoes his personal benefits and turns the king\u2019s favor into an instrument in promoting the interests of his people. Zerubbabel is thus presented not only as \u201cthe wisest of all\u201d but also as the most devoted person to his people\u2019s interests and needs. Impressed by Zerubbabel\u2019s petition, Darius grants him all that he asked for, and more. Differently from the other royal decrees and documents in Ezra-Nehemiah, Darius\u2019s grants are recorded in a third-person narrative style rather than in a first-person style. Unit structure: Zerubbabel\u2019s request (4:42\u201346) and Darius\u2019s grants (4:47\u201357); structure of second subunit: letters concerning a military escort (4:47), letters concerning provision of timber (4:48), letters concerning the status of Judah and the reclamation of land (4:49\u201350), financial support for the Temple ritual and personnel (4:51\u201356), and return of the vessels (4:57).
\n4:42. then the king said to him Of the conditions set at the beginning of the competition, the king mentions only the most important: he offers to make Zerubbabel his counselor, bearing the honorary title \u201ckinsman of the king.\u201d For all the other prizes of victory he lets Zerubbabel set down his own requests.
\n4:43\u201345. then he said to the king This is a moment of trial for Zerubbabel, now that all the doors to personal success have been opened, and it is at this moment that he appears in all his personal greatness. Rather than asking anything for himself, his requests apply to the welfare of his people and to the king\u2019s involvement in its promotion. Quite in the spirit of the competition, Zerubbabel sets the supreme value system as background for his request: he reminds the king of his vow and asks him to fulfill it. At least formally, Zerubbabel enables the king to become a better person and ruler, a man faithful to his word. The reference to an earlier vow of Darius identifies his commitment to the Judean community as something that he had already undertaken in the past; all that he is asked to do now is to act as a man of honor and implement his policy. Zerubbabel mentions three items included in the king\u2019s earlier vow: building Jerusalem, return of the vessels, and building the Temple; their conjunction is a faithful representation of 1 Esdras\u2019s view throughout his story. Darius does not deny the existence of a vow when he \u201creceived the kingdom,\u201d but there is no mention of it in any of our sources. The Ezra-Nehemiah story passes in silence over Darius\u2019s first year and mentions only that work on the Temple ceased until the second year of Darius, and then the building was resumed under the influence of the prophets (Ezra 4:24\u20135:2). This gap has now been filled by the supposed vow, but no details are provided regarding its circumstances and how it came to the attention of Zerubbabel who, according to the narrative setup, was Darius\u2019s bodyguard. (For 1 Esdras\u2019s different view of the delivery of the vessels see the comment on 2:14.) In Zerubbabel\u2019s report the Babylonians are described as responsible for the conquest of Judah, but the burning of the Temple is attributed to the Edomites, a view that brings to mind Ps. 137:7. This choice of detail may be a means of facilitating Darius\u2019s decision regarding the Temple, or it may reflect the contemporary enmity toward the Edomites and the political conflicts and contrast of interests (see comment on 4:50).
\n4:46. and now The conclusion of Zerubbabel\u2019s words acknowledges the grand dimensions of his request: fulfilling it will be a sign of the king\u2019s greatness. Similar to his rhetorical technique in the speech, only at this point does Zerubbabel mention that the king\u2019s vow was \u201cto the King of heaven,\u201d and therefore its fulfillment is an absolute obligation. The pagan king\u2019s acknowledgement of \u201cthe King of heaven,\u201d whom Zerubbabel regarded as the God of Israel, is part of the universal viewpoint of the Wisdom Literature.
\n4:47. then King Darius stood up Without further ado the king turns to grant Zerubbabel\u2019s requests and enters into practical details that Zerubbabel did not mention. The king begins with the role of Zerubbabel himself and then proceeds with the return of the Judeans to their homeland. All these details\u2014the appointment of Zerubbabel, the return to Jerusalem, the sending of letters to the Persian officials on the way, and the escort provided by the provincial authorities\u2014are taken from Neh. 2:6\u20139 as part of 1 Esdras\u2019s general tendency to antedate the building of Jerusalem and to ascribe it to Zerubbabel rather than to Nehemiah.
\n4:48. and he wrote The second issue on the king\u2019s agenda is the supply of timber for the building. This aspect of the restoration is presented in Ezra 3:7 in the context of rebuilding the Temple, when the returning Judeans took steps to purchase cedarwood from the Sidonians and the Tyrians \u201cin accord with the authorization granted them by King Cyrus.\u201d In our context it is the king himself who sends letters to his officials in these provinces to provide the returning Judeans with cedarwood, not just for the Temple but for the city as well. That this account is actually a duplicate of other texts is highlighted by 1 Esd. 5:53 reproducing verbatim Ezra 3:7 and describing the Judeans themselves as taking care to purchase cedarwood for the building of the Temple according to the permit of Cyrus. No harmonization is attempted in 1 Esdras to smooth out these contradictory pictures.
\n4:49. and he wrote Darius goes on to deal with other matters concerning the execution of his vow and refers to two matters, the first of which is the granting of a special status to the province of Judah. Although there is no explicit allusion to the appointment of Zerubbabel as governor, Judah is described as a self-governing unit within the Persian Empire, with no submission to another governor or satrap. The immediate continuation of the story with the inspection of the satrap Tattenai, taken from Ezra 5, does not confirm and actually contradicts the autonomous status of Judah. It seems rather that the author of 1 Esdras wished to express his own aspirations as having been fulfilled by Darius\u2019s decree to Zerubbabel. This is also expressed in the following matter.
\n4:50. and that all the land The other aspect of the restoration of Judah is the reclamation of the land seized by the Edomites. The gradual expansion of the Edomites to the territories of Judah is well evidenced by historical and archeological testimony but is never mentioned in Ezra-Nehemiah. Here, again, the handling of this matter is attributed to Darius\u2014an idealistic antecedent to the author\u2019s own time. In a further unprecedented step, Darius declares an exemption from tribute for all the returnees.
\n4:51\u201352. 20 talents After taking care of the civilian aspects of the restoration of Judah, Darius now turns to matters pertaining specifically to the Temple, its construction, and ongoing operation, and allots 20 talents for the building and 10 talents yearly for its ongoing operation. The source of the money is not specified, but since the inhabitants of Judah were exempt from tribute, the assumption is that the money would be supplied by other royal sources. A royal grant for the building of the Temple is included in Cyrus\u2019s decree as recorded in Ezra 6:4 and is repeated and enlarged by Darius after the visit of Tattenai (Ezra 6:8\u20139). These data are repeated in 1 Esdras in the respective contexts (1 Esd. 6:24, 28\u201329). In our context, 1 Esdras predates these allowances and places them before the return of Zerubbabel and before the visit of Tattenai, but does not refer to them in the continuation of the story. Again, no harmonization between the different pictures has been attempted.
\n4:53. and let there be freedom Before moving to the Temple functionaries\u2014priests, Levites, and gatekeepers\u20141 Esdras returns to the status of the returning Judeans. They are all, including their offspring, to be free citizens, with no bond tying them to any previous claimant.
\n4:54. and he wrote Not only the regular upkeep of the priests is granted by the king, but also the priests\u2019 attire\u2014a matter emphasized throughout 1 Esdras.
\n4:55. and he wrote The allowance for the Levites is presented as a temporary grant, limited to the period of the building. The view of the Levites as supervisors of the work follows Ezra 3:8\u20139; according to the present text, however, their role seems to be limited to this endeavor.
\n4:56. and he wrote The last group to be provided for by the royal treasury is the guards of the city, who are granted both land and wages in order to secure their proper upkeep. This may express the author\u2019s view of the \u201cgatekeepers\u201d; in Ezra-Nehemiah and elsewhere they are presented as the guards of the Temple and part of the Temple personnel, while here they are linked to the protection of the city. A major group of the Temple personnel, greatly emphasized in the literature of the Second Temple\u2014the singers\u2014is not mentioned at all. At the end, the only segment of the Temple personnel whose regular upkeep is provided by the crown is the priesthood.
\n4:57. and he sent back Finally there is a reference to the Temple vessels. Following the view presented above, 1 Esdras regards Cyrus\u2019s action in the matter of the vessels as incomplete: Cyrus ordered the return of the vessels after he had taken them out of Babylon, but did not carry it through. It is now put into action by Darius.
\n4:58\u201363 The conclusion of the meeting between Darius and Zerubbabel is not recorded, and the story remains somewhat unfinished. In the spirit of the fourth speech, however, immediately after departing from the king, Zerubbabel offers thanks and praise to God, facing Jerusalem. What was downplayed throughout the story\u2014God as the cause of protection and victory\u2014is made explicit through Zerubbabel\u2019s prayer of thanksgiving. Unit structure: Zerubbabel\u2019s prayer (4:58\u201360) and the people\u2019s response (4:61\u201363).
\n4:58. when the young man The remark that Zerubbabel offered praise to the LORD while facing toward Jerusalem reflects the general practices of prayer in the author\u2019s time.
\n4:59. from you is victory Very much in harmony with the account of the entire episode, Zerubbabel ascribes to the LORD the three attributes illustrated in the competition: wisdom, victory, and glory\u2014with wisdom being the most emphasized. Zerubbabel acknowledges that his wisdom was granted to him by God and declares himself God\u2019s servant. The form of the prayer, \u201cfrom you is the victory,\u201d follows the example of 1 Chron. 29:11 (also in the fourth speech), but the items mentioned are all related to the present context.
\n4:61. and he took What appeared so far as a story about the fortunes of a certain individual in the royal court is now put in the context of the Judean Diaspora in Babylon. Zerubbabel is not just his own man and a bodyguard of the king, but a delegate of his people.
\n4:62\u201363. they blessed the God Zerubbabel\u2019s account and the letters he was carrying were a source of great joy for the Judean community in Babylon. They too acknowledged that the benevolence of the Persian king had been inspired by God, and to him they gave thanks and praise.
\n5:1\u20137:15 The account of the restoration now returns to the source in Ezra and adheres to it from Ezra 2:1 to the end of the book, with the exclusion of Ezra 4:6\u201324, which was presented previously in 1 Esd. 2:15\u201325. At this point of literary transition 1 Esdras adds its own connecting passage (5:1\u20136). From the perspective of the historical and narratological logic, the continuation between 1 Esd. 3\u20134 and the story of the restoration as presented in Ezra 2\u20136 creates a series of discrepancies and tensions (see comments). Unit structure: return from Babylon to Judah (5:1\u201345) and preparing the altar and building the Temple (5:46\u20137:15).
