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Ezra3:1–7

Sacrifices Restored

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Ezra 3:1–7 — Sacrifices Restored. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

1

By the seventh month, the Israelites had settled in their towns, and the people assembled as one man in Jerusalem.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

haš·šə·ḇî·‘î ha·ḥō·ḏeš ū·ḇə·nê yiś·rā·’êl way·yig·ga‘ bɛ·ʿå̄·rī·ms hā·‘ām way·yê·’ā·sə·p̄ū ’e·ḥāḏ kə·’îš ’el- yə·rū·šā·lim

Word by word12 · parsed
הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔יhaš·šə·ḇî·‘îBy the seventhH7637
√ shᵉbîyʻîy — seventhArticleNumberordinal masculine singular
הַחֹ֣דֶשׁha·ḥō·ḏešmonthH2320
√ chôdesh — the new moonArticleNounmasculine singular
chôdesh: the new moon, hence month The word for month is the word for new moon (H2320), so the seventh month is named by the very lunar reckoning that will govern the offerings of v. 5. Cambridge lists what Tisri carries: the Feast of Trumpets on the 1st (Numbers 29:1), the Day of Atonement on the 10th (Leviticus 16:29), Tabernacles on the 15th (Leviticus 23:34).
וּבְנֵ֥יū·ḇə·nêthe IsraelitesH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcConjunctive wawNounmasculine plural construct
יִשְׂרָאֵ֖לyiś·rā·’êl. . .H3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounproperfeminine singular
וַיִּגַּע֙way·yig·ga‘had settledH5060
√ nâgaʻ — properly, to touch, iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
nâgaʻ: to touch, reach, draw near A verb of contact, not of settling. Used here of time closing on a people, it gives the chapter its pressure: the calendar arrives before the community is ready, and the altar has to be finished before the first day of the month (K&D, on v. 2). Ellicott, Gill and Poole all correct the past tense to “drew near.”
בֶּעָרִ֑יםסbɛ·ʿå̄·rī·msin their townsH5892
√ ʻîyr — a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the widest sense (even of a mere encampment or post)Preposition-b, ArticleNounfeminine plural
הָעָ֛םhā·‘āmand the peopleH5971
√ ʻam — a people (as a congregated unit)ArticleNounmasculine singular
וַיֵּאָסְפ֥וּway·yê·’ā·sə·p̄ūassembledH622
√ ʼâçaph — to gather for any purposeConjunctive wawVerbNifalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
ʼâçaph: to gather for any purpose The Nifal is the standing verb for Israel convening at a sanctuary. There is no summons in the text, no herald, no decree; the verb simply reports the gathering, which is why Gill and Maclaren both reach for the language of impulse rather than of order.
אֶחָ֖ד’e·ḥāḏas oneH259
√ ʼechâd — properly, united, iNumbermasculine singular
כְּאִ֥ישׁkə·’îšmanH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personPreposition-kNounmasculine singular
ʼîysh + ʼechâd: a man, one The idiom fuses a scattered register (the long name-list of Ezra 2 stands immediately before this verse) into a single body. Cambridge and Pulpit both point to Judges 20:1, where “as one man” describes Israel mustering for war; here the same unanimity is spent on an altar.
אֶל־’el-inH413
√ ʼêl — near, with or amongPreposition
יְרוּשָׁלִָֽם׃סyə·rū·šā·limJerusalemH3389
√ Yᵉrûwshâlaim — Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of PalestineNounproperfeminine singular
2

Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates, began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

yê·šū·a‘ ben- yō·w·ṣā·ḏāq wə·’e·ḥāw hak·kō·hă·nîm ū·zə·rub·bā·ḇel ben- šə·’al·tî·’êl wə·’e·ḥāw way·yā·qām way·yiḇ·nū ’eṯ- miz·baḥ ’ĕ·lō·hê yiś·rā·’êl lə·ha·‘ă·lō·wṯ ‘ō·lō·wṯ ‘ā·lāw kak·kā·ṯūḇ bə·ṯō·w·raṯ mō·šeh ’îš- hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm

