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Ezra 6:19–22 — The Returned Exiles Keep the Passover. 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.

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Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

The occasion was, as it were, a renewal of the redemption from Egypt, and another wilderness had been passed.

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Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

With this verse the writer resumes the use of the Hebrew language, which he had discarded for the Chaldee from Ezra 4:8

A textual observation, not a theological one, but it governs the unit: the Aramaic of the Persian chancery documents stops and the Hebrew of Israel's own worship resumes exactly here.

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Joseph BensonCommentary on the Old and New Testaments1810s

Now they were newly delivered out of their bondage in Babylon, it was seasonable to commemorate their deliverance out of their bondage in Egypt. Fresh mercies should put us in mind of former mercies.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

Very few celebrations of the Passover are recorded. Besides the original occasion of the Passover, we only read in the O.T. of its being kept (1) under Moses on the second year after the Exodus ( Numbers 9:5 ), (2) under Joshua at Gilgal after the reconsecration of the people by the rite of circumcision ( Joshua 5:10 ), (3) in the reign of Hezekiah, after the purification of the Temple ( 2 Chronicles 30:1-2 , ff.), (4) in the reign of Josiah, after the religious reformation ( 2 Kings 23:21 ; 2 Chronicles 35), (5) under Zerubbabel and Jeshua. On each of these occasions the celebration of the Passover marks a new or a restored order of worship, and the solemn rededication by the people of their Covenant relation with God.

Cambridge's list is a count of recorded celebrations, not a claim that the feast lapsed between them; Benson expressly supposes they had kept it 'after a sort' every year since the return.

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On the fourteenth day of the first month, the exiles kept the Passover.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

bə·’ar·bā·‘āh ‘ā·śār hā·ri·šō·wn la·ḥō·ḏeš ḇə·nê- hag·gō·w·lāh ’eṯ- way·ya·‘ă·śū hap·pā·saḥ

Word by word9 · parsed

בְּאַרְבָּעָ֥הbə·’ar·bā·‘āhOn the fourteenth dayH702

√ ʼarbaʻ — fourPreposition-bNumbermasculine singular

עָשָׂ֖ר‘ā·śār. . .H6240

√ ʻâsâr — ten (only in combination), iNumbermasculine singular

הָרִאשֽׁוֹן׃hā·ri·šō·wnof the firstH7223

√ riʼshôwn — first, in place, time or rank (as adjective or noun)ArticleAdjectivemasculine singular

riʼshôwn: first, in place, time or rank Gill presses the point: this Passover “was kept at the exact time the law commanded, Exodus 12:2.” Nisan was made the first month by the first Passover (Exodus 12:2), so the date itself is a citation. The returned community does not choose a convenient day; it accepts a calendar that was reset by an act of God centuries earlier, which is the quietest possible claim that the God of the Exodus and the God who moved Darius are one.

לַחֹ֥דֶשׁla·ḥō·ḏešmonthH2320

√ chôdesh — the new moonPreposition-l, ArticleNounmasculine singular

בְנֵי־ḇə·nê-the exilesH1121

√ 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 plural construct

bên: a son, in the widest sense of literal and figurative relationship In construct with gôwlâh this is a sociological title, not a genealogy. Ezra uses it as the standing name of the new community (Ezra 2:1, Ezra 8:35, Ezra 10:16).

הַגּוֹלָ֖הhag·gō·w·lāh. . .H1473

√ gôwlâh — exileArticleNounfeminine singular

gôwlâh: exile The load-bearing noun of the book, and an uncommon one (42 verses). It is Jeremiah's word for the deportees he writes to (Jeremiah 29:4), Ezekiel's word for the community by the Kebar (Ezekiel 1:1), and the word the historian of 2 Kings 24:16 uses for the carrying away. Here it names the people who eat the lamb. The exile has not been erased, it has been made into an identity that can keep a feast.

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

וַיַּעֲשׂ֥וּway·ya·‘ă·śūkeptH6213

√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

ʻâsâh: to do or make, in the broadest sense A Qal consecutive imperfect, third masculine plural, simply continuing the narrative chain. The weight lies in the choice of root: ʻâsâh is the ordinary verb of doing and making, not a cultic term, and the identical form returns in verse 22 for the seven days of unleavened bread. Ezra reports the keeping of the Passover with the same plain verb a narrator would use for any deed done, which is part of how this unit declines to make the feast exceptional. It is what the community did next.

הַפָּ֑סַחhap·pā·saḥthe PassoverH6453

√ peçach — a pretermission, iArticleNounmasculine singular

peçach: a pretermission, a passing over Ellicott reads the occasion as “a renewal of the redemption from Egypt,” another wilderness having been crossed. Cambridge lists every recorded keeping of it (Moses in the second year, Joshua at Gilgal after circumcision, Hezekiah after the cleansing of the temple, Josiah after the reform, and this one) and observes that each marks a new or restored order of worship. The lamb, in the Old Testament's own record, is what a beginning looks like.

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-they-made the-sons-of-the-exile the-Passover, in-four ten to-the-month the-first.”

Where the English smooths the original

וַיַּעֲשׂ֥וּ וַיַּעֲשׂ֥וּ (way·ya·‘ă·śū, Qal consecutive imperfect of ʻâsâh, H6213) is not a word for observing or attending: it is the ordinary verb to do, to make, the same root used all through this chapter for building and for the work on the house. BSB smooths it to “kept.” The Hebrew says they made the Passover, exactly as they had been making the temple: one continuous act of construction, the last course of which is a meal.
בְנֵי־הַגּוֹלָ֖ה בְנֵי־הַגּוֹלָ֖ה (ḇə·nê-hag·gō·w·lāh, H1121 + H1473) is “sons of the exile,” not “the exiles.” gôwlâh is an abstract noun, the deportation itself, and BSB's plural noun hides the construct: these men are named after the catastrophe that produced them. Cambridge notes the same title at Ezra 6:16 and Ezra 8:35. They are still called by the exile on the very night that commemorates a coming out.
אֶת־ אֶת־ (H853) is the untranslatable direct object marker, invisible in every English version. It matters here only because it makes hap·pā·saḥ unambiguously the thing done: the Passover is the object of the verb, not the occasion of it.
הַפָּ֑סַח הַפָּ֑סַח (hap·pā·saḥ, H6453) means, per the lexicon, “a pretermission,” a passing over. The English keeps the proper name and loses the verb hidden inside it. A relatively uncommon word (46 verses in the whole Hebrew canon), and Cambridge counts only five recorded celebrations of it in the Old Testament.

