Ezra7chapter 7

a.Now this is the copy: 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.

a.to carry the silver and gold: 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.

a.The vessels also that: 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.

a.even I Artaxerxes the king: 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.

a.set magistrates and judges, which: 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.

a.Blessed be the Lord God: 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.