Word by word23 · parsed
יֵשׁ֨וּעַyê·šū·a‘Then JeshuaH3442
√ Yêshûwaʻ — Jeshua, the name of ten Israelites, also of a place in PalestineNounpropermasculine singular
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
יֽוֹצָדָ֜קyō·w·ṣā·ḏāqof JozadakH3136
√ Yôwtsâdâq — Jotsadak, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular
וְאֶחָ֣יוwə·’e·ḥāwand his fellowH251
√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Conjunctive wawNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
הַכֹּהֲנִ֗יםhak·kō·hă·nîmpriestsH3548
√ kôhên — literally one officiating, a priestArticleNounmasculine plural
וּזְרֻבָּבֶ֤לū·zə·rub·bā·ḇelalong with ZerubbabelH2216
√ Zᵉrubbâbel — Zerubbabel, an IsraeliteConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל֙šə·’al·tî·’êlof ShealtielH7597
√ Shᵉʼaltîyʼêl — Shealtiel, an IsraeliteNounpropermasculine singular
וְאֶחָ֔יוwə·’e·ḥāwand his associatesH251
√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Conjunctive wawNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
וַיָּקָם֩way·yā·qāmbeganH6965
√ qûwm — to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
qûwm: to rise, stand up A singular verb heading a plural act. In Ezra the verb of rising is the hinge between decree and deed (compare Ezra 1:5, where the heads of fathers' houses rise to go up). Here the priest rises first and the altar follows, which is the whole order of the chapter: worship is restored before walls are.
וַיִּבְנ֕וּway·yiḇ·nūto buildH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
מִזְבַּ֖חmiz·baḥthe altarH4196
√ mizbêach — an altarNounmasculine singular construct
mizbêach: an altar The noun is built from the root “to slaughter,” so the object is named by what happens on it. Ellicott makes the structural point: “The Temple was, as it were, built around the altar, as the centre of all.” Cambridge adds that “the altar of the God of Israel” recalls “the unity of the divided and scattered people,” since the returnees are a fragment of twelve tribes using the whole nation's name.
אֱלֹהֵ֣י’ĕ·lō·hêof the GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural construct
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑לyiś·rā·’êlof IsraelH3478
√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounproperfeminine singular
לְהַעֲל֤וֹתlə·ha·‘ă·lō·wṯto sacrificeH5927
√ ʻâlâh — to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount)Preposition-lVerbHifilInfinitive construct
ʻâlâh (Hifil): to cause to ascend The causative stem makes the offerers the agents of an ascent they cannot themselves make. Everything in this unit that goes up is expressed by this root or its noun: vv. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 all turn on it, so the chapter's whole restored liturgy is one repeated verb of rising.
עֹל֔וֹת‘ō·lō·wṯburnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Nounfeminine plural
ʻôlâh: that which ascends, the whole burnt offering Strong's glosses the noun as “a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending),” which is the same idea seen from below: the offering is the stair. It is the one sacrifice wholly consumed, retaining nothing for the offerer, and JFB reads its urgency here as “first, to make atonement for their sins; secondly, to obtain the divine blessing on their preparations for the temple.”
עָלָיו֙‘ā·lāwon itH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPrepositionthird person masculine singular
כַּכָּת֕וּבkak·kā·ṯūḇas it is writtenH3789
√ kâthab — to grave, by implication, to write (describe, inscribe, prescribe, subscribe)Preposition-k, ArticleVerbQalQalPassParticiplemasculine singular
kâthab: to engrave, write, prescribe The written Torah, not the memory of the elders, is the warrant. Pulpit specifies the legal content: “See Leviticus 17:2-6; Deuteronomy 12:5-11. It was an express command of God to the Israelites that sacrifice should be offered only at Jerusalem.” That is why the altar had to be here, on this site, and not in Babylon.
בְּתוֹרַ֖תbə·ṯō·w·raṯin the LawH8451
√ tôwrâh — a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or PentateuchPreposition-bNounfeminine singular construct
מֹשֶׁ֥הmō·šehof MosesH4872
√ Môsheh — Mosheh, the Israelite lawgiverNounpropermasculine singular
אִישׁ־’îš-the manH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personNounmasculine singular construct
הָאֱלֹהִֽים׃hā·’ĕ·lō·hîmof GodH430
√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseArticleNounmasculine plural
ʼĕlôhîym: God The construct chain ʼîysh-hā-ʼĕlōhîm, “man of the God,” is a title, not a description. Cambridge and Pulpit both note it is characteristic of the Chronicler's idiom for Moses (1 Chronicles 23:14; 2 Chronicles 30:16), and Ellicott ranks it with the same usage for David in Nehemiah 12:24, 36. The lawgiver is cited by an office, which makes the law he wrote binding on a community with no king.
3

They set up the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD—both the morning and evening burnt offerings—even though they feared the people of the land.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yā·ḵî·nū ham·miz·bê·aḥ ‘al- mə·ḵō·w·nō·ṯāw way·ya·ʿal ‘ā·lāw ‘ō·lō·wṯ ‘ă·lê·hem Yah·weh lab·bō·qer wə·lā·‘ā·reḇ ‘ō·lō·wṯ kî bə·’ê·māh mê·‘am·mê hā·’ă·rā·ṣō·wṯ

Word by word16 · parsed
וַיָּכִ֤ינוּway·yā·ḵî·nūThey set upH3559
√ kûwn — properly, to be erect (iConjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
kûwn (Hifil): to make firm, establish The same root that in other Hifil forms means to prepare or make ready. Its choice here says the altar was not improvised: it was fixed, in a fixed place, to a fixed pattern. Pulpit draws the polemical conclusion, that the builders meant “to indicate that the religion which the exiles brought back from Babylon was in every respect identical with that which they had possessed before.”
הַמִּזְבֵּ֙חַ֙ham·miz·bê·aḥthe altarH4196
√ mizbêach — an altarArticleNounmasculine singular
עַל־‘al-onH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
מְכ֣וֹנֹתָ֔יוmə·ḵō·w·nō·ṯāwits foundationH4350
√ mᵉkôwnâh — a pedestal, also a spotNounfeminine plural constructthird person masculine singular
mᵉkôwnâh: a pedestal, also a spot The controverted word of the verse. Cambridge notes it occurs mostly in the plural of the temple bases (2 Kings 16:17; 2 Kings 25:13; Jeremiah 52:17, 20) and suspects the singular was normalized to the familiar plural. Either sense carries the same theology: continuity of place. Geneva simply writes “In the place where Solomon had placed it.”
וַיַּעַלway·ya·ʿaland sacrificedH5927
√ ʻâlâh — to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
עָלָ֤יו‘ā·lāw. . .H5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPrepositionthird person masculine singular
עֹלוֹת֙‘ō·lō·wṯburnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Nounfeminine plural
עֲלֵיהֶ֔ם‘ă·lê·hemon itH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPrepositionthird person masculine plural
לַֽיהוָ֔הYah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
לַבֹּ֥קֶרlab·bō·qer[both] the morningH1242
√ bôqer — properly, dawn (as the break of day)Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular
bôqer: dawn, as the break of day Paired with ʻereb (H6153, “dusk”), the two nouns bracket a day. JFB: “they did not wait till the temple should be rebuilt and dedicated; but, at the outset, they resumed the daily service prescribed by the law (Ex 29:38, 39; Le 6:9, 11).” The ruins had no roof, but the day had both its ends restored.
וְלָעָֽרֶב׃wə·lā·‘ā·reḇand eveningH6153
√ ʻereb — duskConjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular
עֹל֖וֹת‘ō·lō·wṯburnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Nounfeminine plural
כִּ֚יeven thoughH3588
√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction
kîy: for, because, although One of the most elastic particles in Hebrew, and the whole theological weight of the verse rests on which sense is taken. Causally, the altar exists because the people were terrified, and worship is a community seeking cover; concessively, it exists in spite of terror, and worship is defiance. Ellicott can be read for the second (“This was their first act of defiance in the presence of the nations around”), K&D argues the first, Gill and Pulpit record the concessive as the preferred alternative rendering. Under-claim: the sources genuinely divide, and our reading below holds the causal sense without denying the concessive.
בְּאֵימָ֣הbə·’ê·māhthey fearedH367
√ ʼêymâh — frightPreposition-bNounfeminine singular
ʼêymâh: fright, dread, terror Not the ordinary yirʼâh of reverent fear but the rarer noun of terror before an enemy, the word used of the dread that fell on Israel's opponents at the Sea and at Jericho (Cambridge cites Exodus 15:16; Joshua 2:11 as using “the same rather unusual word for terror”). Here it has switched sides: the fugitives now carry it. K&D compares 2 Kings 17:25, where frightened settlers in Samaria sought a priest for protection, and quotes J. H. Michaelis approvingly: fear of danger drove them to seek God's help.
מֵעַמֵּ֖יmê·‘am·mêthe peopleH5971
√ ʻam — a people (as a congregated unit)Preposition-mNounmasculine plural construct
הָאֲרָצ֑וֹתhā·’ă·rā·ṣō·wṯof the landH776
√ ʼerets — the earth (at large, or partitively a land)ArticleNounfeminine plural
4