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Charles EllicottCommentary for English Readers1878

In this fact the present Levitical and official purity of both orders surpassed that of Hezekiah’s celebration ( 2Chronicles 29:34 ; 2Chronicles 30:3 ). It had come to be the practice that the Levites slaughtered all the paschal lambs.

Ellicott reaches this by re-pointing the verse 'contrary to the present accentuation'; the reading is a deliberate emendation of the Masoretic phrasing, and Cambridge and K&D decline it.

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John GillExposition of the Entire Bible1746–63

They were all to a man pure, and all purified as one man; all were of one mind to purify themselves, and took care to do it, and did it with as much dispatch as if only one man was purified

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

The small number of Levites who had returned were, we must suppose, more rigid followers of the ceremonial law than their brethren the priests, numerically a far larger body.

Openly a supposition ('we must suppose'), offered to explain why the Levites and not the priests wield the knife.

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Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

From the days of Josiah, it seems to have been customary for the Levites to take the place of the heads of families ( Exodus 12:6 , etc.) in slaughtering the passover lambs for the whole community, both priesthood and laity

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All the priests and Levites had purified themselves and were ceremonially clean. And the Levites slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, for their priestly brothers, and for themselves.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

kul·lām hak·kō·hă·nîm wə·hal·wî·yim kə·’e·ḥāḏ kî hiṭ·ṭa·hă·rū ṭə·hō·w·rîm way·yiš·ḥă·ṭū hap·pe·saḥ lə·ḵāl bə·nê hag·gō·w·lāh hak·kō·hă·nîm wə·la·’ă·ḥê·hem wə·lā·hem

Word by word15 · parsed

כֻּלָּ֣םkul·lāmAllH3605

√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine plural

kôl: properly, the whole Construct with a third plural suffix, “all of them.” Its position is the crux: attached to the purification it makes both orders clean, attached to the Levites alone it makes only them clean.

הַכֹּהֲנִ֧יםhak·kō·hă·nîmthe priestsH3548

√ kôhên — literally one officiating, a priestArticleNounmasculine plural

וְהַלְוִיִּ֛םwə·hal·wî·yimand LevitesH3881

√ Lêvîyîy — a Levite or descendant of LeviConjunctive waw, ArticleNounpropermasculine plural

כְּאֶחָ֖דkə·’e·ḥāḏ. . .H259

√ ʼechâd — properly, united, iPreposition-kNumbermasculine singular

ʼechâd: properly, united, one The pivot of the verse and of the commentators' quarrel. Read with the priests and Levites together, as Cambridge and K&D read it, it means the two orders purified themselves jointly and without exception. Read with the Levites alone, as Ellicott, Barnes and Pulpit read it against the Masoretic accentuation, it draws a contrast: the Levites were pure to a man, the priests only generally so, as in Hezekiah's day (2 Chronicles 29:34). Either way the word is doing work the English translation does not even print.

כִּ֣יkîH3588

√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction

הִֽטַּהֲר֞וּhiṭ·ṭa·hă·rūhad purified themselvesH2891

√ ṭâhêr — to be pure (physical sound, clear, unadulteratedVerbHitpaelPerfectthird person common plural

ṭâhêr: to be pure, sound, clear, unadulterated (Hitpael) The reflexive stem makes purification something undertaken, not conferred. This is the qualifying condition of the whole unit: verse 20 opens with kî, “for,” and Cambridge reads it as the explanation of why verse 19's Passover could happen at all. The feast of a redeemed people still waits on a clean priesthood.

טְהוֹרִ֑יםṭə·hō·w·rîmand were ceremonially cleanH2889

√ ṭâhôwr — pure (in a physical, chemical, ceremonial or moral sense)Adjectivemasculine plural

ṭâhôwr: pure, in a physical, chemical, ceremonial or moral sense The adjective, not the verb: the finished state after the act of 5. Hebrew sets the two roots side by side (hiṭṭahărū ṭəhôrîm) so that the doing and the being are audibly the same word.

וַיִּשְׁחֲט֤וּway·yiš·ḥă·ṭūAnd [the Levites] slaughteredH7819

√ shâchaṭ — to slaughter (in sacrifice or massacre)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

shâchaṭ: to slaughter (in sacrifice or massacre) The verb of Exodus 12:6, where the whole assembly of Israel kills the lamb, and of 2 Chronicles 35:11, where the Levites do it. K&D traces the change: from Josiah onward the Levites took the place of the heads of families, so that no unclean person would kill a paschal lamb and so that the priests, occupied with blood and sacrifices far into the night, would be relieved. Cambridge calls this a useful illustration of how the absolute rule of the early law was modified out of regard for practical considerations.

הַפֶּ֙סַח֙hap·pe·saḥthe Passover lambH6453

√ peçach — a pretermission, iArticleNounmasculine singular

peçach: the Passover, a passing over Here the victim rather than the festival, hence BSB's “the Passover lamb”; the Hebrew does not distinguish, and the same noun in verse 19 meant the feast.

לְכָל־lə·ḵālfor allH3605

√ kôl — properly, the wholePreposition-lNounmasculine singular construct

בְּנֵ֣יbə·nêthe exilesH1121

הַגּוֹלָ֔הhag·gō·w·lāh. . .H1473

√ gôwlâh — exileArticleNounfeminine singular

הַכֹּהֲנִ֖יםhak·kō·hă·nîmfor their priestlyH3548

√ kôhên — literally one officiating, a priestArticleNounmasculine plural

kôhên: literally one officiating, a priest The article makes these the priests as a class, and the clause makes them recipients of a service they did not perform. The officiants are, for one clause, the ones officiated for.

