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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 1:5 - 1:5
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In consequence of this royal summons, the heads of the houses of Judah and Benjamin, of the priests and Levites, - in short, all whose spirit God stirred up, - rose to go up to build the house of God. The לְ in לְכֹל serves to comprise the remaining persons, and may therefore be rendered by, in short, or namely; comp. Ewald, §310, a. The relative sentence then depends upon כֹּל without אֲשֶׁר. The thought is: All the Jews were called upon to return, but those only obeyed the call whom God made willing to build the temple at Jerusalem, i.e., whom the religious craving of their hearts impelled thereto. For, as Josephus says, Antt. xi. 1: πολλοὶ κατέμειναν ἐν τῇ Βαβυλῶνι τὰ κτήματα καταλιπεῖν οὐ θέλοντες.
Ezr 1:6
All their surrounders assisted them with gifts. The surrounders are the people of the places where Jews were making preparations for returning; chiefly, therefore, their heathen neighbours (Ezr 1:4), but also those Jews who remained in Babylon. חִזְּקוּ בִידֵיהֶם is not identical in meaning with יָד חִזַּק, to strengthen, e.g., Jer 23:14; Neh 2:18; but with הֶחֱזִיק בְּיָד, the Piel here standing instead of the elsewhere usual Hiphil: to grasp by the hand, i.e., to assist; comp. Lev 25:34. עַל לְבַד, separated to, besides; elsewhere joined with מִן, Exo 12:37, etc. הִתְנַדֵּב connected with כֹּל without אֲשֶׁר, as the verbum fin. in Ezr 1:5, 1Ch 29:3, and elsewhere. הָאֱלֹהִים לְבֵית must, according to Ezr 1:4, be supplied mentally; comp. Ezr 2:68; Ezr 3:5; 1Ch 29:9, 1Ch 29:17.