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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 2:64 - 2:64
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The whole number of those who returned, their servants, maids, and beasts of burden. Comp. Neh 7:66-69. - The sum-total of the congregation (כְּאֶחָד, as one, i.e., reckoned together; comp. Ezr 3:9; Ezr 6:20) is the same in both texts, as also in 1 Esdras, viz., 42,360; the sums of the separate statements being in all three different, and indeed amounting in each to less than the given total. The separate statements are as follow: -
According to Ezra According to Nehemiah According to 1 Esdras
Men of Israel 24,144 25,406 26,390
Priests 4,289 4,289 2,388
Levites 341 360 341
Nethinim and servants of Solomon 392 392 372
Those who could not prove their Israelitish origin 652 642 652
Total 29,818 31,089 30,143
These differences are undoubtedly owing to mere clerical errors, and attempts to reconcile them in other ways cannot be justified. Many older expositors, both Jewish and Christian (Seder olam, Raschi, Ussher, J. H. Mich., and others), were of opinion that only Jews and Benjamites are enumerated in the separate statements, while the sum-total includes also those Israelites of the ten tribes who returned with them. In opposing this notion, it cannot, indeed, be alleged that no regard at all is had to members of the other tribes (Bertheau); for the several families of the men of Israel are not designated according to their tribes, but merely as those whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away to Babylon; and among these would certainly be included, as Ussher expressly affirms, many belonging to the other tribes who had settled in the kingdom of Judah. But the very circumstances, that neither in the separate statements nor in the sum-total is any allusion made to tribal relations, and that even in the case of those families who could not prove their Israelitish origin the only question was as to whether they were of the houses and of the seed of Israel, exclude all distinction of tribes, and the sum-total is evidently intended to be the joint sum of the separate numbers. Nor can it be inferred, as J. D. Mich. conjectures, that because the parallel verse to Ezr 2:64 of our present chapter, viz., 1 Esdr. 5:41, reads thus, “and all of Israel from twelve years old and upwards, besides the servants and maids, were 42,360,” the separate statements are therefore the numbers only of those of twenty years old and upwards, while the sum-total includes those also from twelve to twenty years of age. The addition ”from twelve years and upwards” is devoid of critical value; because, if it had been genuine, the particular “from twenty years old and upwards” must have been added to the separate statements. Hence it is not even probable that the author of the 1st book of Esdras contemplated a reconciliation of the difference by this addition. In transcribing such a multitude of names and figures, errors could scarcely be avoided, whether through false readings of numbers or the omission of single items. The sum-total being alike in all three texts, we are obliged to assume its correctness.
Ezr 2:65
“Besides these, their servants and their maids, 7337.” אֵלֶּה is, by the accent, connected with the preceding words. The further statement, “And there were to them (i.e., they had) 200 singing men and singing women,” is striking. The remark of Bertheau, that by לָהֶם the property of the community is intended to be expressed, is incorrect; לָהֶם denotes merely computation among, and does not necessarily imply proprietorship. J. D. Mich., adopting the latter meaning, thought that oxen and cows originally stood in the text, and were changed by transcribers into singing men and singing women, “for both words closely resemble each other in appearance in the Hebrew.” Berth., on the contrary, remarks that שְׁוָרִים, oxen, might easily be exchanged for שׁררים or משׁררים, but that שׁור has no feminine form for the plural, and that פָּרֹות, cows, is very different from משׁררות; that hence we are obliged to admit that in the original text שֹׁורִים stood alone, and that after this word had been exchanged for משׁררים, משׁררות was added as its appropriate complement. Such fanciful notions can need no serious refutation. Had animals been spoken of as property, לָהֶם would not have been used, but a suffix, as in the enumeration of the animals in Ezr 2:66. Besides, oxen and cows are not beasts of burden used in journeys, like the horses, mules, camels, and asses enumerated in Ezr 2:66, and hence are here out of place. וּמְשֹֽׁרְרֹות מְשֹֽׁרְרִים are singing men and singing women, in 1 Esdras ψάλται καὶ ψαλτῳδοί, who, as the Rabbis already supposed, were found among the followers of the returning Jews, ut laetior esset Israelitarum reditus. The Israelites had from of old employed singing men and singing women not merely for the purpose of enhancing the cheerfulness of festivities, but also for the singing of lamentations on sorrowful occasions; comp. Ecc 2:8; 2Ch 35:25 : these, because they sang and played for hire, are named along with the servants and maids, and distinguished from the Levitical singers and players. In stead of 200, we find both in Nehemiah and 1 Esdras the number 245, which probably crept into the text from the transcriber fixing his eye upon the 245 of the following verse.
Ezr 2:66-67
The numbers of the beasts, whether for riding or baggage: horses, 736; mules, 245; camels, 435; and asses, 6720. The numbers are identical in Neh 7:68. In 1 Esdr. 5:42 the camels are the first named, and the numbers are partially different, viz., horses, 7036, and asses, 5525.