וְלַאֲחֵיהֶ֥םwə·la·’ă·ḥê·hembrothersH251

√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Conjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine plural

ʼâch: a brother, in the widest sense of literal relationship or affinity K&D records the same designation of priests as the Levites' brethren at 2 Chronicles 29:34 and 35:15.

וְלָהֶֽם׃wə·lā·hemand for themselves

Conjunctive wawPrepositionthird person masculine plural

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“For they-had-purified-themselves, the-priests and-the-Levites, as-one; all-of-them pure. And-they-slaughtered the-Passover for-all sons-of-the-exile, and-for-their-brothers the-priests, and-for-themselves.”

Where the English smooths the original

הִֽטַּהֲר֞וּ הִֽטַּהֲר֞וּ (hiṭ·ṭa·hă·rū, H2891) is a Hitpael perfect, the reflexive stem: “they purified themselves.” Cambridge is explicit that “the reflexive is the accurate rendering of the original,” correcting the AV's passive “were purified.” BSB has it right, but the older English lost the agency: nobody purified these men, they did it.
כְּאֶחָ֖ד כְּאֶחָ֖ד (kə·’e·ḥāḏ, H259, ʼechâd, “properly, united”) is literally “as one.” BSB drops it entirely from the English. Benson renders it “as one man” and draws the whole weight of the verse from it: “They were unanimous, both in their resolutions, and in their endeavours.” K&D compares the identical idiom at Ezra 3:9. A word English readers never see is the word the commentators fight over.
וַיִּשְׁחֲט֤וּ וַיִּשְׁחֲט֤וּ (way·yiš·ḥă·ṭū, H7819, shâchaṭ, “to slaughter, in sacrifice or massacre”) has no stated subject in the Hebrew. BSB supplies “the Levites” in brackets because the following clause says the slaughter was done “for their brothers the priests,” which rules the priests out. The English hands the reader a conclusion that the Hebrew makes him infer, and Ellicott, Barnes, Pulpit and Cambridge all reach it by that same inference.
וְלַאֲחֵיהֶ֥ם וְלַאֲחֵיהֶ֥ם (wə·la·’ă·ḥê·hem, H251) is “and for their brothers,” a kinship word, not the rank word BSB's “their priestly brothers” suggests. K&D notes that calling the priests the Levites' brethren follows the usage of 2 Chronicles 29:34 and 35:15. In a chapter full of Persian titles, the clergy are named by family.

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The Pulpit CommentarySpence & Exell, eds.1880s

such proselytes as had been made since the return from the captivity. We have perhaps a mention of some of these proselytes in the "Sherezer" and "Regem-melech" sent by the men of Bethel a short time before this to make inquiries of the priests at Jerusalem in respect of fasting ( Zechariah 7:2 ). These names are Assyrian, and not likely to have been given to persons born Jews.

Pulpit's evidence is circumstantial: two Assyrian-sounding names in Zechariah 7:2 taken as probable converts. It is an argument from onomastics, offered as 'perhaps'.

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Keil & DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament1860s

are not proselytes from heathenism (Aben Ezra, Rashi, Clericus, and others), but Israelites, who had till now lived in Palestine, and mingled with the heathen inhabitants of the land.

K&D is directly contradicting the reading Pulpit, JFB, Gill, Poole and Geneva take; he names Aben Ezra, Rashi and Clericus as holding it. The unit preserves both sides because the Hebrew participle decides neither.

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Jamieson, Fausset & BrownCommentary Critical and Explanatory1871

who had given satisfactory evidence of being true proselytes by not only renouncing the impure worship of idolatry, but by undergoing the rite of circumcision, a condition indispensable to a participation of the passover.

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Joseph BensonCommentary on the Old and New Testaments1810s

they separate themselves from the filthiness of sin, and fellowship with sinners; join themselves to the Israel of God in conformity and communion, and set themselves to seek the God of Israel: and those that do so in sincerity, though strangers and foreigners, are welcome to eat of the gospel-feast, as fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.

Benson is generalizing from this verse to converts 'in every age', which is application rather than exegesis; his New Testament language (Ephesians 2:19) is his own overlay on Ezra's Hebrew.

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The Israelites who had returned from exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land to seek the LORD, the God of Israel.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

ḇə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl haš·šā·ḇîm mê·hag·gō·w·lāh way·yō·ḵə·lū wə·ḵōl han·niḇ·dāl miṭ·ṭum·’aṯ gō·w·yê- hā·’ā·reṣ ’ă·lê·hem liḏ·rōš Yah·weh ’ĕ·lō·hê yiś·rā·’êl

Word by word15 · parsed

בְנֵֽי־ḇə·nê-The IsraelitesH1121

יִשְׂרָאֵ֗לyiś·rā·’êl. . .H3478

√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounproperfeminine singular

הַשָּׁבִים֙haš·šā·ḇîmwho had returnedH7725

√ shûwb — to turn back (hence, away) transitively or intransitively, literally or figuratively (not necessarily with the idea of return to the starting point)ArticleVerbQalParticiplemasculine plural

shûwb: to turn back, literally or figuratively Participle, masculine plural, with the article: a standing description rather than a completed event. Ezra's community is defined by a turning that is still underway, which is why the book can end with them needing to turn again (Ezra 10:11).

מֵֽהַגּוֹלָ֔הmê·hag·gō·w·lāhfrom exileH1473

√ gôwlâh — exilePreposition-m, ArticleNounfeminine singular

וַיֹּאכְל֣וּway·yō·ḵə·lūate itH398

√ ʼâkal — to eat (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

ʼâkal: to eat, literally or figuratively The main verb of the sentence, and the whole point of the previous two verses: the purifications and the slaughter exist so that this plain verb can happen. Everything ceremonial in verses 19 and 20 terminates in a meal.