\n5:1\u201345 Darius\u2019s decree was the impetus for a massive return to Judah. The date of the return is not specified, but since the competition is dated in 1 Esdras to Darius\u2019s second year\u2014implied by the continuation between 1 Esd. 2:25 and 3:1 and explicitly stated in 5:6\u2014and allowing some time for the organization of the massive return, it may be dated at the earliest to later in the second year of Darius or to his third year. In Ezra-Nehemiah the return is set in the reign of Cyrus, following his declaration. The list of returnees appears twice in Ezra-Nehemiah: Ezra 2, repeated here with light changes, and Neh. 7:6\u201372, of which only the last verse is repeated in 1 Esd. 9:37. The most important feature of the list is its underlying definition of identity. The people are viewed as a cultic community, its members categorized according to their position in the liturgical hierarchy. The first category is laymen, those who have no active role in the performance of the Temple functions, defined in Ezra 2:2b as \u201cthe people of Israel,\u201d with \u201cIsrael\u201d thus denoting a liturgical category rather than a national or ethnic one. In 1 Esdras the classes of the community remain the same, but the name \u201cIsrael\u201d is replaced by a simpler \u201cof the people.\u201d In the register of the laymen the returnees are affiliated with either families or settlements, with no mention of the traditional affiliation with the tribes of Israel. It seems that this traditional affiliation has become an abstract and ideological concept, rather than a living component in the genealogical records. The account of the return does not provide any details regarding the journey itself, and even the returnees\u2019 reaching their destination is not mentioned (contrast Ezra 8:31\u201332; Neh. 2:9, 11). Even the dates of their departure and arrival are left out. The story ends with the donations contributed to the Temple and the fact of settlement. Unit structure: getting organized (5:1\u20136) and the return (5:7\u201345); structure of second subunit: introduction (5:7\u20138); list of returnees (5:9\u201342): laymen (5:9\u201323), Temple personnel (5:24\u201335), people without proven descent (5:36\u201340), summing up (5:41\u201342); and arrival (5:43\u201345).
\n5:1. after these things The people of the exile who returned to Judah are described as those who chose to do so, namely, who made a voluntary decision to return. This statement and the following verse indicate that only a part of the exiled Judeans returned to Judah, while the rest remained in Babylon. The returning Judeans are presented as comprising entire households, including slaves and livestock (cf. Ezra 2:64\u201367 = 1 Esd. 5:41\u201342). The view that the spirit of the returnees was aroused by God (1 Esd. 2:7 = Ezra 1:5) is not repeated.
\n5:2\u20133. and Darius sent The departure of the Judeans from Babylon is accompanied by a large military escort provided by Darius. Its task is to ensure a secure journey and to enable the returnees to settle down in peace. The return is thus presented as an act of relocation and rehabitation, carried out by the Persian government. The returnees are also accompanied by their brothers, and the two parties are said to accompany the caravan with song and music. Although the view of the military escort as a company of musicians is somewhat unusual, it is perhaps 1 Esdras\u2019s demonstration that Isaiah\u2019s prophecy was actually fulfilled: \u201cYou shall leave in joy and be led home secure\u201d (Isa. 55:12). The end of 1 Esd. 5:3 remains unclear: does it mean that Darius forced the accompanying brothers to join the caravan?
\n5:4. these are the names of the men The heading is phrased as a preamble to the entire record of the returning people but is followed in fact only with the names of the leaders. Another heading (5:7\u20138), taken from the source in Ezra 2:1\u20132, introduces the list. In this introductory verse the people are defined according to three categories: family, tribe, and division. While the first two are based on the conventional concepts of the people\u2019s lineage, the \u201cdivisions\u201d reflect a later development in the Second Temple time, when the laypeople were divided into \u201cdivisions\u201d (m\u2019amadwt) paralleling those of the priests and Levites for the performance of cultic functions. Of the three categories, only the first is reflected in the list itself.
\n5:5. the priests Contrary to what one would expect on the basis of the preceding narrative, the first to be mentioned is not Zerubbabel but the priests. The text as it stands is difficult. It opens with the plural \u201cthe priests\u201d but mentions only one, Jesous, who is then followed by a second leader, Joakim, presented as son of Zerubbabel, while Zerubbabel himself is ignored. These problems are all solved by the assumption of a slight textual corruption, which needs the most minor reconstruction of the text. The translation of the text follows the scholarly consensus on this matter: the leaders consist of two priests, Jesous and his son Joakim, and Zerubbabel. The leaders of the return are accorded lengthy pedigrees: the lineage of Jesous, presented briefly in other sources as \u201cthe son of Josedek,\u201d is traced back one more generation to Saraia and then attached to the founders of the priesthood, Aaron and Phineas. The details of this lineage may have been gleaned from the priestly genealogy in 1 Chron. 5:30\u201340, but were probably well known at the time of the author. Zerubbabel the son of Salatiel, whose Davidic ancestry is suppressed in Ezra-Nehemiah, is here traced back to the most distinguished lineage: David, Fares, and Judah.
\n5:6. who spoke wise words The passage concludes with an elaboration of the merits of Zerubbabel and the explicit mention of the date.
\n5:7. these are the men of Judah The people returning to Jerusalem and Judah are presented as members of the exile formed by the deportation of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. In fact, since three generations elapsed between these events, these people are not the deported persons themselves but their offspring. Rather than \u201cthe people of the province [medinah]\u201d in Ezra 2:1, 1 Esdras presents the returnees as \u201cthe men of Judah.\u201d 1 Esdras avoids the word medinah elsewhere in the parallel texts (Ezra 4:15 = 1 Esd. 2:19; Ezra 5:8 = 1 Esd. 6:8; Ezra 6:2 = 1 Esd. 6:22; Ezra 7:16 = 1 Esd. 8:13), and it is also missing in Chronicles. The terminology peculiar to the Persian period is thus avoided.
\n5:8. they returned to Jerusalem The picture of a peaceful resettlement after a gap of almost 70 years, with no struggle or debate of any kind, seems rather impossible in historical terms, but this is already the picture in Ezra 2. The number of the leaders is 12, certainly a typological number, but there is no reference to the origin of this number, the traditional number of the tribes of Israel.
\n5:9\u201323. the numbers of those from the people The list of laymen consists of 35 units, presented in a consistent formulation: unit name, followed by the number of its individuals. The units are described as either families, generally prefaced by the definition \u201cthe sons of,\u201d or localities, prefaced by the definition \u201cthe men of.\u201d These definitions are not fully consistent; names that seem to represent localities (like Baiteros and Baithlomon in 5:17; Jerechos and Sanaas in 5:22b\u201323) are sometimes prefaced by \u201cthe sons of,\u201d the definition used for families. At one point in the list two units are identified by gentilic names\u2014Chadiasians and Hammidians (5:20a). The list is inconsistent in the arrangement of these units: it begins with families (5:9\u201316) and continues with localities (5:17\u201319), two gentilic groups (5:20a), localities (5:20b\u201321a), families (5:21b\u201322a), and further localities (5:22b\u201323a). The precise distinction between the units thus becomes rather uncertain. The numbers vary greatly, from the smallest unit of 67 (5:15) to the largest units of over 3,000 (5:13, 23).
\n5:24\u201335. the priests The Temple personnel consist of six classes, registered in a descending order on the hierarchical ladder: priests, Levites, Temple singers, gatekeepers, Temple servants (Nethinim), and the sons of Solomon\u2019s slaves. The numbers are telling: while the four priestly families number over 4,000, the number of the Levites is 74, the Temple singers 148, the gatekeepers 139, and the two lowest classes together, comprised of numerous small families, 372. This is the most detailed presentation of the classes of the Temple personnel, repeated only in the second occurrence of the same list in Neh. 7. The only other occurrence of \u201cNethinim and the sons of Solomon\u2019s slaves\u201d as two distinct classes is in the brief note of Neh. 11:3, where, however, there is no mention of Temple singers and gatekeepers, most probably because they were already seen as part of the Levites. Even the concluding verse of the present list does not include \u201cthe sons of Solomon\u2019s slaves\u201d (Ezra 2:70 = Neh. 7:72; in the parallel 1 Esd. 5:45 the Nethinim are omitted as well). The lists of the Temple functionaries in Chronicles do not mention the two lower classes at all and include the Temple singers and the gatekeepers among the Levites.
\n5:36\u201337. these were the returnees The last part of the list includes two groups of people whose lineage could not be ascertained. Following the order of the main list, the first to be mentioned are laymen who claimed to be of Israelite origin but could not prove it (5:36\u201337), followed by Israelites who claimed to be priests but could not prove it (5:38\u201340). The people who claim to be Israelites are presented in Ezra 2:59\u201360 as belonging to three large families and having come from five localities. In 1 Esdras, three of the five place names are presented as a name of the families\u2019 leader. Since indeed this group consisted of three families, 1 Esdras may have preserved a better reading. In Ezra 2:59\u201360 two of the families have common biblical names (Delaiah and Tobiah), and the third could be Semitic. These original forms are not preserved in 1 Esdras. Although these people could not prove their Israelite origin, they were nevertheless included among the returnees and no measures were taken against them. It was perhaps assumed that the written records of their lineage were not preserved in the far localities from which they came.
\n5:38. and of the priests The matter of the priests is different. No doubts were raised regarding their Israelite origin, but their specific priestly lineage could not be certified by adequate written documents. This remark illustrates the sensitivity to the lineage of the priests, whose holiness derived from their lineage as descendants of Aaron, the first priest.
\n5:39. their record of descent Differently from the Israelites who could not prove their descent, actual measures were taken against uncertified priests. However, one of the three families included in this group, the family of Hakkos, is listed as a fully fledged priestly family in 1 Chron. 24:10. It is also probable that the distinguished priest Meremoth son of Uriah (Ezra 8:33) was a descendant of this family (cf. Neh. 3:4, 21).
\n5:40. and Neemias and Hattharias According to Ezra 2:63 the case of these priests was brought before and decided by \u201cthe Tirshata\u201d\u2014long identified as an honorary Persian title equivalent perhaps to \u201cHis Excellency\u201d\u2014referring perhaps to the contemporary governor without mention of his name. In Neh. 8:9 and 10:2 this title is accorded to Nehemiah, and 1 Esdras adopts this identification for the present situation. Although \u201cTirshata\u201d is presented here as a proper noun and the person by that name placed next to Nehemiah, it is generally accepted that this is a corruption of an original text that read: \u201cAnd Nehemiah the Tirshata told them.\u201d With this identification 1 Esdras moves Nehemiah from the historical context in which he appeared in Ezra-Nehemiah to the time of Darius, as a contemporary of Zerubbabel.
\nThe decision of the governor was that the matter did not fall within his jurisdiction and should be determined by divine authority, through the oracular instrument of \u201cUrim and Thummim.\u201d Since this instrument was not reinstated in the Second Temple period, the actual meaning of the decision was that the matter was postponed indefinitely. 1 Esdras understands the Hebrew term \u201cUrim and Thummim\u201d as relating not to a specific priestly instrument (Exod. 28:30), but to abstract concepts, and translates them according to their Hebrew etymology: \u201cinsight\u201d (for Urim: \u201clight) and \u201ctruth\u201d (for Thummim: \u201ctruth, honesty\u201d).