They also celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in accordance with what is written, and they offered burnt offerings daily based on the number prescribed for each day.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·ya·‘ă·śū ’eṯ- ḥaḡ has·suk·kō·wṯ kak·kā·ṯūḇ wə·‘ō·laṯ yō·wm bə·yō·wm bə·mis·pār kə·miš·paṭ də·ḇar- yō·wm bə·yō·w·mōw

Word by word13 · parsed
וַֽיַּעֲשׂ֛וּway·ya·‘ă·śūThey also celebratedH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
חַ֥גḥaḡthe FeastH2282
√ chag — a festival, or a victim thereforNounmasculine singular construct
chag: a festival, or a victim therefor The noun means both the feast and the animal killed at it, which is why Cambridge can call Tabernacles “the autumn or vintage feast, the most joyous of all the great annual festivals” without leaving the sacrificial register. Solomon dedicated the first temple at this feast (1 Kings 8:65); Ezra's law-reading under Nehemiah is bound to it too (Nehemiah 8:14-16). Here it is kept with no house at all.
הַסֻּכּ֖וֹתhas·suk·kō·wṯof TabernaclesH5521
√ çukkâh — a hut or lairArticleNounfeminine plural
çukkâh: a hut or lair The one festival that requires Israel to un-house itself. Kept in this year it is doubly exact: the returnees have only just been housed (v. 1), and the God they serve has no house either. The whole unit lives in that symmetry, and no commentator in the brief presses it, so we mark the observation as ours.
כַּכָּת֑וּבkak·kā·ṯūḇin accordance with what is writtenH3789
√ kâthab — to grave, by implication, to write (describe, inscribe, prescribe, subscribe)Preposition-k, ArticleVerbQalQalPassParticiplemasculine singular
וְעֹלַ֨תwə·‘ō·laṯand they offered burnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Conjunctive wawNounfeminine singular construct
י֤וֹםyō·wmdailyH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Nounmasculine singular
בְּיוֹם֙bə·yō·wm. . .H3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Preposition-bNounmasculine singular
בְּמִסְפָּ֔רbə·mis·pārbased on the numberH4557
√ miçpâr — a number, definite (arithmetical) or indefinite (large, innumerablePreposition-bNounmasculine singular
כְּמִשְׁפַּ֖טkə·miš·paṭprescribedH4941
√ mishpâṭ — properly, a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree (human or (participant's) divine law, individual or collective), including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penaltyPreposition-kNounmasculine singular construct
mishpâṭ: a verdict, a judicial decree Strong's glosses it as “a verdict … pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree,” which includes “the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penalty.” Applied to liturgy, it means the count of bulls is not devotional taste but law. Under Persian permit and surrounded by hostile neighbours, the community's one non-negotiable is a schedule written centuries earlier.
דְּבַר־də·ḇar-. . .H1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine singular construct
dâbâr: a word, a matter, a thing The same noun that elsewhere names the word of the LORD here names a daily quota. Cambridge notes the phrase also renders a king's daily allowance to Jehoiachin in exile (2 Kings 25:30; Jeremiah 52:34). The exile's ration formula has become the returned community's offering formula.
י֥וֹםyō·wmfor each dayH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Nounmasculine singular
בְּיוֹמֽוֹ׃bə·yō·w·mōw. . .H3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Preposition-bNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
5

After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings and those for New Moons and for all the appointed sacred feasts of the LORD, as well as all the freewill offerings brought to the LORD.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·’a·ḥă·rê·ḵên tā·mîḏ ‘ō·laṯ wə·le·ḥo·ḏā·šîm ū·lə·ḵāl- mō·w·‘ă·ḏê ham·qud·dā·šîm Yah·weh ū·lə·ḵōl nə·ḏā·ḇāh miṯ·nad·dêḇ Yah·weh

Word by word12 · parsed
וְאַחֲרֵיכֵ֞ןwə·’a·ḥă·rê·ḵênAfter thatH310
√ ʼachar — properly, the hind partConjunctive wawPreposition
תָּמִיד֙tā·mîḏthey presented the regularH8548
√ tâmîyd — properly, continuance (as indefinite extension)Adverb
tâmîyd: continuance, indefinite extension The technical term of the daily morning and evening whole offering (Exodus 29:38-42; Numbers 28:3-6), and the sacrifice whose cessation is the sign of catastrophe elsewhere in the canon. Pulpit is careful that this clause is “beyond a doubt the daily morning and evening sacrifice,” and that what follows is “additional, not exegetical.” The word for the community's new normal is a word that means never stopping.
עֹלַ֤ת‘ō·laṯburnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Nounfeminine singular construct
וְלֶ֣חֳדָשִׁ֔יםwə·le·ḥo·ḏā·šîmand [those] for New MoonsH2320
√ chôdesh — the new moonConjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine plural
וּלְכָל־ū·lə·ḵāl-and for allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeConjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounmasculine singular construct
מוֹעֲדֵ֥יmō·w·‘ă·ḏêthe appointedH4150
√ môwʻêd — properly, an appointment, iNounmasculine plural construct
môwʻêd: an appointment, a fixed meeting The same root that names the tent of meeting. These are not festivals the people invented but appointments God set, so the calendar itself is the liturgy while the building is absent. Cambridge lists what the term covers in Leviticus 23: sabbath, passover, weeks, trumpets, atonement, tabernacles.
הַמְקֻדָּשִׁ֑יםham·qud·dā·šîmsacred feastsH6942
√ qâdash — to be (causatively, make, pronounce or observe as) clean (ceremonially or morally)ArticleVerbPualParticiplemasculine plural
qâdash (Pual): to be made holy, consecrated The passive participle quietly answers the fear of v. 3. A community with no temple, no walls and hostile neighbours cannot manufacture holiness; it can only keep days that were already hallowed. Poole glosses it plainly: “set apart for the solemn and holy service of God.”
יְהוָ֖הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
וּלְכֹ֛לū·lə·ḵōlas well as allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeConjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounmasculine singular construct
נְדָבָ֖הnə·ḏā·ḇāhthe freewill offeringsH5071
√ nᵉdâbâh — properly (abstractly) spontaneity, or (adjectively) spontaneousNounfeminine singular
מִתְנַדֵּ֥בmiṯ·nad·dêḇbroughtH5068
√ nâdab — to impelVerbHitpaelParticiplemasculine singular
nâdab: to impel, to volunteer The Hitpael is the vocabulary of the tabernacle collection and of David's temple preparations: giving that no ordinance compels. Its appearance here, in a colony too poor to roof a sanctuary, is the verse's surprise, and Henry marks it: “besides those expressly appointed, many brought free-will offerings to the Lord.” Cambridge notes such offerings were open to “any individual Israelite or Gentile” (Numbers 29:39).
לַיהוָֽה׃Yah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
6