וְכֹ֗לwə·ḵōltogether with allH3605

√ kôl — properly, the wholeConjunctive wawNounmasculine singular construct

הַנִּבְדָּ֛לhan·niḇ·dālwho had separated themselvesH914

√ bâdal — to divide (in variation senses literally or figuratively, separate, distinguish, differ, select, etcArticleVerbNifalParticiplemasculine singular

bâdal: to divide, separate, distinguish, differ, select (Nifal) The Nifal is reflexive or passive: they separated themselves, or were set apart. Who they were is the great dispute of the verse. Benson, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva and Pulpit read them as proselytes from the heathen, circumcised and admitted under Exodus 12:48. Ellicott, K&D and Cambridge read them as Israelites left in the land who had mixed with the foreign population and now rejoined the returned community. K&D grounds his case on Ezra's own usage, where those who fail to separate are Israelites (Ezra 9:1, Ezra 10:11) and Nehemiah 10:29 calls the separated ones brethren. The text itself does not say, and this synthesis does not decide it.

מִטֻּמְאַ֥תmiṭ·ṭum·’aṯfrom the uncleannessH2932

√ ṭumʼâh — religious impurityPreposition-mNounfeminine singular construct

ṭumʼâh: religious impurity A word of the sanctuary, applied here to a way of life. Cambridge identifies it with the ceremonial pollution of idolatry practised by the mixed population of the land (compare Ezra 9:11); Pulpit insists that ancient idolatry's moral filth is included, not excluded.

גּוֹיֵֽ־gō·w·yê-of the peoplesH1471

√ gôwy — a foreign nationNounmasculine plural construct

gôwy: a foreign nation K&D distinguishes this construct, gôyê hâ-ârets, the heathen peoples dwelling in Palestine, from the wider ʻammê hâ-ârâtsôth of Ezra 9:1, which takes in Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians and the rest. The narrower phrase keeps the problem local and domestic.

הָאָ֖רֶץhā·’ā·reṣof the landH776

√ ʼerets — the earth (at large, or partitively a land)ArticleNounfeminine singular

אֲלֵהֶ֑ם’ă·lê·hemvvvH413

√ ʼêl — near, with or amongPrepositionthird person masculine plural

לִדְרֹ֕שׁliḏ·rōšto seekH1875

√ dârash — properly, to tread or frequentPreposition-lVerbQalInfinitive construct

dârash: properly, to tread or frequent, hence to seek Infinitive construct with l: the purpose clause that justifies the separation. Separation here is never an end in itself; it is the negative half of an approach, and the positive half is naming the God of Israel.

לַֽיהוָ֖הYah·wehthe LORDH3068

√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular

Yᵉhôvâh: the Jewish national name of God The covenant name, prefixed with l as the object sought. In a chapter whose legal warrant comes from Cyrus and Darius, the object of the community's seeking is not the decree but the Name.

אֱלֹהֵ֥י’ĕ·lō·hêthe GodH430

√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural construct

ʼĕlôhîym: God, gods in the ordinary sense In construct with Israel: the generic word for deity is specified by a people. The ones separating themselves from the nations' gods come to the God who has a nation.

יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃yiś·rā·’êlof IsraelH3478

√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounproperfeminine singular

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-they-ate, the-sons-of-Israel the-ones-returning from-the-exile, and-every-one separating-himself from-the-uncleanness-of the-nations-of-the-land unto-them, to-seek YHWH God-of Israel.”

Where the English smooths the original

הַשָּׁבִים֙ הַשָּׁבִים֙ (haš·šā·ḇîm, H7725, shûwb) is an articular Qal participle, “the ones returning,” not the past tense BSB's “who had returned” supplies. shûwb is the root of repentance as well as of homecoming, and the lexicon notes it does not necessarily imply return to the starting point. The participle keeps the motion open: these are still, grammatically, people in the act of turning back.
הַנִּבְדָּ֛ל הַנִּבְדָּ֛ל (han·niḇ·dāl, H914, bâdal) is a Nifal participle, singular, though BSB renders it plural (“all who had separated themselves”). Hebrew says “every one separating himself,” counting the newcomers one at a time. The root is the word of Genesis 1 for God dividing light from darkness and of Leviticus for dividing clean from unclean: the same verb that makes a creation makes a congregation.
מִטֻּמְאַ֥ת מִטֻּמְאַ֥ת (miṭ·ṭum·’aṯ, H2932, ṭumʼâh, “religious impurity”) is the exact antonym of verse 20's ṭâhêr. English uses two unrelated words, “clean” and “uncleanness”; Hebrew uses a matched pair, so that the priests' purification in verse 20 and the outsiders' separation in verse 21 are visibly the same movement in two directions. Older versions render it “filthiness,” and Pulpit insists it means moral defilement, not merely ritual, since heathen idolatry “was full of such impurities.”
לִדְרֹ֕שׁ לִדְרֹ֕שׁ (liḏ·rōš, H1875, dârash, “properly, to tread or frequent”) is an infinitive of purpose: separation is for something. The root's physical sense is to beat a path to a place by going there often. Cambridge glosses it “to seek, i.e. with a view to worship.” The English “to seek” sounds interior; the Hebrew is a verb of feet.

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Alexander MaclarenExpositions of Holy Scripturec. 1905

Look at that great and wonderful thought-God the joy-maker. We do not often realise how glad God is when we are glad, and how worthy an object of much that He does is simply the prosperity and the blessedness of human hearts.

Maclaren is preaching, not annotating; this is the unit's one homiletical voice, and his reading rests on the Piel of sâmach, which does put God in the agent's place.

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Albert BarnesNotes on the Bible1834

Assyria had so long been the great monarchy of western Asia that the sacred writers continue the title to those who had inherited the old Assyrian power, as first to the Babylonians 2 Kings 23:29 , and secondly to the Persians.

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Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges—1880s

Of these views the first is the most probable. See note on Ezra 5:13 (Cyrus king of Babylon). Perhaps however the phrase is a copyist’s error.

Cambridge ranks the explanations and then, unusually for this brief's commentators, leaves open that the received text may be corrupt at this word. The possibility is recorded here rather than resolved.

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Matthew HenryConcise Commentary on the Whole Bible1706

Their service was with joy. Let us welcome holy ordinances with joy, and serve the Lord with gladness.

