Ezra7chapter 7

Ezra 7:1-5

Now after these things marks a silence of roughly six decades between the temple's dedication in chapter 6 and Ezra's arrival under Artaxerxes, a gap the book does not narrate though the Esther story falls inside it. Ezra's pedigree runs unbroken to Aaron the chief priest, Wesley noting that several generations are omitted for brevity and may be supplied from 1 Chronicles 6. The line matters because Ezra 2:62 has already put priests without a recorded father's house out of the priesthood, so this scribe's credentials stand beyond question before he opens his mouth.

Ezra 7:6

He was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, a term Clarke reads as more than a swift penman, one skilled to expound the law, the sense the New Testament itself carries when it uses the word scribe. The chapter's first instance of the book's signature refrain follows at once: the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him, one of seven occurrences of that formula in Scripture, and all seven fall in Ezra and Nehemiah. Favor with a pagan king is credited to God's hand before a single letter is even granted.

Ezra 7:7-9

Priests, Levites, singers, porters and Nethinims go up with him in the king's seventh year, the classes of temple service traveling as one company before the fuller roll of chapter 8 names them by household. The dates frame roughly four months on the road, the first day of the first month to the first day of the fifth, a slow pace Jamieson Fausset and Brown attribute to a caravan carrying the aged, women, children and household goods rather than an army's march. The good hand of his God upon him closes the notice, the second of the book's seven occurrences of that formula, God's providence again the credited cause of safe travel rather than any escort.

Ezra 7:10

Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments: the order is the sentence's own argument, seeking before doing and doing before teaching. Clarke reads the Hebrew for prepared as fixed and determined with all his powers and affections, a resolve made before the trip rather than a gift discovered on arrival. Henry draws the charge for every minister from the same clause, what Ezra knew he was willing to communicate for the good of others, the ministration of the Spirit given to profit others rather than to hoard learning.

Ezra 7:11-14

The chapter turns to the copy of the letter itself, the king's own document quoted rather than summarized, and from here through verse 26 the text runs in Aramaic, the empire's working language for its own filed correspondence. Artaxerxes styles himself king of kings, a title Clarke notes as at least partly true of the Persian throne, over subject kings who kept their own name and authority. The grant is voluntary, minded of their own freewill to go up, and Ezra travels as one sent of the king and his seven counsellors, a council named again in Esther's court, to enquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem by the law already in his hand.

Ezra 7:15-18

The king's own contribution comes first, silver and gold that the king and his counsellors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose habitation Artaxerxes locates plainly in Jerusalem. A further collection follows from the whole province of Babylon, whatever the people and priests give willingly, so the fund gathers from three sources before Ezra ever reaches the temple. Gill traces the money's intended use step by step, bullocks, rams and lambs bought speedily for the altar with their appointed meat and drink offerings, and whatever silver is left over given to Ezra and his brethren to spend after the will of your God rather than the king's own specification.

Ezra 7:19-20

The vessels given for the temple's service are to be delivered before the God of Jerusalem, sacred articles handled with the same care as the money. Whatever more the house of God should need beyond the collected gift, Ezra may draw directly from the king's treasure house, an open-ended provision Henry reads as considerate, since Ezra could not yet know what he would find wanting on arrival. A heathen empire funds the temple's ongoing needs on credit before Ezra has filed a single request of his own.

Ezra 7:21-24

Artaxerxes repeats his decree in his own voice a second time, I, even I Artaxerxes the king, addressed now to the treasurers beyond the river rather than to Ezra, with a ceiling named in silver, wheat, wine and oil and salt left without prescribing how much. Jamieson Fausset and Brown read the closing warning, that wrath might fall on the king's own house and his sons, as evidence of a real fear of the God of heaven produced in a pagan court by the exile itself. The decree extends to a tax exemption for every class of temple minister, priests, Levites, singers, porters and Nethinims, Clarke noting they held no private revenue and taxing them would have been unreasonable.

Ezra 7:25-26

Ezra's civil commission matches his priestly one, set magistrates and judges to judge all the people beyond the river, and teach ye them that know them not, so the man who prepared his heart to teach in Israel is now empowered to install a whole judiciary abroad. The penalties named, death, banishment, confiscation of goods or imprisonment, are Persian penalties applied to violation of the law of thy God and the law of the king in the same breath, the two laws treated as one standard for this province. Clarke counts the list as covering almost every punishment a state of that day could inflict, and with this verse the Aramaic section of the chapter ends.

Ezra 7:27-28

The document ends and Ezra's own voice breaks through mid-sentence, Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, the Aramaic of the royal grant giving way to Hebrew exactly where the doxology begins. Jamieson Fausset and Brown read the outburst as Ezra's habit of mind, discerning the hand of God in every event and always ready to acknowledge it aloud rather than merely note it for the record. The chapter closes echoing the same confidence that opened it at verses 6 and 9, I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and Ezra gathers chief men out of Israel to go up with him, a grant now becoming a caravan.