6:11 “I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled 3 on it, and his house is to be reduced 4 to a rubbish heap 5 for this indiscretion. 6 6:12 May God who makes his name to reside there overthrow any king or nation 7 who reaches out 8 to cause such change so as to destroy this temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given orders. Let them be carried out with precision!”
6:13 Then Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues acted accordingly – with precision, just as Darius the king had given instructions. 9 6:14 The elders of the Jews continued building and prospering, while at the same time 10 Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo continued prophesying. They built and brought it to completion by the command of the God of Israel and by the command of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 6:15 They finished this temple on the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth 11 year of the reign of King Darius.
1 tn Aram “according to the word of.”
2 tn Aram “for the life of the king and his sons.”
3 sn The practice referred to in v. 11 has been understood in various ways: hanging (cf. 1 Esd 6:32 and KJV); flogging (cf. NEB, NLT); impalement (BDB 1091 s.v. זְקַף; HALOT 1914 s.v. מחא hitpe; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV). The latter seems the most likely.
4 tn Aram “made.”
5 tn Aram “a dunghill.”
6 tn Aram “for this.”
7 tn Aram “people.”
8 tn Aram “who sends forth his hand.”
9 tn Aram “sent.”
10 tn Aram “in” or “by,” in the sense of accompaniment.
11 sn The sixth year of the reign of Darius would be ca. 516