On the first day of the seventh month, the Israelites began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, although the foundation of the temple of the LORD had not been laid.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

’e·ḥāḏ mî·yō·wm haš·šə·ḇî·‘î la·ḥō·ḏeš hê·ḥêl·lū lə·ha·‘ă·lō·wṯ ‘ō·lō·wṯ Yah·weh wə·hê·ḵal Yah·weh lō yus·sāḏ

Word by word12 · parsed
אֶחָד֙’e·ḥāḏOn the firstH259
√ ʼechâd — properly, united, iNumbermasculine singular
ʼechâd: one, united Here simply the first of the month, the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1). Gill notes the day “was not only a new moon, but a grand festival.”
מִיּ֤וֹםmî·yō·wmdayH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Preposition-mNounmasculine singular
הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔יhaš·šə·ḇî·‘îof the seventhH7637
√ shᵉbîyʻîy — seventhArticleNumberordinal masculine singular
לַחֹ֣דֶשׁla·ḥō·ḏešmonthH2320
√ chôdesh — the new moonPreposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular
הֵחֵ֕לּוּhê·ḥêl·lū[the Israelites] beganH2490
√ châlal — properly, to bore, iVerbHifilPerfectthird person common plural
châlal (Hifil): to begin The verse's grammar is retrospective: after the narrative of vv. 2 to 5 it reaches back and dates the start. K&D calls it “the supplementary remark, that the sacrificial worship began from the first day of the seventh month, but that the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. This forms a transition to what follows.”
לְהַעֲל֥וֹתlə·ha·‘ă·lō·wṯto offerH5927
√ ʻâlâh — to ascend, intransitively (be high) or actively (mount)Preposition-lVerbHifilInfinitive construct
עֹל֖וֹת‘ō·lō·wṯburnt offeringsH5930
√ ʻôlâh — a step or (collectively, stairs, as ascending)Nounfeminine plural
לַיהוָ֑הYah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
וְהֵיכַ֥לwə·hê·ḵal{although the foundation} of the templeH1964
√ hêykâl — a large public building, such as a palace or templeConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct
hêykâl: a palace or temple The first occurrence of the word in this unit, and it occurs in a negative clause. The chapter has used the vocabulary of ascent five times over for the offerings; the one word for the building appears only to say it does not exist yet. Cambridge is alert to how strange this is: burnt offerings made regularly on an altar with no temple around it would have been “almost incredible to the Jew of later centuries.”
יְהוָ֖הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
לֹ֥אvvvH3808
√ lôʼ — not (the simple or absAdverbNegative particle
יֻסָּֽד׃yus·sāḏhad not been laidH3245
√ yâçad — to set (literally or figuratively)VerbPualPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâçad: to set, to found The passive Pual, with the negative lōʼ, is the unit's closing verdict on its own achievement. Everything done so far is real worship and none of it is the house. The same root reappears at Ezra 3:10 when the builders do lay the foundation, so this clause is deliberately provisional.
7

They gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

way·yit·tə·nū- ḵe·sep̄ la·ḥō·ṣə·ḇîm wə·le·ḥā·rā·šîm ū·ma·’ă·ḵāl ū·miš·teh wā·še·men laṣ·ṣi·ḏō·nîm wə·laṣ·ṣō·rîm lə·hā·ḇî ’ă·rā·zîm ‘ă·ṣê min- hal·lə·ḇā·nō·wn ’el- yā·p̄ō·w yām kə·riš·yō·wn ‘ă·lê·hem kō·w·reš me·leḵ- pā·ras