Henry's entry in the sources is a single block comment on Ezra 6:13-22 repeated at each verse, not a note on verse 22 alone.

source ↗

For seven days they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread with joy, because the LORD had made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to strengthen their hands in the work on the house of the God of Israel.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm way·ya·‘ă·śū ḥaḡ- maṣ·ṣō·wṯ bə·śim·ḥāh kî Yah·weh śim·mə·ḥām wə·hê·sêḇ lêḇ me·leḵ- ’aš·šūr ‘ă·lê·hem lə·ḥaz·zêq yə·ḏê·hem bim·le·ḵeṯ bêṯ- hā·’ĕ·lō·hîm ’ĕ·lō·hê yiś·rā·’êl

Word by word21 · parsed

שִׁבְעַ֥תšiḇ·‘aṯFor sevenH7651

√ shebaʻ — seven (as the sacred full one)Numbermasculine singular construct

יָמִ֖יםyā·mîmdaysH3117

√ 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 plural

וַיַּֽעֲשׂ֧וּway·ya·‘ă·śūthey keptH6213

√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural

חַג־ḥaḡ-the FeastH2282

√ chag — a festival, or a victim thereforNounmasculine singular construct

מַצּ֛וֹתmaṣ·ṣō·wṯof Unleavened BreadH4682

√ matstsâh — properly, sweetnessNounfeminine plural

matstsâh: properly, sweetness, hence unleavened bread Ellicott reads the week of Mazzoth as “the symbol of entire separation from evil, to the service of that God whom on the Passover they accepted as their God.” The feast is therefore the calendrical answer to verse 21: the outsiders separated themselves from uncleanness, and now the whole community spends seven days eating the separation.

בְּשִׂמְחָ֑הbə·śim·ḥāhwith joyH8057

√ simchâh — blithesomeness or glee, (religious or festival)Preposition-bNounfeminine singular

simchâh: blithesomeness or glee, religious or festival gladness A noun of public, liturgical joy rather than private cheer. Its placement is deliberate: joy is the manner of the keeping, and the next clause supplies the cause.

כִּ֣י׀kîbecauseH3588

√ kîy — (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below)Conjunction

kîy: a widely used relative conjunction, 'for, because' The same particle that opened verse 20. Twice in this unit the narrative gives a reason, and both reasons are acts God's people did not perform: a priesthood made clean, a king's heart reversed.

יְהוָ֗הYah·wehthe LORDH3068

√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular

שִׂמְּחָ֣םśim·mə·ḥāmhad made them joyfulH8055

√ sâmach — probably to brighten up, iVerbPielPerfectthird person masculine singularthird person masculine plural

sâmach: probably to brighten up, to make glad (Piel) Cambridge notes this is the same phrase in the original as 2 Chronicles 20:27 and Nehemiah 12:43, both of them moments when a rescued or restored Israel is said to be made to rejoice by God rather than simply to rejoice. Maclaren builds his whole exposition on the causative: God is the joy-maker, and the gladness of His children is an end He contemplates.

וְֽהֵסֵ֞בwə·hê·sêḇand turnedH5437

√ çâbab — to revolve, surround, or borderConjunctive wawVerbHifilConjunctive perfectthird person masculine singular

çâbab: to revolve, surround, or border (Hifil) The theological centre of the verse. The subject is YHWH; the object is a heart that no exile could reach and no decree could compel. Poole draws the conclusion that the point of naming Assyria is 'to note the great power and goodness of God in turning the hearts of these great monarchs, whose predecessors had been the chief persecutors'. The empire that deported them is, grammatically, something God swings around.

לֵ֤בlêḇthe heartH3820

√ lêb — the heartNounmasculine singular construct

lêb: the heart In Hebrew the seat of will and decision, not sentiment. What God turns is the king's policy from the inside, which is why Gill can gloss it with the proverb that the hearts of kings are in God's hand and cross-refer to Ezra 7:27.

מֶֽלֶךְ־me·leḵ-of the kingH4428

√ melek — a kingNounmasculine singular construct

אַשּׁוּר֙’aš·šūrof AssyriaH804

√ ʼAshshûwr — Ashshur, the second son of ShemNounproperfeminine singular

ʼAshshûwr: Ashshur, the second son of Shem, hence Assyria The title is contested by every commentator in this brief. Barnes and JFB take it as the imperial name inherited by Persia; Geneva simply glosses it 'Darius who was king of the Medes, Persians and Assyrians'; Pulpit prefers a general expression of thanks that God turned the hearts of their rulers, Assyrian, Babylonian or Persian alike; Cambridge alone raises the possibility of a copyist's error. Ellicott offers the sharpest reading: the Persian is called by the old name 'as a remembrancer of their oppression by his forerunners'.

עֲלֵיהֶ֔ם‘ă·lê·hemtoward themH5921

√ 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

לְחַזֵּ֣קlə·ḥaz·zêqto strengthenH2388

√ châzaq — to fasten uponPreposition-lVerbPielInfinitive construct

châzaq: to fasten upon, to make strong (Piel) Infinitive of purpose: the turned heart existed in order that hands might be gripped. God's dealing with the king terminates not in the king but in the labour of the builders.

יְדֵיהֶ֔םyə·ḏê·hemtheir handsH3027

√ yâd — a hand (the open one (indicating power, means, direction, etcNounfeminine dual constructthird person masculine plural

yâd: a hand, the open one, indicating power, means, direction Feminine dual construct with suffix: two hands, the working pair. The lexicon's note that the open hand indicates power is the whole force of the idiom; what is strengthened is capacity, not limb.

בִּמְלֶ֥אכֶתbim·le·ḵeṯin the workH4399

√ mᵉlâʼkâh — properly, deputyship, iPreposition-bNounfeminine singular construct

mᵉlâʼkâh: properly, deputyship, hence work, business, occupation A word whose root sense is commissioned service, and the same noun family as malʼâk, messenger. The temple labour is deputed work, which is why a Persian king's change of heart can be described as an aid to it.