\n5:41. all Israel The summary presents first the total number of the returnees and their adjacent human groups: slaves\u2014male and female\u2014and singers. It is not made clear whether the total number includes male members only or also women. The addition in 1 Esdras of \u201cfrom 12 years of age\u201d may perhaps hint that those counted were male alone, as the age of 12 for maturity is mentioned in Rabbinic sources (Mishnah, Niddah 5:6). The total number is given as 42,360, while the sum of the individual numbers in the list itself amounts only to about 30,000. Even if the numbers indicate whole households and not just adult males, they could not represent a possible historical datum of a single return. Judging from the complex nature of the list, especially in its first part, it is possible that rather than a list of one massive return it is a combination of several different lists. That the people are recorded also according to their settlements, most prominently towns of Benjamin, makes it possible that the original source of the list was not a list of returnees but a record of a census of the residents of Judah at some historical point. Even in this case the numbers seem too high. The numbers of slaves is quite large for a group of returnees. That they are presented as a group by themselves may imply that they were of a non-Israelite origin and did not belong to any of the Israelite families; there is however no explicit reference to this matter.
\n5:42. camels 435 The list concludes with the riding animals: camels, horses, mules, and donkeys. In Ezra 2:66\u201367 the largest species is donkeys; in 1 Esdras it is horses.
\n5:43. and some of the leaders The people coming to Jerusalem take upon themselves to support the building of the Temple. This is very much in line with Cyrus\u2019s declaration that the financing of the building was relegated to the people and provided by donations (1 Esd. 2:6 = Ezra 1:4). This view, however, deviates from the present context of 1 Esdras, where the return follows the decree of Darius (1 Esd. 4:51) with his commitment to finance the building from the royal treasury.
\n5:44. and to give In the parallel narrative of Neh. 7:69\u201371 the donations for the construction of the Temple were offered by three components of the people: the Tirshata, the heads of the fathers\u2019 houses, and the rest of the people. This detailed record is contracted here to one donation, that of \u201cthe leaders, according to their fathers\u2019 houses\u201d (5:43). The donations consist of gold, silver, and priestly garments, but the numbers differ in each of the sources.
\n5:45. the priests and the Levites The pattern of settlement is not entirely clear in this record. It seems that the priests and Levites settled in Jerusalem, the Temple singers and the gatekeepers in the villages, most of the laypeople in the villages, with part of them in Jerusalem. The account of this in Ezra 2:70 and Neh. 7:72 is more general and less clear. The conclusion of the chapter with a note about settlement puts the story in a fine framework, making the ending correspond to the beginning: \u201cThey returned \u2026 each one to his own town\u201d (5:8).
\n5:46\u201370 Following his source, the author of 1 Esdras now turns to Ezra 3, with the description of the first steps toward the realization of the Persian king\u2019s decree. The story follows faithfully Ezra 3:1\u20134:5, with only occasional changes along the way. The main difference between the stories, however, is in the chronological framework: according to 1 Esdras, these acts took place in the time of Darius rather than in the time of Cyrus. Unit structure: preparation of the altar (5:46\u201352), laying the foundations of the Temple (5:53\u201362), and disturbances to the building (5:63\u201370).
\n5:46\u201352 The seventh month marks the beginning of the building enterprise. The people settled in their towns gather in Jerusalem \u201cas one man\u201d to fulfill\u2014for the first time after their arrival\u2014the commandment of pilgrimage. They use this sacred time to renew the altar, to resume the sacrificial ritual, to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles\u2014the most important festival in the holy calendar\u2014and to establish the regular sacrificial ritual from this point onward. Unit structure: gathering in Jerusalem (5:46), preparing the altar (5:47\u201349a), and establishing the sacrificial cult (5:49b\u201352).
\n5:46. with the arrival It is not specified how long after their arrival that the returnees began to put their plans into action, but the endeavor was ignited by the arrival of the seventh month, when everybody gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the holidays of the month. Thus, although the actual building was undertaken by limited groups of workers, it is viewed as the project of the entire people. The place of the gathering, not mentioned in Ezra 3:1, is provided by 1 Esdras: \u201cAt the first gate toward the east.\u201d From a historical perspective the unspecified statement of Ezra 3 is more appropriate, since at this historical point the wall and the gates have not yet been built; the mention of any gate would be anachronistic.
\n5:47\u201348. then Jesous son of Josedek The first step in the process of restoration is the renovation of the altar. According to Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras, the sacrificial cult was inaugurated by the returnees after the long break caused by the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE This view is put in question by the evidence of Jer. 41:5 and Hag. 2:10\u201314. The preparation of the altar is performed by the two leaders of the community, the high priest Joshua and the governor Zerubbabel\u2014although their titles are not mentioned\u2014\u201cand [their] brothers,\u201d priests on the one hand and high officials of the province on the other.
\n5:49. some of the other peoples According to Ezra 3:3, already at this early stage of the restoration \u201cthe peoples of the land\u201d threatened the returning exiles, who had to build the altar in face of this animosity. 1 Esdras presents this matter differently and refines the apparent tendency of Ezra 3 to a more subtle attitude toward the peoples of the land: while most of the people around Judah were indeed opposed to the revival of Judah and obstructed it, some of them supported the people of Judah and assisted them in the building. The preparation of the altar was followed by the resumption of the regular daily sacrifice in the morning and in the evening (Num. 28:3\u20138).
\n5:50. and they celebrated Although according to 5:52 the offering of sacrifices began on the New Moon of the seventh month, only the Festival of Tabernacles is mentioned as having been celebrated. The day of remembrance on the first day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:24) and the day of atonement on the 10th of the month (Lev. 23:27) are not mentioned.
\n5:51\u201352. and after that the regular offerings The final note offers a summary of the issue. All the obligatory regular sacrifices, as listed in the Pentateuch (Num. 28\u201329), are concisely presented: the daily sacrifices, the additional sacrifices of the Sabbaths and New Moons, and the sacrifices of the holidays. Also mentioned are the voluntary sacrifices offered as vows by the people at large. The final summarizing statement presents a problem: the regular service was initiated on the first day of the seventh month, although at that time the Temple had not yet been built. This statement can be interpreted in two ways: as an innocent statement of a chronological datum or as an apologetic\u2014or even critical\u2014acknowledgement that sacrificing on the altar in the absence of a Temple was problematic. The question was posed by later Rabbinic sources and settled by the claim that the procedure was legitimized by a prophetic saying (M. Zev. 62a; also M. Ed. 8:6).
\n5:53\u201362 Laying the foundations of the Temple follows. Unit structure: provision of building materials and craftsmen (5:53), laying the foundations (5:54\u201355), appointment of the Levites (5:56), and festive ceremony (5:57\u201362).
\n5:53. and they gave silver The building materials included stones and timber, and the craftsmen recruited were stonecutters and carpenters, but the passage lingers on the provision of the cedarwood, described along the model of Solomon\u2019s preparation for the building of the First Temple (1 Kings 5:21\u201325). It is rather doubtful that the Second Temple was built with cedarwood, as it is difficult to conceive that the impoverished and drought-stricken Judean community could afford to pay with \u201cfood and drink and oil\u201d for this expensive timber (cf. Hag. 1:6\u201311). The mention of the purchase of cedarwood and the permit granted by Cyrus, following Ezra 3:7, are difficult in the context of 1 Esdras since according to its historical view this matter was taken care of by Darius in his grants to Zerubbabel (4:48). These difficulties stem from the preservation of the original wording of Ezra 3, with no attempt at harmonization.
\n5:54\u201355. in the second year Along the model of Solomon\u2019s Temple, the laying of the foundation is set in the \u201csecond month\u201d (1 Kings 6:1), the date emphasized in 1 Esdras by repetition. There is no way to verify whether the date is authentic, having been chosen by the community under the influence of Solomon\u2019s precedent, or whether it is a literary means of creating a stronger link between the two temples. According to Haggai, the work began on the 24th day of the sixth month (Hag. 1:15) and the laying of the foundations took place on the 24th day of the ninth month (2:18). The \u201cpriests and Levites\u201d of Ezra 3:8 become here \u201cthe Levitical priests\u201d (also 1 Esd. 5:60), a term found only once in Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra 10:5), perhaps due to a textual error. The change of 1 Esdras implies a change in the status and role of the Levites, who are limited here to the supervision of the building enterprises. This is very much in line with Darius\u2019s decree, where the Levites were seen as a temporary force, responsible for the building of the Temple and the city.
\n5:56. they appointed the Levites The building was carried out by craftsmen, but the supervisors of the work were the Levites, belonging to four Levitical families.
\n5:57\u201358. and the priests stood The laying of the foundations is celebrated in a ceremony of music and praise with no sacrifices (cf. the dedication ceremony in 1 Esd. 7:7\u20138 = Ezra 6:17). The strict division between the different performers of the musical instruments, with the trumpets restricted to the priests (Ezra 3:10), is blurred in 1 Esdras in two ways: the priests are said to have both trumpets and other musical instruments, and the trumpets are sounded also by the people at large (see comment on 5:59). The musical ceremony consists of singing of psalms, accompanied by musical instruments, both seen as established by David.
\n5:59. and all the people The priests and Levites are joined by the people at large. They not only respond with the refrains of psalms, but add their own trumpets and loud shouting. The dominant feature of the ceremony is its being carried with a loud voice, an expression of great excitement and joy.
\n5:60\u201362. some of the Levitical priests The passage describes in a touching way the ambivalent feelings toward the new building, expressed by the different segments of the community. For the majority of the people, the prospect of a new Temple was a cause for gratitude and joy, while for the old people, who remembered with nostalgia the First Temple, the poor dimensions of the new building were a source of agony, a feeling expressed most eloquently by Haggai: \u201cWho is there left among you who saw this House in its former splendor? How does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing to you\u201d (2:3). The \u201cloud voice\u201d heard far and wide was a mixture of weeping and singing, of joy and agony.
\n5:63\u201364. upon hearing [it] The connection between the loud voice of the ceremony and the initiative of the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin is already alluded to in Ezra 4:1, but is made explicit in the statement of 1 Esdras: the enemies came to find out the reason for the loud voice.
\n5:65\u201366. approaching Zorobabel The enemies of Judah and Benjamin, later referred to as \u201cthe peoples of the land\u201d (5:69), are identified as the peoples whom an Assyrian king brought to the land. This is an allusion to 2 Kings 17:24\u201333 (where the name of the Assyrian king is not given) and perhaps also to Ezra 4:10 (not repeated in 1 Esdras), which mentions King Osnappar. The name of the Assyrian king as spelled in verse 66 does not resemble any otherwise known name of an Assyrian ruler. The claim of these people that they were worshiping the same God and sacrificing to him may allude to the worship conducted in the sanctuary of Bethel (2 Kings 17:28, 33).