Word by word22 · parsed
וַיִּ֨תְּנוּ־way·yit·tə·nū-They gaveH5414
√ nâthan — to give, used with greatest latitude of application (put, make, etcConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
כֶ֔סֶףḵe·sep̄moneyH3701
√ keçeph — silver (from its pale color)Nounmasculine singular
keçeph: silver The silver has a history in this book: Cyrus's decree had the people's neighbours assist them with silver and gold (Ezra 1:4, 6), and here that silver is immediately spent on labour. The community converts a Persian subsidy into a temple site within months of arriving.
לַחֹצְבִ֖יםla·ḥō·ṣə·ḇîmto the masonsH2672
√ châtsab — to cut or carve (wood, stone or other material)Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine plural
châtsab: to cut or carve The verb of quarrying, and Pulpit supplies the social background: the exiles “had no doubt been employed by the Babylonian monarchs to a large extent in building,” so “among those who returned there were many masons and carpenters.” The skills learned in captivity are spent on the sanctuary.
וְלֶחָרָשִׁ֑יםwə·le·ḥā·rā·šîmand carpentersH2796
√ chârâsh — a fabricator or any materialConjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine plural
chârâsh: a fabricator of any material A general noun for a skilled worker in wood, stone or metal. Hebrew names the craft by competence, not by medium, which is why the two terms here resist tidy English trade labels.
וּמַאֲכָ֨לū·ma·’ă·ḵāland foodH3978
√ maʼăkâl — an eatable (includConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
וּמִשְׁתֶּ֜הū·miš·tehand drinkH4960
√ mishteh — drink, by implication, drinking (the act)Conjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
וָשֶׁ֗מֶןwā·še·menand oilH8081
√ shemen — grease, especially liquid (as from the olive, often perfumed)Conjunctive wawNounmasculine singular
לַצִּֽדֹנִים֙laṣ·ṣi·ḏō·nîmto the people of SidonH6722
√ Tsîydônîy — a Tsidonian or inhabitant of TsidonPreposition-l, ArticleNounpropermasculine plural
וְלַצֹּרִ֔יםwə·laṣ·ṣō·rîmand TyreH6876
√ Tsôrîy — a Tsorite or inhabitant of Tsor (iConjunctive waw, Preposition-l, ArticleNounproperfeminine singular
לְהָבִיא֩lə·hā·ḇîto bringH935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Preposition-lVerbHifilInfinitive construct
אֲרָזִ֤ים’ă·rā·zîmcedarH730
√ ʼerez — a cedar tree (from the tenacity of its roots)Nounmasculine plural
עֲצֵ֨י‘ă·ṣêlogsH6086
√ ʻêts — a tree (from its firmness)Nounmasculine plural construct
מִן־min-fromH4480
√ min — properly, a part ofPreposition
הַלְּבָנוֹן֙hal·lə·ḇā·nō·wnLebanonH3844
√ Lᵉbânôwn — Lebanon, a mountain range in PalestineArticleNounproperfeminine singular
אֶל־’el-toH413
√ ʼêl — near, with or amongPreposition
יָפ֔וֹאyā·p̄ō·wJoppaH3305
√ Yâphôw — Japho, a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular
Yâphôw: Joppa A rare name in the Hebrew Bible, appearing in only four verses (Verifier frequency). The other three are Joshua 19:46, allotting it to Dan though it was never taken from the Philistines; 2 Chronicles 2:16, Hiram's cedar rafts for Solomon; and Jonah 1:3, the port where a prophet bought passage away from his commission. This verse puts the returnees on the same quay as Solomon's timber.
יָ֣םyāmby seaH3220
√ yâm — a sea (as breaking in noisy surf) or large body of waterNounmasculine singular construct
כְּרִשְׁי֛וֹןkə·riš·yō·wnas authorizedH7558
√ rishyôwn — a permitPreposition-kNounmasculine singular construct
rishyôwn: a permit A word the Hebrew Bible uses once, and it names the legal ground of the whole enterprise. Cambridge reports the historical difficulty: Herodotus indicates Cyrus was not master of Phoenicia, so a grant of Lebanese cedar was not strictly his to give, and Cambridge concludes the word must be understood “quite generally.” K&D agrees that “nothing is said of any special grant from Cyrus with respect to wood.” Pulpit takes the other view, that Cyrus could treat Phoenicia as a Babylonian dependency now his. The community builds on a permission whose exact scope the sources cannot recover.
עֲלֵיהֶֽם׃פ‘ă·lê·hem. . .H5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPrepositionthird person masculine plural
כּ֥וֹרֶשׁkō·w·rešby CyrusH3566
√ Kôwresh — Koresh (or Cyrus), the Persian kingNounpropermasculine singular
מֶֽלֶךְ־me·leḵ-kingH4428
√ melek — a kingNounmasculine singular construct
פָּרַ֖סpā·rasof PersiaH6539
√ Pâraç — Paras (iNounproperfeminine singular

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The month that reached them — 3:1

⚙ The unit opens with a verb of contact. וַיִּגַּע (nâgaʻ, H5060) means to touch or reach, and Ellicott, Gill and Poole all correct the past tense to “approached” or “drew near.” Tisri arrives on a people still unpacking. Ellicott lists what the month carries: the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, “afterwards distinguished as ‘the feast’ pre-eminently”; Cambridge adds the Feast of Trumpets on the 1st and concludes it was “an appropriate season for the first religious act of the new community.” The gathering itself is reported in the Nifal (ʼâçaph, H622), and no summons is recorded. Gill presses exactly that gap: the coming together happened “without any consultation, or knowledge of each other's designs, and without summons,” as though under divine impulse. Maclaren, who has just remarked how much “picturesque” writing the author declined, judges the assembly “no small token of their ardour of devotion,” while conceding that the returnees may have been “somewhat slavishly tied to externals.” Benson supplies the domestic cost: they had “their hands full of business” in newly occupied towns, and left it. The idiom that closes the verse, כְּאִישׁ אֶחָד, is the Judges 20:1 muster formula, and K&D renders it not “entirely” but “unanimously (ὁμοθυμαδόν).”

ii. An altar before a house — 3:2-3

⚙ Two men are named and one verb rises: וַיָּקָם is singular, וַיִּבְנוּ plural. The priest stands, the company builds. Cambridge notices that the order of names inverts between v. 2 and v. 8, Jeshua first for sacrifice, Zerubbabel first for construction, and Maclaren generalizes it: each “was supreme in his own department,” with Zechariah's “counsel of peace” between them. On why the altar came first, four independent voices converge. Henry: “They could not at once have a temple, but they would not be without an altar.” Poole and Benson give the same threefold reason almost word for word, that it was “of more present and urgent necessity than the temple, both to make atonement to God for all their sins, and to obtain God's assistance for the building of the temple, and to strengthen their own hearts and hands in that great work,” and JFB repeats the logic. Ellicott states the architecture of it: “The Temple was, as it were, built around the altar, as the centre of all.” Where they built it is contested. Barnes and Pulpit read מְכוֹנֹתָיו as the recovered old foundation, exposed “on the clearing away of the ruins”; K&D denies it, “upon its (former) place; not, upon its bases”; Cambridge reports the C'thib and K'ri split and prefers “in its place.” Why they built it is contested too. Gill records the rendering “though fear was upon them,” following Junius, Tremellius, Piscator and Patrick, and Pulpit and Benson take that concessive line; K&D keeps the causal and reads the altar as raised because of the dread, “for the purpose of securing the divine protection,” quoting J. H. Michaelis. Cambridge concedes the clause “has occasioned much perplexity” and canvasses five reconstructions. Ellicott, uncommitted to either grammar, lands the theology: “near the altar they were strong.”