בֵּית־bêṯ-on the houseH1004

√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcNounmasculine singular construct

הָאֱלֹהִ֖יםhā·’ĕ·lō·hîmof the GodH430

√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseArticleNounmasculine plural

ʼĕlôhîym: God The verse closes by saying it twice, 'the house of the God, the God of Israel', the second in construct. After a chapter of Persian decrees and Assyrian titles, the last word in the Hebrew is Israel, and the word before it is God.

אֱלֹהֵ֥י’ĕ·lō·hê. . .H430

√ ʼĕlôhîym — gods in the ordinary senseNounmasculine plural construct

יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃פyiś·rā·’êlof IsraelH3478

√ Yisrâʼêl — Jisrael, a symbolical name of JacobNounproperfeminine singular

Literal — word-for-word from the original

“And-they-made the-feast-of unleavened-bread, seven days, with-joy; for YHWH had-made-them-joyful, and-had-turned-around the-heart of-the-king-of-Asshur upon-them, to-strengthen their-hands in-the-work-of the-house-of-the-God, God-of Israel.”

Where the English smooths the original

שִׂמְּחָ֣ם שִׂמְּחָ֣ם (śim·mə·ḥām, H8055, sâmach) is a Piel perfect with a third plural suffix: “he gladdened them.” The Piel is causative and intensive, and the suffix is a direct object, so the joy of the previous clause is not a mood they worked up but something done to them by a named agent. English “had made them joyful” gets the sense; what it cannot show is that the same root stands twice in one verse, once as the people's simchâh and once as God's verb acting on them.
וְֽהֵסֵ֞ב וְֽהֵסֵ֞ב (wə·hê·sêḇ, H5437, çâbab, “to revolve, surround, or border”) is a Hifil, causative: he caused the king's heart to turn right around. BSB's “turned” is too gentle for a root whose plain sense is to swing something through a circuit. Cambridge records the same idiom at 1 Kings 18:37 and notes that the verb is not the one used in the similar phrase at Malachi 4:6.
אַשּׁוּר֙ אַשּׁוּר֙ (’aš·šūr, H804) is Asshur, Assyria, and BSB reproduces it faithfully. The difficulty is historical, not lexical: the king in view is Persian. Barnes explains the title as continued to whoever inherited the old Assyrian power; Pulpit notes that no other Scripture calls a king of Persia “king of Assyria”; Cambridge, having ranked the explanations, allows that “perhaps the phrase is a copyist's error.” The English hides none of this, but the reader will not see the problem unless told.
לְחַזֵּ֣ק לְחַזֵּ֣ק (lə·ḥaz·zêq, H2388, châzaq, “to fasten upon”) is a Piel infinitive: to make firm, to grip. With yâd it is an idiom for putting courage and capacity into someone's work, the same phrase Cambridge tracks at Nehemiah 2:18 and 6:9 and K&D at 1 Samuel 23. “Strengthen their hands” is literal English for a Hebrew figure about morale.

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 language changes, and so does the subject — 6:19

Barnes records the mechanical fact that governs everything after it: “With this verse the writer resumes the use of the Hebrew language, which he had discarded for the Chaldee from Ezra 4:8,” and apart from the letter of Artaxerxes in chapter 7 the rest of the book is Hebrew. Cambridge notes the same resumption. ⚙ The change is not decorative. The Aramaic sections of Ezra are the language of the Persian chancery: decrees, memoranda, official correspondence, the paperwork by which an empire authorised a temple. The Hebrew resumes at the exact point where the community stops being administered and starts to worship. Ellicott, who also marks the switch, reads the occasion as “a renewal of the redemption from Egypt, and another wilderness had been passed.” Benson puts the same thought in the plainer form: newly out of Babylonian bondage, “it was seasonable to commemorate their deliverance out of their bondage in Egypt. Fresh mercies should put us in mind of former mercies.” Gill adds the legal precision, that the feast fell “at the exact time the law commanded, Exodus 12:2.” Cambridge supplies the canonical perspective: of the very few Passovers the Old Testament troubles to record, every one marks “a new or a restored order of worship, and the solemn rededication by the people of their Covenant relation with God.” Benson, notably, does not suppose this was the first Passover since the return; he thinks they had kept it “after a sort” yearly, but without room, safety or solemnity until the temple stood.

ii. As one man: a clean priesthood and a borrowed knife — 6:20

Verse 20 opens with kî, “for”: Cambridge reads it as the reason the Passover of verse 19 could happen at all, “because the priests and Levites had duly prepared themselves for it by ceremonial purification.” The verb is Hitpael, reflexive, and Cambridge insists on it: “the reflexive is the accurate rendering of the original.” Then comes the quarrel. Ellicott would re-translate “contrary to the present accentuation,” separating the clauses so that the Levites alone are pure “as one man,” and Barnes states the resulting contrast outright, “between the universal purity of the Levites and the merely general purity of the priests,” with 2 Chronicles 29:34 and 30:3 in the margin. Pulpit takes the same side, calling the opening of the verse mistranslated. Against them, Cambridge and K&D keep the Masoretic phrasing: both orders purified themselves without exception, and K&D compares כאחד to Ezra 3:9. Benson and Gill read it devotionally and agree with nobody's accentuation in particular: Gill says “they were all to a man pure, and all purified as one man,” and Benson draws the pastoral point, “The purity of ministers adds much to the beauty and honour of their ministrations, as doth their unity also.” ⚙ What the English never prints is the phrase they are all arguing about: kə·’e·ḥāḏ is simply absent from the BSB rendering. On the second half all the sources converge. K&D traces the practice: “From the days of Josiah, it seems to have been customary for the Levites to take the place of the heads of families” in slaughtering the lambs, for the laity so that no unclean person might kill, and for the priests so that their labours might be lightened while the blood and the sacrifices held them far into the night. Cambridge lays out the three stages (Exodus 12:6, then Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 30:17, then Josiah in 2 Chronicles 35:10-14) and calls it “a useful illustration of the manner in which the absolute rule of the early law was modified in later times out of regard for considerations of a purely practical character.” Cambridge's supposition for why so few Levites bore so much is frankly labelled a supposition.