\n5:67\u201368. then Zorobabel and Jesous The leaders of the community reject the offer of participation with a general statement: Cyrus\u2019s permit to build was granted to us, and we alone will build the Temple. The rejection, however, may have had two other reasons: (1) the view that these people did not belong to the people of Israel\u2014a fact that they themselves admitted; and (2) the fear that the acceptance of their offer would imply the recognition of their own worship as a legitimate form of the worship of God\u2014a recognition that would undermine the exclusivity of Jerusalem as the sole place of worship. The worship of these people has already been characterized in 2 Kings 17:29\u201333 as a syncretistic practice.
\n5:69. so the peoples of the land The rejected offer of participation becomes a stimulus for intensive activity against the building. The opponents of Judah follow every possible line of action to hinder the building, their activities lasting until the reign of Darius. To Ezra 4:5 (about the hindrances to the work), our verse adds the statement taken from Ezra 4:24 and mentioned in the comment on 1 Esd. 2:25 that the building operations were completely stopped until the reign of Darius. While the literary procedure of 1 Esdras is transparent, its effect on the historical picture is rather embarrassing. According to 1 Esdras, the competition of the three guardsmen took place in the second year of Darius and was followed by a massive return, settlement, assembling in Jerusalem, and laying the foundation of the Temple in the second year of their arrival. How then could the work be stopped now \u201cfor two years, until the reign of Darius\u201d? As we see elsewhere, the joining together in 1 Esdras of literary pieces causes difficult discrepancies, which are not fully harmonized into a coherent historical picture.
\n6:1\u201333 The story of the building continues with the source of Ezra 5\u20136, and despite the difficulty of the date in the new configuration of 1 Esdras, there is a special emphasis on the date, following either Ezra 4:24 or Hag. 1:1. The letter to Darius contains a detailed record of the encounter between the governor and the Judean leaders: the visit itself, the inquiry, the lengthy answer of the Judean leaders, and the governor\u2019s request for further instructions. The focus of the letter is the answer of the Judean leaders, who relate the history of the Temple from its initiation by Solomon to the present. The two points of the historical account are clearly expressed: this is not a new building but the restoration of an old one, and the permission for its restoration was granted by Cyrus. Unit structure: resumption of building and inspection of the governor (6:1\u20136), letter to Darius (6:7\u201321), and Darius\u2019s response (6:22\u201333); structure of second subunit: introduction (6:7), visit (6:8\u20139), inquiry (6:10\u201311), answer of Judean leaders (6:12\u201319), and request for instructions (6:20\u201321); structure of third subunit: search in the archives (6:22), Cyrus\u2019s memorandum (6:23\u201325), Darius\u2019s instructions (6:26\u201333) concerning help for the building of the Temple (6:26\u201327), provisions for the sacrificial cult (6:28\u201330), punishment of transgressors (6:31\u201332), and conclusion (6:33).
\n6:1\u20132. in the second year The resumption of the building is attributed to the encouragement of the two prophets active at that time. The prophecies of Haggai and Zech. 4:9\u201310, however, do not refer to a resumption of the building but to its actual beginning.
\n6:3. at that time The builders of the Temple are paid a visit by the highest Persian official of the region, the satrap of \u201cBeyond the River\u201d (Ezra 5:3) and his entourage, his jurisdiction defined in 1 Esdras by the later, Greek definition: \u201cSyria and Phoenicia.\u201d The text does not disclose the motivation of the visit, whether it was prompted by complaints against the building or was a routine procedure of the Persian authorities. The high rank of the supervising official may suggest that the first was the case.
\n6:4. who ordered you The inquiry is phrased in direct speech, and the questions are simple: what is the legal basis of the enterprise, and who are the persons responsible for it?
\n6:5\u20136. and the elders of the Judeans The answer of the Judean leaders is not immediately recorded; it is presented later, as part of the letter sent by the governor of Beyond the River to his masters in Persia. All that we are told at this point is that the builders were allowed to proceed with the work, and this may imply that their claims seemed acceptable to the inquiring governor. In the spirit of the book, the permission to continue is seen as a special grace of God, by whose command through the prophets the project was undertaken.
\n6:7. a copy of the letter The introduction to the correspondence presents again the precise identity of the senders with the clarification that \u201cthe[ir] associates\u201d were \u201crulers in Syria and Phoenicia,\u201d and the mention of the explicit addressee, King Darius, followed by the opening of the letter itself with the standard greetings.
\n6:8. let all be known In an orderly manner, the governor first presents the facts of the visit and his findings. The report of his going to Jerusalem\u2014textually more detailed and more coherent than in the Masoretic Text of Ezra 5:8\u2014does not specify the motivation for the trip but moves directly to the findings: the building of a great new Temple. The governor explicitly defines the Temple as \u201cnew,\u201d a point not mentioned in Ezra 5:8 but certainly the essence of the elders\u2019 response.
\n6:9. and that work The rather dry description of the Temple in Ezra 5:8 is turned in the hands of 1 Esdras into praise of its grandeur: it is \u201ca great new house\u201d (6:8; Ezra has \u201cthe house of the great God\u201d); built with \u201ccostly hewn stones\u201d (\u201chewn stone\u201d in Ezra), and the work is proceeding successfully \u201cand is being completed with all splendor and attention\u201d (added in 1 Esdras).
\n6:10\u201311. then we asked The governor repeats in his letter the two questions that he posed to the Judeans: what is the official authorization of the project, and who are the men responsible for the work? The last point is emphasized in 1 Esdras by repetition.
\n6:12. they answered us saying The first point in the answer of the elders is the identification of the God to whom the Temple is dedicated. The universal title of Ezra 5:11, \u201cthe God of heaven and earth,\u201d is rephrased in a more Jewish form: \u201cThe LORD, the creator of heaven and earth.\u201d
\n6:13. the house was built Immediately following is the claim that the building was not new, since it was built many years ago by a great king of Israel.
\n6:14\u201315. but when our fathers The elders then recount, in theological terms shared by many peoples of the ancient Near East, the circumstances of the Temple\u2019s destruction: the destruction of the Temple, the conquest of the land, and the exile of the people were God\u2019s punishment of his people. Here again, the universal title \u201cGod of heaven\u201d is somewhat rephrased to \u201cthe LORD of Israel of heaven.\u201d
\n6:16. but in the first year The elders state briefly, with a precise statement of the date and circumstances, that the permission to build was granted by Cyrus.
\n6:17. and the holy vessels The Temple vessels, plundered by the Babylonians and returned by the Persians, are presented as a major aspect of the restoration and are repeatedly referred to. The recipient of the vessels is identified in Ezra 5:14 as Sheshbazzar, who was appointed governor on that occasion. 1 Esdras repeats this information but adds the name Zerubbabel (Zorobabel) to that of Sheshbazzar (Sanabassaros). The wish to augment Zerubbabel\u2019s role in the restoration and connect him to its very beginning is understandable and very much in line with 1 Esdras\u2019s goals; it further blurs, however, the historical picture. According to 1 Esdras, Zerubbabel appeared on the historical scene at the time of Darius, following his victory in the competition about the strongest; his introduction to the preceding phases of the restoration is quite awkward.
\n6:18. and he ordered him The text continues in the singular, with the command to transfer the vessels and to build the Temple addressed to Sheshbazzar alone.
\n6:19. then this Sanabassaros The account of the elders ends with the contemporary situation, which poses one of the known problems of the history of the restoration. They claim\u2014contrary to the information of Ezra 3, repeated above in 1 Esd. 5:54\u201355\u2014that it was Sheshbazzar who laid the foundations of the Temple.
\n6:20\u201321. now, then The governor presents his request as comprised of two issues: confirmation, on the basis of official documents, of the elders\u2019 story, in particular their claim that the building was authorized by Cyrus, and whatever the answer to this question, instructions from Darius how to further handle the matter at hand.
\n6:22\u201333 Darius indeed followed the suggestion of his governor and conducted a search in the archives in order to confirm the Judeans\u2019 claims. He found a memorandum with Cyrus\u2019s permission and delivered his own instructions for the handling of the matter. However, contrary to the smooth flow of the story in Ezra 6, here the whole matter is problematic, since Darius is presented as being faced with this issue for the first time, while in 1 Esd. 4\u2014following the competition of the three guardsmen\u2014he had already dealt with this matter and issued his own decree. As already pointed out, the cause of these tensions is the incorporation of the story of the three guardsmen into the account taken from Ezra, with no further harmonization.
\n6:22. then King Darius A document confirming the claims of the Judean elders is found in the royal archives in Media and fully quoted.
\n6:23. in the first year The text of Cyrus\u2019s memorandum is presented as part of the narrator\u2019s story with no epistolary introduction.
\n6:24. its height 60 cubits The memorandum contains details not mentioned in Cyrus\u2019s declaration quoted in 2:3\u20136 (= Ezra 1:2\u20134): the measurements of the building, the method of construction, and most significantly, the responsibility taken by King Cyrus to cover the expenses of the project.
\n6:25. and the holy vessels Furthermore, the return of the vessels is explicitly mentioned as part of the decree, thus fully confirming all the claims of the elders of Judah. The memorandum does not include, contrary to 1 Esd. 2:3\u20136 (= Ezra 1:2\u20134), a call to the exiles to return to Judah.
\n6:26. he commanded 1 Esdras changes the second-person address of Ezra 6:6\u20137 to a third-person account, thus presenting it as the account of the narrator, in continuation of the style of 1 Esd. 6:22. Until this point the representatives of the Judean community were presented as \u201cthe elders of the Judeans\u201d; Darius\u2019s response refers for the first time also to \u201cthe governor of Judah\u201d (cf. Ezra 6:7); and 1 Esdras takes the lead and identifies the anonymous governor as \u201cZorobabel, the servant of the LORD, the governor of Judah,\u201d with clear allusion to Hag. 2:23 and Zech. 4:9.
\n6:27. I command to build Darius proceeds with his own instructions, which exceed the favors granted by Cyrus, and the slight rephrasing of 1 Esdras makes them even more favorable. His first order to the governor and his entourage is not only to abstain from obstructing the work, but actually to assist the Judeans in its execution.
\n6:28\u201329. and from the tribute Following Cyrus\u2019s decree, Darius commands that the expenses of the building should be covered by the royal court\u2014here specified as \u201cthe tribute of Coelesyria and Phoenicia\u201d\u2014making the governor himself responsible for this financial support. Exceeding Cyrus\u2019s allowance, he also allots funds for the maintenance of the regular daily and annual sacrificial ritual as ordered by the priests. Here again 1 Esdras adds a reference to Zerubbabel, the local governor, as the recipient of the money.
\n6:30. so that libations Darius now points to the motivation for all these benefactions: the sacrifices \u201cto the God Most High\u201d (\u201cthe God of heaven\u201d in Ezra 6:10) should be on behalf of the king, and the priests in Jerusalem should pray for the welfare of the king and his sons. With these measures Darius actually includes the Temple in Jerusalem in the chain of royal temples spread around the empire.