iii. Booths, number and ordinance — 3:4-6

⚙ The community keeps חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת, the feast of huts, and does it kakkāṯûḇ, by the written thing. Cambridge names the double memory now attached to it: “It commemorated the wanderings in the Desert. It would henceforth commemorate also the return from the Exile.” K&D reads bə·mis·pār kə·miš·paṭ as the descending tally of Numbers 29, “on the first day thirteen oxen, on the second twelve,” and Cambridge regrets that English translators did not preserve the refrain so readers could hear “the echo given by this phrase to the phraseology of the Pentateuch.” Poole and Benson both argue, from the silence, that the Day of Atonement can hardly have been omitted, Poole calling the feast a synecdoche “for all the solemnities of this month”; K&D argues the contrary, that neither the new moon offering nor the atonement sin offering had yet been made before Tabernacles. We record the disagreement without settling it. Verse 5 then names what became permanent: the tāmîd, the appointments, and the freewill gift. Cambridge dates the resumption precisely, “for the first time since the destruction of Jerusalem.” Benson weighs the cost: “The law required much, but they offered more; for though they had little wealth, they had much zeal.” Verse 6 closes the movement by reaching back for a date and then refusing the community any triumph: לֹא יֻסָּד, the house had not been founded. Cambridge: the offerings went up “although there was no Temple building, nor Temple worship,” a thing that “would have been almost incredible to the Jew of later centuries.”

iv. Silver, cedar and a permit that occurs once — 3:7

⚙ The last verse of the unit is logistics, and it is the most exposed. Silver goes to the hewers and fabricators, food, drink and oil to Sidon and Tyre, on Solomon's terms exactly: JFB says they negotiated “on the same terms and with the same views as Solomon had done (1Ki 5:11; 2Ch 2:15, 16),” and Cambridge notes the payment in kind was “a heavy tax upon the resources of the young community.” Pulpit explains the skills: the exiles had been building for Babylonian kings, so masons and carpenters came home with them. The route runs Lebanon, sea, Joppa, and Cambridge corrects A.V.'s “sea of Joppa” as “most unnatural.” Then the legal ground: כְּרִשְׁיוֹן, a word that occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Barnes reads it simply as Cyrus's permission of Ezra 1:1-4. Cambridge raises the historical problem from Herodotus, that Cyrus was not master of Phoenicia and so could not grant its cedar, and therefore takes the word “quite generally”; K&D agrees that “nothing is said of any special grant from Cyrus with respect to wood for building”; Pulpit answers that Cyrus might treat a former Babylonian dependency as his by conquest. The unit ends, then, with a community whose worship rests on Moses's writing and whose building rests on a Persian word nobody can fully define.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Read under Sola Scriptura and offered to be tested: this unit is about what you do when you cannot do what you were commanded. The command was a house. They had no house, no walls, no security of tenure, and a permit whose scope even the commentators cannot reconstruct. What they had was a place, a written ordinance, and enough silver to hire hewers. So they built the one thing that could be finished, and they finished it before the first of the month. The text is careful not to call this a victory. Its last clause is a negative: לֹא יֻסָּד, not founded. Scripture will not let obedience under constraint be mistaken for the thing itself.

⚙ Two details govern how we read the fear. First, the noun is ʼêymâh (H367), the rare word for terror before an enemy, and Cambridge observes it is the same word used at Exodus 15:16 and Joshua 2:11 of the dread that fell on Israel's opponents. In this verse it has changed direction. Second, the particle will bear either “because” or “although,” and the sources split. We follow K&D's causal reading without dismissing the concessive one, because it is the more searching of the two: the altar was not built in spite of fear but out of it. That is not a compliment to the builders. It is a description of how God ordinarily gets a people to the place of atonement. Henry says the same thing in eight words: “Our fears should drive us to our knees.”

⚙ And then the shape of what they restored. Every offering in this unit is named by a verb of ascent, ʻâlâh in the Hifil, sending up what cannot rise on its own. They kept a feast that required them to leave the houses they had just occupied and sit under branches for a week, while the God they served had no house at all. They resumed the tāmîd, the offering defined by never stopping, in a place where it had stopped for seventy years. And they added nedābāh, gifts no ordinance required, out of a poverty Benson calls a furnace. The house came later and smaller, and the old men wept at its foundation. But the altar was right, the days were right, and the count of bulls was right, which is the only kind of faithfulness available to people who are not yet home.

They built the one thing that could be finished, and the text still ends on a negative.

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The cedar route: Lebanon, the sea, Joppa verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The supply line of v. 7 is not improvised. The Verifier records three lexemes shared with 2 Chronicles 2:16, and one of them is rare: יָפוֹא (Yâphôw, H3305) occurs in only four verses in the Hebrew Bible, and 2 Chronicles 2:16 is one of them. Cambridge quotes that verse against this one: “we will cut wood out of Lebanon … and we will bring it to thee in floats by sea to Joppa (marg. Heb. Japho); and thou shalt carry it to Jerusalem.” JFB says the negotiation was conducted “on the same terms and with the same views as Solomon had done,” and K&D that it was done “as was formerly done by Solomon, 1 Kings 5:6., 2 Chronicles 2:7.” The second temple's timber arrives by the first temple's road. What has changed is who pays: Solomon sent wheat and wine out of abundance, Zerubbabel out of what Cambridge calls a heavy tax on a young community.

2 Chronicles 2:16

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3305 Yâphôw (rare, in 4 vv), H3844 Lᵉbânôwn (in 64 vv), H3220 yâm (in 339 vv). The rare toponym plus the Lebanon-to-sea-to-Joppa sequence is a genuine verbal correspondence of phrasing, not an explicit citation formula: Ezra never says “as it is written” of this clause.