iii. Who may eat: the doorway nobody can agree about — 6:21

The Hebrew says two groups ate: the sons of Israel returning from the exile, and הַנִּבְדָּל, “every one separating himself” from the uncleanness of the nations of the land. On the identity of the second group the sources divide cleanly down the middle. JFB reads them as converts who “had given satisfactory evidence of being true proselytes” by renouncing idolatry and undergoing circumcision, “a condition indispensable to a participation of the passover”; Poole, Gill, Geneva and Benson agree, all of them citing Exodus 12:48 as the governing statute; Pulpit adds circumstantial evidence, proposing the Assyrian-sounding names Sherezer and Regem-melech of Zechariah 7:2 as examples of such converts. Ellicott flatly denies it: “Not proselytes from the heathen are intended, but the remnant of the Jews in the land who had consorted with the foreign populations.” K&D denies it at length, naming Aben Ezra, Rashi and Clericus as the holders of the proselyte view, and arguing from Ezra's own usage that those who fail to separate themselves are Israelites (Ezra 9:1, Ezra 10:11) and that Nehemiah 10:29 calls the separated ones brethren. Cambridge sets out both cases and judges the Israelite reading “most probable.” ⚙ The grammar will not settle it. bâdal in the Nifal describes the act, not the ancestry, of the one who does it, and the participle is singular, counting them one at a time. What the verse does establish, whichever party is right, is the shape of the doorway: a movement away from ṭum’âh, uncleanness, and a movement toward a Name, since the infinitive liḏrōš makes seeking YHWH the purpose of the separating. Benson's application, that such people “though strangers and foreigners, are welcome to eat of the gospel-feast,” is his own extension into New Testament language, and is marked as such.

iv. Seven days of joy, and a heart swung around — 6:22

Ellicott reads the week of unleavened bread as “the symbol of entire separation from evil, to the service of that God whom on the Passover they accepted as their God,” which makes the seven days the calendrical echo of verse 21's separating. The verse then gives its reason twice over, and neither reason is anything the people did. śimməḥām is a Piel with a suffix, God gladdening them; Cambridge notes the identical phrase at 2 Chronicles 20:27 and Nehemiah 12:43. Maclaren takes it as his text and will not let it go: God is “the joy-maker,” and “the gladness of His children is an end contemplated by Him in all that He does.” Benson, quoting Henry, adds a sober historical note, that after nearly twenty years most of the old men who had wept at the memory of the first temple were dead, “so that now there were no tears mingled with their joys.” The second reason is the turned heart. hêsêḇ is a Hifil of a root meaning to revolve or swing around; Cambridge records the same idiom at 1 Kings 18:37 and observes the verb differs from the one at Malachi 4:6. Gill draws the inference that God “has the hearts of all men in his hands, and so the hearts of kings, and can turn them at his pleasure,” cross-referring to Ezra 7:27. The title “king of Assyria” for a Persian is the unit's standing puzzle: Barnes and JFB explain it as an inherited imperial name, Poole the same, Geneva glosses it simply as Darius, Pulpit prefers a general thankfulness that God had replaced “the bitter enmity of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar by the hearty good-will of Cyrus and Darius,” and Cambridge, after ranking the explanations, allows that “perhaps the phrase is a copyist's error.” K&D takes the plain course: “The king of Assur is the Persian king Darius, who as ruler of the former realm of Assyria is thus designated.” ⚙ Whoever is right, the sentence ends where the book's whole argument ends: the turning of the king existed in order that hands might be strengthened for the work, and the last two words in Hebrew are God and Israel.

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

⚙ Read as one sentence, the unit moves from a decree to a meal. Ezra has spent five chapters in Aramaic, the language of permission, and at 6:19 he stops. Everything that the empire could give has now been given, and none of it is what the community needed. What it needed was a clean priesthood and a lamb, and the Hebrew resumes to say so.

Notice what the two kî clauses, the two stated reasons, actually attribute to this people: nothing. They kept the Passover for the priests and Levites had purified themselves and were clean (v. 20); they kept the unleavened week with joy for the LORD had made them joyful and had swung the king's heart around (v. 22). Even the one act the returned laity might have claimed as their own, killing the lamb, has been taken out of their hands: the Levites slaughter for everybody, including the priests. From Exodus 12:6, where every household killed its own, to Ezra 6:20, where one purified group kills for all, is a long drift in the direction of substitution, and the sources record it as a practical accommodation (Cambridge) rather than a doctrine. ⚙ It is still the direction the Old Testament's cult is travelling.

And notice who eats. The list has two entries, and the second is the one that can be argued about: every one separating himself from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land, in order to seek the LORD. Whether those are Gentile converts (JFB, Gill, Poole, Geneva, Pulpit) or Israelites who stayed behind and mixed (Ellicott, K&D, Cambridge), the verse defines them by a movement rather than a pedigree. The sons of the exile are also defined by a movement: haš·šā·ḇîm, the ones returning, a participle, not a finished fact. At this table nobody is identified by where they started. ⚙ That is the tool's reading, and it is offered to be tested: the community that has just been named after its catastrophe eats a meal named after an escape, and is told in the same breath that its joy was manufactured for it and its political safety was arranged for it. Ezra's Hebrew is not describing a people who have recovered. It is describing a people who have been acted upon, and who are glad.

The line set beside this reading is the tool's own sentence, not a verse of Scripture.

They were still called the sons of the exile on the very night they ate the meal of the coming out.

⚙

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.

Slaughter the Passover: the law's own two words verbal / quotation: confirmed

Ezra 6:20 puts וַיִּשְׁחֲטוּ (shâchaṭ, H7819) next to הַפֶּסַח (peçach, H6453), and the Verifier finds both lexemes together again at Exodus 34:25, in the Sinai legislation itself. Both are relatively uncommon in the Hebrew canon. The link is at the level of vocabulary rather than syntax, and the difference is worth stating: at Exodus 34:25 the verb governs the blood of the sacrifice while the noun names the feast, so what is claimed here is a shared technical vocabulary and not a quoted formula. ⚙ Ezra is not citing the law, he is performing it, and his narrative reaches for the statute's words. What has changed between Exodus and Ezra is not the words but the hands: Exodus 12:6 gives the killing to the whole assembly, Ezra 6:20 gives it to the Levites alone, and Cambridge and K&D both trace that shift through Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 30:17) and Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:10-14). The link is verbal; the development is historical.