\n6:31. and to command The next command refers to the governor\u2019s obligation to spread the word further to the inhabitants of the province and to take care that any hindrance in the prosecution of the building project or any damage to the Temple itself would be punished with the utmost severity.
\n6:32. therefore, may the LORD Darius then turns to secure the future of the Temple by appealing to God, \u201cwhose name is called there,\u201d to destroy any power, a king or a people, who would try to harm it.
\n6:33. I, King Darius, issued a decree Darius ends his letter with the strongest affirmation: these are the king\u2019s orders that should be fully and expediently implemented.
\n7:1\u201315 The end of the building project follows. Unit structure: completion and dedication of the Temple (7:1\u20139) and celebrating Passover (7:10\u201315).
\n7:1\u20132. then Sisinnes 1 Esdras enlarges the active role of the governor in the building of the Temple by adding to the general statement of Ezra 6:13 that he diligently followed Darius\u2019s orders. According to 1 Esdras the governor actually supervised the work and assisted the builders, both the elders and the Temple officers.
\n7:3\u20134. the holy work prospered According to Ezra 6:14 the building of the Temple was supported by the prophets and executed on the one hand under the command of the God of Israel and on the other hand under the command of three Persian kings. In the rephrasing of 1 Esdras, the role of the Persian rulers was limited to consent. As on other occasions, 1 Esdras emphasizes the date of the completion of the work by repeating it, adding the date already in 1 Esd. 7:4.
\n7:5. the house was completed The date given for the completion of the house is the sixth year of Darius, on the 23rd day of Adar rather than the 3rd day of the same month in Ezra 6:15. Although there are no conclusive arguments in favor of either date, most scholars prefer the 1 Esdras reading. The building of the Temple thus lasted four years, from the second to the sixth year of Darius; the building of Solomon\u2019s Temple took seven years (1 Kings 6:37\u201338).
\n7:6. and the sons of Israel 1 Esdras rephrases the description of the dedication in several subtle ways. For unknown reasons it omits the note that the dedication was celebrated with joy, but emphasizes by repetition that it was carried out in accord with \u201cthe book of Moses.\u201d
\n7:7\u20138. and offered The only information about the dedication ceremony is the number of sacrifices offered on the occasion. The kind of sacrifices is not explicitly stated, but it seems that they were all holocausts\u2014burnt entirely on the altar\u2014in addition to 12 goats for sin offerings on behalf of the people. No sacrifices of well-being, of which the people themselves partake, are mentioned. Although the number of the sacrificial animals is rather large\u2014700 altogether\u2014it falls short in comparison with Solomon\u2019s dedication ceremony, in which the sacrifices of well-being alone are said to have numbered 142,000 animals (1 Kings 8:63).
\n7:9. the priests and the Levites The point of Ezra 6:18 is that the divisions of the priests and Levites were established at the dedication of the Temple in accordance with \u201cthe book of Moses\u201d; according to the phrasing of 1 Esdras it is the performance of the ceremony that followed the prescriptions of the book of Moses. As a matter of fact, the establishment of the divisions of priests and Levites is not mentioned in the Pentateuch.
\n7:10\u201315 The story of the Temple ends with the celebration of the Passover and the following Feast of Unleavened Bread, the festivals nearest in time to the date of the dedication. It is taken for granted but not explicitly stated that the festivals were celebrated in Jerusalem, in the precincts of the Temple.
\n7:10\u201312. and the sons of Israel The aspect of purity, already highlighted in Ezra 6:19\u201322, is here further elaborated with the addition of 1 Esd. 7:11. Although both the priests and the Levites purified themselves, the stronger emphasis is put on the purity of the Levites, who took upon themselves the slaughtering of all the sacrifices\u2014for the people, the priests, and themselves. The particular statement of 1 Esdras that the people who came from the exile were not purified seems to be influenced by the story of Hezekiah\u2019s Passover in 2 Chron. 30.
\n7:13. and the sons of Israel 1 Esdras refrains from mentioning the non-Israelites who joined in the Passover festival by employing the phrase \u201call those who were separated from the abominations of the peoples of the land\u201d as a characterization of the returning Israelites rather than as a definition of a separate group.
\n7:14\u201315. they celebrated The story ends with the celebration of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, presented explicitly as the culmination of the building project. It is the providence of the LORD that turned the hearts of the foreign king\u2014here bearing the archaic title \u201cthe king of Assyrians\u201d\u2014to support them in their service of the LORD.
\n8:1\u20139:55 The third and last part of 1 Esdras consists of the story of Ezra the scribe, taken from Ezra 7\u201310 and Neh. 7:72\u20138:13a. Nehemiah\u2019s memoirs are omitted, but the episode beginning with Neh. 7:72 indicates that 1 Esdras knew Ezra-Nehemiah in its present format. Like the first unit of Ezra-Nehemiah, Ezra\u2019s story also includes an authentic document in its Aramaic language: Artaxerxes\u2019s letter of rights granted to Ezra (1 Esd. 8:8\u201324 = Ezra 7:11\u201326). The style of the story is composite and moves from a third-person narrative, presenting Ezra as the protagonist of the story, to a first-person autobiographical style, and then back to a third-person presentation. The style of 1 Esdras follows its source. The entire story of Ezra revolves around matters of a religious nature, relating to the upkeep of the Temple and to the establishment of religious Law and norms as the guiding force in the life of the Judean community. The story is composed of three large units: Ezra\u2019s mission to Jerusalem, including Artaxerxes\u2019 letter of rights; the case of mixed marriages; and the reading of the Law. The convincing scholarly suggestion that in the original story the reading of the Law preceded the episode of mixed marriages and that the present order was introduced by the author of Ezra-Nehemiah because of literary, compositional, and ideological considerations is irrelevant for 1 Esdras, which faithfully follows the material in Ezra-Nehemiah in its present order. According to the present chronology, Ezra\u2019s activity covered a period of about a year and a half. He left Babylon in the first month of the king\u2019s seventh year and arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month (1 Esd. 8:6 = Ezra 7:9); the convocation in Jerusalem on the matter of mixed marriages took place in the ninth month (1 Esd. 9:5 = Ezra 10:9); and the investigation of the matter was concluded by the first month of the next year (1 Esd. 9:17 = Ezra 10:17). It was followed immediately by the reading of the Law (1 Esd. 9:37 = Neh. 7:72). Unit structure: Ezra\u2019s mission to Jerusalem (8:1\u201364), the episode of mixed marriages (8:65\u20139:36), and reading the Law (9:37\u201355).
\n8:1\u201364 Ezra\u2019s mission to Jerusalem is the first major topic. Unit structure: introduction (8:1\u20137), Artaxerxes\u2019s letter of rights (8:8\u201324), and return to Jerusalem (8:25\u201364).
\n8:1\u20132. after these events The first two verses introduce Ezra the priest with the longest pedigree in the Bible. His lineage is traced back 16 generations, through the high priests during the First Temple period to Aaron the founder of the priesthood. A similar list, augmented at the middle by the addition of a few names and presented in the opposite direction, appears in 1 Chron. 5:30\u201340. In the list in 1 Esdras, Ezra is presented as son of Saraias, the last high priest of Solomon\u2019s Temple (2 Kings 25:18) and the brother of Jehozadak (1 Chron. 5:40). This would place him one generation before Jesous son of Josedek, one of the leaders of the return in the time of Cyrus and Darius. At the same time, he is presented as having lived in the time of King Artaxerxes of Persia, who ruled 465\u2013425 BCE (if the first king by that name is intended), or even later (if the second king by that name is intended), at least over 100 years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the death of Saraias. This impossible chronology could be solved only by the harmonistic solution that \u201cson of Saraias\u201d actually means \u201cof the descendants of Saraias.\u201d On its own this is a possible interpretation of the word \u201cson,\u201d but it is not in line with the present list, where the word \u201cson\u201d carries a literal meaning, referring to actual sons. Another possible explanation of this difficulty is the claim that the long pedigree attached to Ezra is a late construct, based on ideological rather than historical considerations. Be it as it may, in the story of Ezra in Ezra-Nehemiah, Ezra is not presented as a high priest. (For the view of I Esdras, see below.)
\n8:3\u20134. this Ezra came up Already at this stage we are told that Ezra found favor in the king\u2019s eyes, with 1 Esdras replacing \u201cGod\u2019s hand\u201d with the king\u2019s \u201cfavor.\u201d
\n8:5\u20136. some of the sons of Israel The brief summary of the return provides the chronological framework: the seventh year of Artaxerxes, from the first day of the first month to the first day of the fifth month. Following its general practice, 1 Esdras highlights the date by repeating it. The dates indicate that the journey took place in the spring, the best time of year for travel. The safe arrival in Jerusalem is presented as due to a special divine grace. The caravan of returnees included all the components of the Judean community, as enumerated in the list of returnees in 5:9\u201335 (except for \u201cthe sons of Solomon\u2019s slaves\u201d); in the list itself, however, the classes of Temple singers and gatekeepers are absent (8:29\u201348).
\n8:7. for Ezra possessed 1 Esdras rephrases the many virtues of Ezra: he not only \u201cdedicated himself\u201d but \u201cpossessed great knowledge\u201d; he not only \u201cstudied the Teaching of the LORD\u201d but omitted \u201cnothing from the Law.\u201d His goal was \u201cto teach all Israel.\u201d
\n8:8\u201324 Artaxerxes\u2019s letter of rights is a formal document in the first-person royal style, dealing systematically with the different areas of the province\u2019s life. It presents Ezra\u2019s virtues and mission, his authority and prerogatives; it is addressed to the kingdom\u2019s functionaries responsible for its implementation; and it is permeated with a religious spirit and religious terms. Its language is Aramaic, as befitting a document intended for the western region of the empire. Unit structure: introduction (8:8), preamble (8:9\u201310a), the mission\u2019s goal (8:10b\u201312), transfer of money and its purpose (8:13\u201316), the Temple vessels (8:17\u201318), provisions by the treasurers of the province (8:19\u201321), exemption from tribute (8:22), appointment of judges (8:23), and punishment of violators (8:24).
\n8:8. a copy The narrative introduction to Artaxerxes\u2019s decree is rephrased in 1 Esdras in several ways: the last sentence is omitted, and the \u201cscribe\/scholar\u201d (sofer) is replaced by \u201cthe reader of the Law of the LORD,\u201d a favorable term in 1 Esdras, which no doubt reflects the reality of his time. The mention of \u201ccopy\u201d is emphasized by repetition.
\n8:9. King Artaxerxes The edict opens with a formal address, identifying the sender and the addressee, with the conventional greetings. The title of Ezra is abbreviated again to become \u201cthe reader of the Law.\u201d
\n8:10\u201311. and benevolence 1 Esdras adds to the king\u2019s greetings a reference to his \u201cbenevolence\u201d or \u201cloving kindness\u201d (philanthr\u014dpia), a characterization of the king\u2019s goodwill toward his subjects illustrated by the letter. From this point on, the edict continues in the first person and begins with the permission to return to Judah, phrased in the most inclusive terms: the commission was decided not only by the king himself but also by his seven counselors (\u201cFriends\u201d); the rights were granted to an unlimited number of the Judeans, including the priests and the Levites\u2014whoever wishes to do so\u2014living anywhere in the Persian kingdom. 1 Esdras also adds that the people are asked to hurry and leave, in order to expediently fulfill the king\u2019s mission.