David's cedar, Sidonian and Tyrian, without number structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The Verifier links this unit to 1 Chronicles 22:4 on three shared lexemes: ʼerez (H730, cedar), Tsîydônîy (H6722, Sidonian) and miçpâr (H4557, number). That verse describes David laying in cedar beyond counting, brought by Sidonians and Tyrians, for a house he would not build. K&D cites 1 Chronicles 22:4 directly at Ezra 3:7. The pattern is the same three-step in both places: a leader who will not see the finished house gathers foreign cedar through Phoenician contractors. The difference is that David's miçpâr is the number nobody could count, while Ezra's miçpâr (v. 4) is a count strictly kept because the offerings are prescribed. Abundance has become exactness.

1 Chronicles 22:4

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H730 ʼerez (in 69 vv), H6722 Tsîydônîy (in 15 vv), H4557 miçpâr (in 129 vv). Real shared vocabulary within a shared preparation motif; none of the three lexemes is rare enough, and there is no citation formula, to support a verbal tier.

Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the pair the prophets address structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The two names of v. 2 are the two names Haggai's oracles are directed to. The Verifier records Haggai 1:1 sharing Zᵉrubbâbel (H2216), Shᵉʼaltîyʼêl (H7597) and chôdesh (H2320) with this unit, and Haggai 1:14 and 2:2 sharing the first two. Maclaren notes the shifting precedence: “In Haggai, the priest is pre-eminent; in Zechariah the prince,” and within Ezra itself the order inverts between 3:2 and 3:8. Haggai's setting is the answer to this unit's last clause: the foundation was not laid, and sixteen years later a prophet has to ask why the people live in panelled houses while the house lies waste. Ezra 3 records the altar going up at once and the temple not going up at all; Haggai records what that delay became.

Haggai 1:1 · Haggai 1:14 · Haggai 2:2

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2216 Zᵉrubbâbel (in 20 vv), H7597 Shᵉʼaltîyʼêl (in 9 vv), H2320 chôdesh (in 224 vv). Shared proper names identifying the same two persons and the same project; a prosopographic and thematic link, not a quotation.

“We have no part with you”: the same builders, the next chapter structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ Ezra 4:3 shares Yêshûwaʻ (H3442), Zᵉrubbâbel (H2216) and bânâh (H1129) with this unit, per the Verifier. It is the same two leaders and the same verb of building, and it is the moment the fear of 3:3 acquires a face: the peoples of the land, having been the object of dread, offer to help build and are refused. Read forward, 3:3 and 4:3 are one motion. The dread that helped raise the altar hardens into the refusal that stops the temple, and Ezra 4 ends with the work halted until Darius. Pulpit is useful here on who the neighbours were: not Persians but “descendants of various idolatrous nations … bitterly opposed to anything like a pure spiritual religion (see 2 Kings 17:24; Ezra 4:9, 10).”

Ezra 4:3 · Ezra 3:8

basis: Verifier: Ezra 4:3 shares H3442 Yêshûwaʻ (in 29 vv), H2216 Zᵉrubbâbel (in 20 vv), H1129 bânâh (in 344 vv); Ezra 3:8 shares H3442, H2216 and H2320 chôdesh (in 224 vv). Shared actors and shared building verb inside one continuous narrative; sequential, not citational.

Joppa: the port a prophet used to leave by structural / thematic: confirmed

Yâphôw (H3305) appears in only four verses, and the Verifier surfaces two of the other three: Joshua 19:46, where Joppa falls in Dan's allotment though Cambridge notes it “was never taken from the Philistines,” and Jonah 1:3, where a prophet goes down to Joppa and finds a ship going the other way. The coincidence of place is worth naming and worth under-claiming. Ezra's cedar comes ashore at the harbour Jonah used to run from a commission, and Cambridge's note on Joppa carries the New Testament sequel of its own accord: “Peter at Joppa restored Tabitha (Acts 9:36-43), and was summoned thence by Cornelius (Acts 10:5).” Three commissions, one quay. We assert no verbal dependence between the passages; the lexeme is simply rare enough that the reader should see where else it stands.

Jonah 1:3 · Joshua 19:46

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3305 Yâphôw (rare, in 4 vv) with both refs. Deliberately not tiered verbal: the only shared element is a toponym, which establishes a shared location and no literary dependence.

An altar and no house, a house and no altar structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ Cross-Testament, so no shared Strong's number is possible and none is claimed. Hebrews 13:10 states that Christians have an altar, in a letter whose argument is that the sanctuary and its repeated sacrifices have been superseded (Hebrews 10:11-14). Ezra 3 is the exact structural inverse: a people with an altar and a tāmîd restored, and no sanctuary at all, told so in the unit's last clause. Both passages separate the altar from the building and locate the reality in the altar. Cambridge registers how strange the Ezra arrangement looked in retrospect: worship at an altar with no temple “would have been almost incredible to the Jew of later centuries.” The link is a shared structure and a shared priority, not a citation.

Hebrews 13:10 · Hebrews 10:11-14

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew: shared Strong's lexemes are impossible by definition, so no verbal tier is available. Basis is a shared structural pattern (altar prioritized over, and separable from, sanctuary building) plus the explicit Ezra 3:6 negative clause; no quotation is claimed in either direction.

Which grant of Cyrus? A hapax with disputed provenance flagged: verify source

⚙ Flagged, because the provenance of the authorization is genuinely contested and because the Verifier finds no lexical basis for the link at all. כְּרִשְׁיוֹן (rishyôwn, H7558) occurs once in the Hebrew Bible, and the document it points to is not identified. Barnes refers it to the decree of Ezra 1:1-4, which mentions no timber. Pulpit refers it instead to the supplementary decree of Ezra 6:4, which does specify timber, and supposes Cyrus could dispose of Phoenicia as a former Babylonian dependency. K&D denies there was any such grant: “nothing is said of any special grant from Cyrus with respect to wood for building.” Cambridge, citing Herodotus iii. 34, holds that Cyrus was not master of Phoenicia at all and so could not have granted its cedar, and therefore takes the word “quite generally” as meaning the work was done in accordance with his wish. We ran the pair ourselves: the Verifier reports no shared original-language lexeme between Ezra 3:7 and Ezra 6:4 and returns its own flag. So the connection is one of referent and reconstructed history, not of vocabulary, and the reader should treat any confident statement about what Cyrus authorized here, including BSB's “as authorized by Cyrus,” as an interpretation.

