Ezra 4:2

4:2 they came to Zerubbabel and the leaders ¹  and said to them, “Let us help you build, ²  for like you we seek your God and we have been sacrificing to him ³  from the time ⁴  of King Esarhaddon ⁵  of Assyria, who brought us here.” ⁶ 

Ezra 6:3

6:3 In the first year of his reign, ⁷  King Cyrus gave orders concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem: ⁸  ‘Let the temple be rebuilt as a place where sacrifices are offered. Let its foundations be set in place. ⁹  Its height is to be ninety feet and its width ninety ¹⁰  feet, ¹¹ 

Ezra 6:8

6:8 “I also hereby issue orders as to what you are to do with those elders of the Jews in order to rebuild this temple of God. From the royal treasury, from the taxes of Trans-Euphrates the complete costs are to be given to these men, so that there may be no interruption of the work. ¹² 

Ezra 7:28

7:28 He has also conferred his favor on me before the king, his advisers, and all the influential leaders of the king. I gained strength as the hand of the Lord my God was on me, and I gathered leaders from Israel to go up with me.

Ezra 8:22

8:22 I was embarrassed to request soldiers and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy ¹³  along the way, because we had said to the king, “The good hand of our God is on everyone who is seeking him, but his great anger ¹⁴  is against everyone who forsakes him.”

Ezra 8:33

8:33 On the fourth day we weighed out the silver, the gold, and the vessels in the house of our God into the care ¹⁵  of Meremoth son of Uriah, the priest, and Eleazar son of Phinehas, who were accompanied by Jozabad son of Jeshua and Noadiah son of Binnui, who were Levites.

Ezra 9:13

9:13 “Everything that has happened to us has come about because of our wicked actions and our great guilt. Even so, our God, you have exercised restraint ¹⁶  toward our iniquities and have given us a remnant such as this.

Ezra 10:9

10:9 All the men of Judah and Benjamin were gathered in Jerusalem within the three days. (It was in the ninth month, on the twentieth day of that month.) All the people sat in the square at the temple of God, trembling because of this matter and because of the rains.

Ezra 10:14

10:14 Let our leaders take steps ¹⁷  on behalf of all the assembly. Let all those in our towns who have married foreign women come at an appointed time, and with them the elders of each town and its judges, until the hot anger of our God is turned away from us in this matter.”

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¹ tn Heb “the heads of the fathers.” So also in v. 3.

² tn Heb “Let us build with you.”

³ tc The translation reads with the Qere, a Qumran MS, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Arabic version וְלוֹ (vÿlo, “and him”) rather than the Kethib of the MT, וְלֹא (vÿlo’, “and not”).

⁴ tn Heb “days.”

⁵ sn Esarhaddon was king of Assyria ca. 681-669 b.c.

⁶ sn The Assyrian policy had been to resettle Samaria with peoples from other areas (cf. 2 Kgs 17:24-34). These immigrants acknowledged Yahweh as well as other deities in some cases. The Jews who returned from the Exile regarded them with suspicion and were not hospitable to their offer of help in rebuilding the temple.

⁷ tn Aram “In the first year of Cyrus the king.”

⁸ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁹ tn Aram “raised”; or perhaps “retained” (so NASB; cf. NLT), referring to the original foundations of Solomon’s temple.

¹⁰ tc The Syriac Peshitta reads “twenty cubits” here, a measurement probably derived from dimensions given elsewhere for Solomon’s temple. According to 1 Kgs 6:2 the dimensions of the Solomonic temple were as follows: length, 60 cubits; width, 20 cubits; height, 30 cubits. Since one would expect the dimensions cited in Ezra 6:3 to correspond to those of Solomon’s temple, it is odd that no dimension for length is provided. The Syriac has apparently harmonized the width dimension provided here (“twenty cubits”) to that given in 1 Kgs 6:2.

¹¹ tn Aram “Its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits.” The standard cubit in the OT is assumed by most authorities to be about eighteen inches (45 cm) long.

¹² tn The words “of the work” are not in the Aramaic, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹³ tn A number of modern translations regard this as a collective singular and translate “from enemies” (also in v. 31).

¹⁴ tn Heb “his strength and his anger.” The expression is a hendiadys (one concept expressed through two terms).

¹⁵ tn Heb “upon the hand of.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “held back downwards from”; KJV “hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve” (NIV, NRSV, NLT all similar).

¹⁷ tn Heb “stand.”