\n8:12. in order to investigate In Ezra 7 the addressee of the king\u2019s letter is Ezra himself\u2014he is sent to perform all the tasks mentioned from this point on. In the rephrasing of 1 Esd. 8:12\u201315 the commission is addressed\u2014somewhat awkwardly\u2014to all those who return. From 8:16 onward the edict is addressed again to Ezra himself. The first task presented to Ezra is to investigate whether the inhabitants of Judah complied with \u201cthe Law of the LORD.\u201d This is indeed the basis of the actual steps taken later by Ezra: the handling of mixed marriages and the reading of the Law.
\n8:13. and to carry back The second permission granted to the returnees is to transfer financial resources from the Persian kingdom to Judah for the maintenance of the Temple and its ritual. The gold and silver should come from three sources: vowed gifts of the royal court, gold and silver collected in the province of Babylon for the support of the Temple, and any money that any of the people of Judah anywhere would donate for that purpose.
\n8:16. the gold and the silver The financial support is assigned to meet the requirements of the regular sacrificial needs of the Temple. The final discretion in the use of the money is left to \u201cthe will of your God.\u201d
\n8:17\u201318. and the holy vessels The orderly implementation of the regular service also implies the possession of adequate equipment, termed \u201cthe vessels of the LORD.\u201d These should be supplied from two sources: donations given to Ezra before his return\u2014for whose transfer to Jerusalem he is granted special permission\u2014and support of the royal treasury.
\n8:19\u201320. I, King Artaxerxes The all-inclusive royal grant for the needs of the Temple is now defined: it should be provided by the treasurers of the satrapy of \u201cSyria and Phoenicia,\u201d it should include both money and basic staples, and it should amount to 100 talents of silver and specified amounts of wheat, wine, and salt (oil has probably fallen out of 1 Esdras due to scribal error). It is not stated, however, if this is a one-time donation or a regular annual support. Since the same topic is dealt with in Darius\u2019s decree (6:29) the second possibility seems to be the case. The titles of both God and Ezra are presented in the terms of 1 Esdras, rather than as reproductions of Ezra 7:21.
\n8:21. everything according to the Law The motivation of the king\u2019s benevolence and his special care for the Temple is now clearly stated: the wish to secure God\u2019s goodwill toward the king and the kingdom.
\n8:22. and to you be it said The last issue pertaining to the Temple service is the exemption from taxes granted to the Temple personnel, identified by their classes. This privilege is peculiar to Artaxerxes\u2019s decree; it is not included in any of the earlier edicts of the Persian kings and is further emphasized in 1 Esdras by repetition. The classes accord with those mentioned in the list of returnees (5:24\u201335 = Ezra 2:36\u201358), except that \u201cthe sons of Solomon\u2019s slaves\u201d are understandably replaced by a more general term: \u201cfunctionaries of [the] Temple.\u201d It is perhaps privileges of this sort that in the first place motivated the classification found in the lists.
\n8:23. and you, Ezra The final privilege mentioned in the edict relates to the nature and extent of Ezra\u2019s authority: he is nominated as the highest authority in all religious affairs, not only for the people of Judah but for all the Israelites in the satrapy of Syria and Phoenicia. This authority is put into effect in two ways: the supervision of the religious judicial system by the appointment of judges and the teaching of the Law to all those who are unfamiliar with it. This is the actual realization of the attributes of Ezra as \u201cthe reader of the Law of the LORD.\u201d We have no clue regarding the realization of this privilege: was this position ever realized? If yes\u2014was it exclusive to Ezra, or was it continued after him? How in practice did it operate? Ezra, and following it 1 Esdras, records two episodes related to this aspect of Ezra\u2019s authority: the handling of mixed marriages and the reading of the Law. However, Ezra\u2019s authority is presented in those contexts as emanating from his own spiritual superiority as a priest and a scholar, and in neither case is there a reference to the Persian empowerment. Moreover, both events are presented as one-time occurrences, with no continuation in the people\u2019s life.
\n8:24. all those who violate The decree ends with the sanctions that should be taken in case of violation. The phrasing refers clearly to two parallel legal systems\u2014the Law of God and the law of the king\u2014and violation of either should be severely punished. As mentioned above, no detail is given anywhere regarding the actual operation of these parallel systems, by themselves and in conjunction.
\n8:25\u201364 There is no formal transition from Artaxerxes\u2019s edict to Ezra\u2019s prayer of thanksgiving, and no introduction to the change of style from the third-person narrative style to a first-person account by Ezra himself, to be followed from this point until after Ezra\u2019s confession in 8:88 (= Ezra 10:1). After a short prayer of thanksgiving, Ezra turns immediately to carry out the first item on the agenda: return to Judah. The story of the return is longer and more detailed than any other presentation of this topic, but even here the greater part of the story is devoted to the organization of the caravan and the preparation for the voyage, and only one verse (8:60) is devoted to the journey itself. Unit structure: prayer of thanksgiving (8:25\u201326), the return (8:27\u201359), arrival in Jerusalem (8:60\u201364); structure of second subunit: introduction (8:27), list of returnees (8:28\u201340), the voyage (8:41\u201359): recruitment of Levites (8:41\u201348), fasting and prayer (8:49\u201353), securing the transfer of the valuables (8:54\u201359).
\n8:25\u201326. praised be the LORD In the pious spirit that permeates the entire story, Ezra sees the favor extended to him by the king and his court and the measures undertaken by the king to strengthen Jerusalem and its Temple as a sign of God\u2019s special grace, which turns the heart of the king toward him.
\n8:27. due to the support The recognition of God\u2019s goodwill is what prompts Ezra to follow the king\u2019s decree and begin to organize the return to Judah. In 1 Esdras there are several cases of rephrasing in the passage; for example, \u201cGod of our fathers\u201d in Ezra 7:28 is changed to \u201cLORD alone.\u201d
\n8:28\u201329. these are the leaders The list of returnees opens with the names and descent of the three leaders: two priests, Garsomos and Gamelos, belonging to the priestly families of Eleazar\u2014through Phineas\u2014and Ithamar, and an offspring of the house of David, Hattous son of Sechenias, mentioned also in 1 Chron. 3:22.
\n8:30\u201340. of the sons of Phoros The list includes only laymen, with no priests or any other member of the Temple personnel, although several individual priests are mentioned later in the story (8:54). Of the other classes of the Temple personnel, the Levites and the Temple servants will be mentioned in 8:46\u201347. The list of returnees records in a unified formula (with minor changes in some cases) the names of 12 families, their heads, and the number of men in each group. There is no mention of the other components of the caravan (women, children, slaves, etc.) or the total number of returnees. There are some textual differences between the parallel lists, and in certain cases (in particular 8:32, 36) it seems that 1 Esdras preserves a better reading. There are also small differences in the numbers, but there is no way to determine which reading is original. The smallest group has only 28 men, and the largest 300. In Ezra 8 the sum total of the men is 1,496 and in 1 Esdras-1,690; taking into consideration the other members of the families and related persons, the total number could have come up to 7,000 people. There is no way to determine the accuracy of this data. Some of the heads of the families are recorded with their patronym (e.g., 8:31\u201332) while some others are mentioned only by name. The reference to \u201crecord\u201d is limited to 8:30 and is not repeated later on. 1 Esd. 8:39 deviates from the list\u2019s fixed formula; no explanation is offered for the change, but it may be due to the use of a different kind of documentation.
\n8:41\u201342. I assembled them According to Ezra 8:15, Ezra did not find Levites among the assembled crowd and made a special effort to locate them and make them join the caravan. According to 1 Esdras, Ezra did not find priests either. In the continuation of the story 1 Esdras reports only the search for the Levites. Since several individual priests do appear in the story (8:54), it seems that the original list did include names of priestly families, which somehow dropped from the list in its transmission. The absence of the priestly families prompted 1 Esdras to change this verse, but he did not adjust the continuation of the story to the change. The wish to add Levites to the caravan stems from the view of the returnees as a symbolic representation of the entire people.
\n8:43\u201345. I sent to Eleazaros Ezra appoints a delegation of 10 learned men and sends them to a community known for having a constituent of Levites. Their instruction is to urge the inhabitants of this community to send some Levites to join the caravan. The name of the place, Casiphia in Ezra 8:17, is understood as an attribute and presented as \u201cthe place of the treasury.\u201d This little episode sheds some interesting light on the whereabouts of the Judean exiles in Babylon, their habitations, leadership, and communication network.
\n8:46\u201347. they brought us The delegation returns with two groups of Levites, of 18 and 20 men each, affiliated with two of the ancestral Levitical families. There are differences in the names of the founding fathers between the two versions. As in other cases, Ezra attributes the success of the delegation to the special grace of God.
\n8:48. and of the Temple servants The Levites are accompanied by a larger group of \u201cTemple servants\u201d (Nethinim), a lower order of Temple functionaries whose establishment is ascribed to David. This attribution is not substantiated by any other testimony; the Nethinim are not mentioned in the Chronicler\u2019s description of David\u2019s organization of the Temple functionaries (1 Chron. 23\u201326) or anywhere else in his descriptions of the Temple service.
\n8:49\u201350. I proclaimed there a fast Of the preparations for the journey Ezra mentions only two matters, the first of which is a day of fasting and praying, appealing to God to secure the caravan a safe journey. Here for the first time we learn that the caravan consisted not merely of men but of entire households and their livestock. 1 Esdras specifies that the fast was not declared for everyone but only for \u201cthe young men.\u201d
\n8:51\u201352. for I felt ashamed Ezra explains, and perhaps apologizes for, the necessity of the fasting: because of his piety and his confidence in God\u2019s protection\u2014which he expressed orally to the king\u2014he did not ask the king for military escort; he now had to make sure that this protection would indeed be granted. Taking into consideration the vulnerability of the caravan due to its size, composition, considerable load of money and valuables, and the length of the journey, such a protection was certainly necessary.
\n8:53. and we beseeched Ezra\u2019s final claim that God accepted the people\u2019s prayer already anticipates the safe arrival in Jerusalem, told later.
\n8:54. I set apart The last matter to be taken care of is the safe delivery of all the valuables from Babylon to Jerusalem. For this difficult task Ezra nominates 12 priests, whose leaders are mentioned by name.
\n8:55\u201356. and I weighed out The gold and silver are weighed, the vessels are precisely counted, and everything is properly recorded.