Ezra 1:1-4 · Ezra 6:4

basis: Verifier pair check on Ezra 3:7 and Ezra 6:4: no shared original-language lexeme found, and the Verifier's own returned tier is flagged. Provenance is disputed in the sources themselves (Pulpit for Ezra 6:4, Barnes for Ezra 1:1-4, K&D denying any wood grant, Cambridge denying Cyrus's authority over Phoenicia from Herodotus iii. 34). Recorded as contested, not asserted.

Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the name he carries ancient/widely-held

✦ Pulpit states the philology and the typology together: “The name Jeshua is a mere variant of Joshua, and so corresponds to Jesus, of whom Jeshua may be regarded as a type.” Maclaren makes the same connection independently, noting that Jeshua's “name recalls the other Joshua, likewise a leader from captivity and the desert.” ⚙ The figural reading does not rest on the name alone. This priest is the one man in the unit who stands up first (the singular וַיָּקָם), and what he stands up to do is build an altar and restore atonement for a people in dread. Zechariah, a prophet of this same community, sets Joshua son of Jehozadak before the Angel of the LORD in filthy garments, has them exchanged, and then crowns him and speaks of a coming Branch who will build the temple of the LORD and be a priest on his throne (Zechariah 3:1-9; Zechariah 6:11-13). That is the canon's own move from this man to the one he figures, and it is made by a contemporary. The identification of Jeshua as a type is ancient and widely held; that the singular verb of v. 2 reinforces it is our own reading.

Zechariah 3:1-9 · Zechariah 6:11-13 · Haggai 1:1

Atonement before architecture ancient/widely-held

✦ The commentators are unanimous on why the altar preceded the house, and they say it in the language of atonement. Poole and Benson, nearly word for word: it was “of more present and urgent necessity than the temple, both to make atonement to God for all their sins, and to obtain God's assistance for the building of the temple.” JFB: “first, to make atonement for their sins; secondly, to obtain the divine blessing on their preparations.” Gill: they began with sacrifices so that, having “made atonement for their sins in a typical way, they might be the more prepared and fit for the work of building the temple.” Henry: “They could not at once have a temple, but they would not be without an altar.” Ellicott gives the spatial form of it: “The Temple was, as it were, built around the altar, as the centre of all.” ⚙ The redemptive-historical order stands: the place of blood is laid first and everything else is constructed around it. The New Testament keeps the sequence and reverses the materials, building a house out of people around a sacrifice already made (1 Peter 2:4-5; Ephesians 2:20-22), and Hebrews 13:10 asserts that the altar remains while the building does not. The point of contact is the priority itself, not any shared wording.

Hebrews 13:10 · 1 Peter 2:4-5 · Ephesians 2:20-22

Booths kept in fear, and a greater day of the feast novel

⚙ Marked novel, and offered to be tested. This community keeps Tabernacles (v. 4) while afraid of the peoples of the land (v. 3), in a city with no temple, sitting under branches a few weeks after receiving houses. Cambridge notes that the feast now carried a second memory, the return from exile, laid over the first, the wilderness. John 7 records Jesus going up to this same feast in secret because of fear, teaching in the temple courts, and on the last and greatest day standing and calling the thirsty to come to him (John 7:2, 10, 37-38). The correspondences are real and structural: the same feast, the same theme of dwelling without a settled house, the same undercurrent of fear of hostile authority, and in both cases a claim that what the feast points to is not yet possessed. We do not find this pairing made by any commentator in our sources, and we do not claim a verbal or citational link. It is a figural reading, and the reader should weigh it as one.

John 7:2 · John 7:37-38 · Leviticus 23:34-43

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (c. 1905)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) Text. Two places carry real textual uncertainty. At 3:3, וַיַּעַל is written singular while our interlinear parses it as third person masculine plural; K&D takes the Chethiv impersonally, “one (they) offered,” and suspects a transcription error for wayyaʻălū. Also at 3:3, מְכוֹנֹתָיו stands in a C'thib singular against a K'ri plural, and Cambridge judges the singular original. Our literal renders the impersonal and keeps “bases” while flagging K&D's “place.”

⚙ (2) Grammar left unresolved. The clause kî bə-ʼêymāh ʻălêhem in 3:3 has no verb. K&D explains the preposition as beth essentiae and reads causally; Gill, Pulpit and Benson record the concessive rendering “though fear was upon them,” attributed to Junius, Tremellius, Piscator and Patrick; Cambridge lists five reconstructions, one positing lost words and one positing a dittographed letter, and one of them reverses the direction of the fear entirely. BSB's “even though they feared” is a defensible choice among several. We did not settle it and have not pretended to.

⚙ (3) Sequence. The relation of 3:4, 3:5 and 3:6 to one another is disputed. Cambridge reads v. 5 as meaning the regular daily sacrifice only began after Tabernacles; K&D argues at length for the opposite order and rejects Bertheau's reconstruction by name; Gill harmonizes differently again. Poole and Benson argue from silence that the Day of Atonement was kept; K&D says the atonement sin offering had not yet been offered before this feast. Our movements report the disagreement and take no side.

⚙ (4) Lexical. rishyôwn (H7558) at 3:7 is a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible; “permit” is a probable, not a certain, rendering, and K&D supports it from Chaldee and rabbinical usage. Cambridge's historical objection from Herodotus iii. 34, that Cyrus did not control Phoenicia, is real and unanswered except by Pulpit's conjecture about Babylonian dependencies.

⚙ (5) Sources. Voices are verbatim public-domain commentary reproduced by anchor, not retyped: Ellicott, Maclaren, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit, K&D and Poole. Poole has no entry at 3:3 or 3:7 in our source, and Maclaren's entry is a single long exposition attached to 3:1; his remarks about later verses are therefore quoted only under 3:1. Barnes repeats his “Upon his bases” note under 3:4, 3:5 and 3:6, which is an artifact of the source compilation, not a comment on those verses, so we quote him only where the note belongs. Henry's entry covers 3:1-7 as one block.

⚙ (6) Cross-references. Thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared Strong's lexemes with canonical frequencies. No cross-Testament thread is tiered verbal, because Greek and Hebrew lexemes cannot be compared by Strong's number. The Hebrews and John links are structural and figural respectively, and the John 7 reading is marked novel because no commentator in this brief makes it.

= human, public-domain source, quoted and named. = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)