\n8:57. and I said to them The delivery of the caravan\u2019s treasures to the priests is accompanied by Ezra\u2019s admonition that (a) the priests were chosen for this office of trust because of their holiness, as appropriate for the holy vessels; (b) the money is holy too, because it is a \u201cvotive offering to the LORD\u201d; (c) the holy treasure belongs to God, for whom it was offered; and (d) the safeguarding of the treasures is temporary, because they are to be delivered to the Temple overseers and put in its chambers.
\n8:59. so the priests and the Levites The priests take upon themselves the difficult task and its conditions. The addition of Levites to the priests seems a conventional literary phrasing; they were not mentioned at the beginning of this episode as part of the body of treasurers.
\n8:60. having left the River Theras This is the only verse dedicated to the journey itself: they went out, they traveled safely, and they arrived. The departure from Babylon is dated on the 12th day of the first month, very close to the date of the Passover and to the time of the Exodus from Egypt. The decision to begin the journey at this time is rational\u2014it is the time of spring, the best season for the trip. However, the model of the Exodus, although not explicitly mentioned, may also have had a part in the timing.
\n8:61\u201362. having been there three days After some rest\u2014the typological three days (see also 8:41)\u2014the first task to be fulfilled is the delivery of the money and the vessels to the responsible persons in Jerusalem. No details are provided at this time; only a statement that everything was properly weighed and recorded.
\n8:63. those coming up The narrative moves\u2014for two verses only\u2014from the first-person style of \u201cI\u201d and \u201cwe\u201d to a third-person account in a manner of summary, the first-person style to be resumed in 8:65. The sacrifices offered upon the people\u2019s arrival consist of bulls, rams, lambs, and he-goats, the numbers of which are all multiples of 12, symbolizing their being offered \u201cfor all Israel.\u201d The he-goats, originally offered as sin offerings (7:8), are described in 1 Esdras as welfare offerings\u2014quite unusual for this kind of animals.
\n8:64. they delivered The story of the return ends with the handling of its administrative aspect\u2014the delivery of the documents to the relevant officials. How this was done and by whom is not stated, but the retrospective note, that they \u201cextolled the people and the Temple,\u201d rounds up the entire pericope.
\n8:65\u20139:36 After the handling of the formalities, Ezra is free to begin his true mission, \u201cto investigate in Judah and Jerusalem, the compliance with \u2026 the Law of the LORD\u201d (8:12). He does not need to wait long, for the people take the initiative and approach him with their burning problem\u2014mixed marriages. We are not told what prompted the people to raise this issue, but it is possible that the reading of the Law, now presented as taking place after the handling of this matter, originally preceded the people\u2019s approach. This order of the events is corroborated by the chronological details: Ezra\u2019s arrival in Jerusalem in the fifth month (8:6), the handling of mixed marriages beginning in the ninth month (9:5), and the reading of the Law in the seventh month (9:37). If this was indeed the original order, it was changed already in Ezra-Nehemiah, and the new order is followed in 1 Esdras. A major component of this unit is Ezra\u2019s address to God. It is commonly described as \u201cEzra\u2019s prayer\u201d but is rather a lengthy and moving confession of sin, based on a deep sense of guilt. It is grounded theologically in the concept of theodicy, as expressed by the final declaration: \u201cO LORD, \u2026 you are benevolent\u201d [literally: \u201crighteous\u201d (JPS: \u201cbenevolent\u201d). God\u2019s righteousness, not benevolence, is the essence of theodicy, and the literal rendering should be preferred.] (Ezra 9:15); and its tone is that of profound despair. The confession is not a conventional piece of liturgy but a living expression of the actual historical situation. Its many allusions to earlier texts reformulate these texts and serve as a vehicle for Ezra\u2019s religious views and convictions. Unit structure: the problem (8:65\u201367), Ezra\u2019s reaction and confession (8:68\u201387), the people\u2019s response (8:88\u20139:2), the convocation in Jerusalem and its follow-up (9:3\u201317), and the list of perpetrators and final action (9:18\u201336).
\n8:66\u201367. the people of Israel The problem as presented to Ezra is mixed marriages that spread among all the members of the community, first and foremost among the aristocracy. The complaint of the leaders joins together four historical peoples now extinct\u2014Chananites (Canaanites), Chettites (Hittites), Pherezites (Perizzites), and Jebusites\u2014and in Ezra 9:1 four contemporary peoples\u2014Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, and Amorites (probably, Edomites). Our text has only seven nations, as the Ammonites are not included. The Pentateuch has different laws concerning these groups (the \u201cseven nations\u201d in Deut. 7:1\u20133, the Moabites and Ammonites in 23:4, the Egyptians and Edomites in 23:8\u20139); their presentation together obliterates the differences between them, turns them into one group, and applies to all of them the same severe law of total exclusion and separation. The absence of Ammonites from 1 Esdras could be explained as a scribal error. Mixed marriages are described in one direction\u2014the taking in marriage of foreign wives. The other possibility suggested in Deut. 7:3\u2014of giving Israelite daughters in marriage to foreign men\u2014is not brought up in this context.
\n8:68. upon hearing these things Ezra\u2019s reaction to the news is that of a man in shock. He does not speak and goes into all the gestures of great mourning, including the rending of his priestly coat; he sits on the ground and fasts.
\n8:69. and all those This extreme reaction, in deeds rather than in words, attracts the attention of the crowd, who then gather around him. Ezra describes them as \u201cthose who were moved by the word of the LORD,\u201d alluding perhaps to the reading of the Law that preceded the leaders\u2019 complaint and prompted it.
\n8:70. being aroused from my fast After a day of fasting Ezra breaks his silence, but even now does not address the surrounding crowd but turns in prayer to God, in a long confession of sin and remorse.
\n8:71\u201372. O LORD Ezra opens with a personal note in the first-person singular, but moves immediately to the first-person plural, as a speaker for the community. After expressing his own feeling of shame, he turns to the acknowledgment of the people\u2019s sin, described in the most extreme terms.
\n8:73\u201374. already from the time The confession begins with a historical retrospect and introduces the concept of theodicy: the burden of sin lies on the shoulders of the people from of old, and this has been the cause of God\u2019s wrath and punishment. It is our fault that we suffer the hardest and harshest conditions, brought about by God\u2019s justified retribution. Although Ezra turns to the past, to the sins of \u201cour fathers,\u201d he still preserves the personal tone: we, not they, \u201chave been in great sin.\u201d
\n8:75. and now With this phrase, conventionally marking a turn in the speech, Ezra turns to the present situation and describes it as a moment of grace. Although God\u2019s righteousness demanded that the people be punished in the most severe way, his grace overpowered his anger and he acted with mercy. It is only because of God\u2019s mercy that the people survived and began to rehabilitate their life. Ezra\u2019s phrasing moves from a third-person speech about God to a second-person direct address to God.
\n8:76\u201378. and our light unveiled Ezra is not blind to the political reality: the people are in a state of servitude to the Persian rulers! God\u2019s grace toward his people was shown not in acts toward a political change, but within the framework of this political order. The signs of God\u2019s grace are the very survival of the people, the restoration of life in Judah and Jerusalem, and the existence in glory of God\u2019s Temple. The concept of God\u2019s providence, characteristic of Ezra-Nehemiah and followed in 1 Esdras, is that God worked through the kings of Persia; they were God\u2019s agents for the welfare of his people.
\n8:79. and now With another new address to God, Ezra returns to the topic at hand\u2014a detailed theological explanation of the sin: mixed marriages are a transgression of God\u2019s commandment that was delivered to the people of Israel by the prophets.
\n8:80\u201382. the land Ezra describes the nature of the transgression as a quotation of prophetic sayings: the land is in a state of impurity caused by the foreign nations. In order to be established in the land and enjoy its goodness, any contact with these peoples, in particular any marriage with them, is harmful and forbidden. Contact with foreign peoples is \u201cthe root of all evil\u201d and a threat to the very survival of the people of Israel in their land. The individual ideas used in Ezra\u2019s arguments\u2014the need to bolster the survival of Israel in its land and the attribution of impurity and abomination to the foreign peoples\u2014are taken from various biblical sources, particularly in the Pentateuch. However, their conjunction into a comprehensive whole and their use as an explanation for Israel\u2019s present situation are Ezra\u2019s own. It is an interesting example of a theological midrash.
\n8:83\u201385. and with all this befalling us The conclusion, addressed to God, seems self-evident: with God\u2019s righteousness as a basic presupposition, illustrated in the punishment inflicted on Israel in the past, with God\u2019s present momentary grace toward his people, and with the enormity of the transgression of mixed marriages\u2014is not mixed marriage the greatest risk for the survival of Israel?
\n8:86\u201387. O LORD of Israel The final invocation sums up the gist of the confession: God is truthful, we are guilty, how shall we survive? 1 Esdras prefers the adjective \u201ctruthful\u201d to the more common term \u201crighteous.\u201d
\n8:88. while Ezra was praying Ezra\u2019s dramatic action attracted a great crowd, who joined him in mourning and came forward with practical suggestions to solve the problem.
\n8:89\u201391. and Jechonias son of Jeelos The practical steps to be taken are not proposed by Ezra but by one of the crowd. Convinced by Ezra\u2019s rhetoric force, he acknowledges the people\u2019s guilt and proposes the most severe step possible: to cure the impurity of the community by dissolving the marriages and expelling not only the foreign wives but also their children. Being perhaps aware of the severity and cruelty of the proposed action, he presents it as supported by all the adherents to the Law and urges Ezra to take responsibility and act on the spot, offering the community\u2019s support. In Ezra 10:3, Shechaniah (= Jechonias in 1 Esd. 8:89) defines the suggested procedure as a covenant with God and his proposed steps as conforming to the Law. In fact, no such instructions are found in the Pentateuch, and the difficult claim is omitted in the rephrasing of 1 Esdras.
\n8:92. so Ezra got up Ezra indeed follows Shechaniah\u2019s\/Jechonias\u2019s proposal. He takes advantage of the moment and of the feelings of remorse that swept the crowd and puts them all under oath.
\n9:1\u20132. Ezra got up With the people\u2019s oath Ezra\u2019s task of the day came to an end, and he retired to the chamber of the priest Joanan son of Eliasibos. His mood, however, did not change, and his deep aggravation at the people\u2019s transgression made him go on with mourning and fasting. The name of the priest may offer a chronological anchor for the event. Eliashib (1 Esdras: Eliasibos) is mentioned several times as the high priest during the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 3:1; 13:4), and if the priest mentioned in the episode of mixed marriages\u2014whether a high priest or not\u2014is the son of this Eliashib (Neh. 12:23), a solid chronological framework is provided for Ezra\u2019s office and activity.
\n9:3\u20134. so a proclamation The first step toward implementation of Shechaniah\u2019s\/Jechonias\u2019s suggestion and the oath undertaken by the leaders of the people is a general convocation in Jerusalem. The enforcement of the convocation is effected by threats of punitive actions\u2014the exclusion from the community and the confiscation of property\u2014rather than by the need to take action or the authority of Ezra. The power of exclusion from the community may be based on the cohesive social structure and the authority of the leaders, but the power to confiscate property implies\u2014but does not explicitly mention\u2014an official authority.
\n9:5. so all those The people identified earlier as \u201cthose of the exile\u201d living in Judah and Jerusalem are now presented as \u201cof the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.\u201d This double definition points to the peculiar view of both Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras, that the Judean people of the period were all descendants of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and all of them returning exiles. A drop of humor is inserted into the story with the remark that the assembled crowd was trembling, both because of the awesomeness of the occasion and the winter weather.
\n9:7\u20139. Ezra stood up At this time Ezra addresses the assembling crowd with a concise and authoritative speech, with no emotional outbreak or preaching. He puts down his demand\u2014presented as a fulfillment of God\u2019s command\u2014of absolute separation from non-Israelites.
\n9:10\u201311. so all the crowd The crowd responded in a rational way. Although they admitted that Ezra\u2019s demand was fully justified and should be obeyed, they asked to postpone its implementation. The project was too big to be dealt with on the spot, the circumstances were unfavorable, and an orderly procedure should be established. Is it too far-fetched to suggest that the crowed also hoped\u2014without saying so\u2014to win time and perhaps avoid the suggested strict measures?
\n9:12\u201313. let the leaders The suggestion of the crowd consists of several steps: establishment of a committee composed of leading persons of the community, an orderly identification of the culprits, an organized legal examination of each case, and the necessary outcome\u2014the separation from the foreign women.
\n9:14. Jonatas son of Azaelos The identity or position of these persons is not specified but it seems that they were representatives of the crowd and supported their request.
\n9:15\u201317. and those of the exile The suggested procedure is accepted, and Ezra turns immediately, already at the beginning of the 10th month, to establish a committee of well-known leaders and to put the decision into effect. The investigation of the matter throughout Judah and the preparation of the list took another three months, until the first day of the first month.
\n9:18\u201320. of the priests The list of perpetrators who married foreign women is organized according to the same categories as the other lists in Ezra-Nehemiah, but with the placement of the laypeople at the end of the list. The perpetrating priests belong to the four priestly families, the first mentioned being the family of the high priest, Jesous son of Josedek. The procedure regarding the four members of this family is precisely recorded: they are to expel the foreign wives and to offer a guilt sacrifice in atonement for their transgression. This procedure is not mentioned again, but it might have applied also to the members of the other priestly families, \u201ctheir brothers.\u201d
\n9:21\u201322. and of the sons of Emmer Of the other three priestly families\u2014Emmer, Harim, and Phaisour\u20141 Esdras omits the name of Harim and two of its members. The total number of priests is thus 17 in Ezra 10 and 15 in 1 Esdras.
\n9:23\u201325. and of the Levites Of the other Temple functionaries there are six Levites, one singer in Ezra 10 but two in 1 Esdras, and three gatekeepers, altogether 10 or 11.
\n9:26\u201335. of Israel Ten families with 86 members are enumerated in Ezra 10, and 11 families with 76 members in 1 Esdras. It seems that in Ezra 10:36\u201342 some family names were presented as personal names, and most of these corruptions, but not all, are represented in 1 Esdras. All the family names in their Hebrew form are included, in a different order, in the list of returnees of Ezra 2:1\u201342, but this accord is not preserved in the Greek forms of the names. Altogether the list registers over 110 men, all recorded by names and family affiliation.
\n9:36. all these married foreign wives According to Ezra 10:44 the affair of mixed marriages was not practically resolved; it simply states: \u201cAll these had married foreign women, among whom were some women who had borne children.\u201d This ending may be interpreted from three different perspectives: from a textual perspective as a textual corruption, from a literary perspective as a result of the omission of the final passage that held information about the actual conclusion of the affair, and from a historical perspective as indicating that no further action was undertaken and the affair was concluded by the promulgation of the list. This is not the case in 1 Esd. 9:36, which states unequivocally that the women and their children were actually expelled. Some scholars (and translations) adopt 1 Esdras as the original reading, while others regard it as a tendentious change by the author of 1 Esdras. The seemingly textual difference would result in quite opposing views regarding the issue of mixed marriages on the one hand and the success of Ezra\u2019s mission on the other hand.
\n9:37\u201355 The final episode of 1 Esdras is the public reading of the Torah (the Law) on the New Moon of the seventh month. The beginning of the story in 1 Esdras is a bit awkward because the mention of the settlement of some of the people in Jerusalem is out of context; it is well explained by the continuation of the story in Ezra, where the reading of the Law in Neh. 8 follows the list of the returnees in Neh. 7. It demonstrates that 1 Esdras does not reflect an original version of the story, but is dependent on Ezra-Nehemiah. Unit structure: assembling in Jerusalem (9:37\u201338), reading the Law of the LORD (9:39\u201348), and celebrating the holy day with joy (9:49\u201355).
\n9:37\u201338. the priests and the Levites The statement about the settlement seems incomplete, as it tells that \u201cthe priests and the Levites and some of Israel settled in Jerusalem and in the country\u201d and does not mention where the other parts of the people settled. It seems that the text has already suffered some omission in Neh. 7:72 and became even more blurred in the present version. Be that as it may, the very reference to the settlement is out of place in the present context. The first day of the seventh month is also the date of the people\u2019s assembly in Jerusalem in the time of Zerubbabel and Joshua (1 Esd. 5:46 = Ezra 3:1) and the question arises whether this is a regular New Moon celebrated in the Temple or already reflects the day of \u201csacred occasion\u201d (NJPS) or \u201choly convocation\u201d (NRSV) prescribed in Lev. 23:24 and Num. 29:1, which is to become the New Year\u2019s Day in later Judaism. The celebration of this day in Ezra-Nehemiah differs substantially from the Pentateuchal instructions. On the one hand the Pentateuch calendar of holidays does not include this day among the pilgrimages; on the other hand, none of the terms that identify this day in the Pentateuch (zkrwn trw\u2019h, mqr\u2019qwdsh, shbatwn, ywm trw\u2019h) are repeated in Ezra-Nehemiah. It seems rather that the New Moon of the seventh month derived its significance in Ezra-Nehemiah from its connection to the celebration of the main pilgrimage\u2014the Festival of Tabernacles (Succoth). According to Neh. 8:1 the convocation took place at the space before one of the city gates, the Water Gate. In 1 Esdras it is moved to the precincts of the Temple, both here and in 9:41.
\n9:39. and they told Ezra Although the teaching of the Law was a major aspect of Ezra\u2019s mission (1 Esd. 8:7, 23 = Ezra 7:10, 25), according to this chapter the reading of the Law was initiated by the people rather than by him. This is one of three places where 1 Esdras awards Ezra the title \u201chigh priest\u201d (also 9:40, 49), with no corroboration in Ezra-Nehemiah; it certainly expresses a major tenet of his view of the restoration period.
\n9:40\u201341. so Ezra the high priest The crowd includes the entire community, both men and women. The mention of women is noteworthy since they are not registered in any of the lists and their presence throughout the story is rather undistinguished. Nevertheless, they are mentioned three times in Ezra-Nehemiah as participants in public assemblies: in the gathering around Ezra during his mourning over mixed marriages (Ezra 10:1), in the reading of the Law (Neh. 8:2\u20133), and in the making of the covenant (Neh. 10:29\u201330). The first two are included in 1 Esdras. These explicit references indicate that women did take part in the public life of Judah, even in events of religious nature. 1 Esdras rephrases the verse by the addition of \u201call the priests\u201d as part of the crowd.
\n9:42\u201344. Ezra the priest The setting is very clearly presented: Ezra is standing on a raised wooden platform facing the people, flanked on each side by an honor guard of six or seven men (six and seven in Neh. 8:4, seven and six in 1 Esdras, with differences in the names), and all the assembling crowd in front of them.
\n9:45\u201347. Ezra took up the book 1 Esdras elaborates somewhat the description of the ceremony that preceded the reading: Ezra took the book, opened it in front of the people, the entire congregation stood up, Ezra blessed the LORD, the people responded with \u201cAmen\u201d and raised their hands, and everybody prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground. The title of God in Neh. 8:6\u2014\u201cthe LORD, the great God\u201d\u2014is rephrased in 1 Esdras to \u201cthe LORD God Most High, the Almighty God Sabaoth.\u201d Then the reading began.
\n9:48. and the Levites While Ezra was reading the Law from above the platform, 13 Levites were explaining its meaning to the crowd. In both Neh. 8 and 1 Esdras it is emphasized\u2014although in different terms\u2014that the people fully understood what was read to them.
\n9:49\u201350. and Hattharates said to Ezra It seems that the text underwent several modifications before it reached the somewhat unclear version of 1 Esdras. The original of Neh. 8:9 presented Ezra and the Levites as instructing the people and telling them that the day was holy and should be celebrated with joy. This text was secondly enlarged by the interpolation of \u201cNehemiah the Tirshata,\u201d which introduced Nehemiah to the event and joined him to Ezra and the Levites as the instructors of the people. Two further changes were introduced in 1 Esdras. The unfamiliar title \u201cTirshata\u201d was conceived as a personal name, Hattharates, and the name \u201cNehemiah\u201d was omitted. In the present version of 1 Esdras it is not Ezra and the Levites who instruct the people, but Hattharates who instructs Ezra and the Levites.
\n9:51\u201352. go now Two features mark the day as a day of joy: eating and drinking well, and sending gifts to the poor. These features mark the festive day also in Esther 9:22.
\n9:53. and the Levites The Levites transmit the instruction of Hattharates to the people and urge them to relinquish their sadness.
\n9:54\u201355. so everyone went The people follow the instructions and turn the day into a day of great joy. They do it, however, not because they were told but\u2014as before\u2014because they understood the instructions and were deeply moved. The book ends abruptly with the beginning of the next passage\u2014\u201cand they assembled\u201d\u2014and raises the question of the ending of 1 Esdras. Was this the original ending of the book, with an intentional break at this point, or was it a result of some textual corruption that left the book without its end? The two positions are advocated in the scholarly literature, but a major consideration is that these opening words follow the Greek version of the text rather than the Hebrew. The Hebrew text of Neh. 8:13 literally reads: \u201cOn the second day they assembled.\u201d This was probably represented in Greek translation by \u201cand they assembled on the second day,\u201d which implies that the text was curtailed not in its original Hebrew but in its Greek version and does not represent the original form of the work. How much further did the original text go? There is no way to restore the original ending, and so no certain answer to the question can be offered. It seems reasonable to assume that the story went on to include the Feast of Tabernacles (Neh. 8:13\u201318), which ended nicely with the daily reading of the Law, but this cannot be determined conclusively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Additions to Daniel Matthias Henze The book of Daniel is significantly longer in the Greek and Latin versions of the Bible than it is in the Masoretic Text (MT), where it is written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Differences between the three versions include some short insertions, and in chapters 4\u20136, the text of Daniel in … <\/p>\n