Exodus 34:25 · Exodus 12:6

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H6453 peçach (in 46 vv) and H7819 shâchaṭ (in 70 vv) between Ezra 6:20 and Exodus 34:25, both uncommon. Two uncommon lexemes shared with a single verse of the Sinai law is a genuine verbal link, which is why the tier is verbal; it is expressly not a quotation, and the two words are not in direct syntactic collocation at Exodus 34:25. Exodus 12:6 is added on the commentators' recorded basis (Cambridge, K&D), not on a Verifier computation.

The fourth recorded Passover, and the fifth structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier links Ezra 6:19-22 to 2 Chronicles 35:17, which shares peçach (H6453, 46 vv) and chag (H2282, 55 vv), the same two nouns Ezra pairs across verses 19 and 22, and to 2 Chronicles 35:1 and 30:15, which share the fourteenth-day dating formula. Cambridge lists the five Passovers the Old Testament records (Numbers 9:5, Joshua 5:10, Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 30, Josiah in 2 Chronicles 35, and this one) and observes that each “marks a new or a restored order of worship.” ⚙ Ezra's account is built on Josiah's: the same date, the same seven days, the same Levites wielding the knife for priests and laity alike, the same word for the brotherhood of the two orders (K&D cites 2 Chronicles 29:34 and 35:15). The Chronicler's last great Passover was kept before the exile; this one is kept after it, by the same liturgy, in a smaller house.

2 Chronicles 35:17 · 2 Chronicles 35:1 · 2 Chronicles 30:15 · Joshua 5:10 · Numbers 9:5

basis: Verifier: 2 Chronicles 35:17 shares H6453 peçach (in 46 vv) and H2282 chag (in 55 vv); 2 Chronicles 35:1 and 2 Chronicles 30:15 share only the common dating lexemes H702 ʼarbaʻ (277 vv), H2320 chôdesh (224 vv), H6240 ʻâsâr (291 vv), which are too frequent to carry a verbal claim. Joshua 5:10 and Numbers 9:5 are added on Cambridge's recorded list, not on a computed lexeme link. Shared pattern, not quotation.

hag-gôlâh: the noun that carries the book structural / thematic: confirmed

הַגּוֹלָה (gôwlâh, H1473) stands three times in this short unit, twice as the title of the people who eat. It is not a common word: the Verifier counts it in 42 verses of the whole Hebrew Bible, and its distribution is a map of the catastrophe and its aftermath. It names the deportation in 2 Kings 24:16; it names the community Jeremiah writes to in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:4); it names the settlement by the Kebar where Ezekiel sat (Ezekiel 1:1, Ezekiel 3:15); and it becomes, in Ezra, the standing self-designation of the returned (Ezra 2:1, Ezra 8:35, Ezra 10:8, Ezra 10:16). ⚙ The word does not change meaning when the people come home. They are still bənê hag-gôlâh in Ezra 10, where the same title heads a list of men who must put away foreign wives. The exile has become a name rather than a location, and the theological weight of this unit lies in the fact that people with that name are the ones eating the Passover.

Ezra 2:1 · Ezra 8:35 · Ezra 10:8 · Jeremiah 29:4 · Ezekiel 1:1 · 2 Kings 24:16

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H1473 gôwlâh (in 42 vv) with every ref listed, appearing repeatedly in most of them. An uncommon lexeme, so the verbal link is real, but the connection is a shared term inside a shared theme rather than any quotation, and is tiered structural accordingly.

Separating from the uncleanness of the peoples of the land structural / thematic: confirmed

The participle הַנִּבְדָּל (bâdal, H914) and the noun טֻמְאַת (ṭumʼâh, H2932) here describe a good separation. Four chapters later the same vocabulary describes a failure: K&D and Cambridge both point out that in Ezra 9:1 the complaint is that the people, priests and Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, that Ezra 10:11 commands them to, and that Nehemiah 9:2 and 10:29 use the language of the seed of Israel separating from the sons of the stranger. ⚙ This is the strongest argument for K&D's reading of 6:21, and it cuts both ways: if the same idiom in Ezra 9 and 10 describes Israelites, it probably describes Israelites here. The pairing also exposes the book's tragic arc. The community that begins by eating with everyone who separated himself ends by separating from wives and children.

Ezra 9:1 · Ezra 10:11 · Nehemiah 9:2 · Nehemiah 10:29

basis: Not computed by the Verifier for this unit: the candidate list links Ezra 10:8 and 10:16 only by H1473 gôwlâh (in 42 vv), not by H914 bâdal. The recorded basis for this thread is therefore the explicit cross-reference made by K&D (citing Bertheau) and by Cambridge, who both name Ezra 9:1, Ezra 10:11, Nehemiah 9:2 and Nehemiah 10:29 as the controlling parallels. Shared idiom and motif, no quotation claimed.

The heart of the king of Assyria flagged: verify source

Cambridge records that וְהֵסֵב לֵב (çâbab, H5437, Hifil, with lêb, H3820) is “the same expression as in 1 Kings 18:37,” Elijah's prayer that God would turn the people's heart back again, and notes that the verb is not the one used at Malachi 4:6. Gill reads the clause as an instance of the principle that the hearts of kings are in God's hand, and cross-refers to Ezra 7:27, where Ezra blesses God for putting a like purpose into a king's heart. ⚙ The thread is real but its anchor is unstable, and the instability should be stated plainly: the identity of “the king of Assyria” is disputed by every source in this brief, Pulpit denies that Darius is personally meant, and Cambridge raises the possibility of a copyist's error in the phrase itself. A thread hung on a clause whose text may be corrupt is flagged, not confirmed.

1 Kings 18:37 · Ezra 7:27 · Proverbs 21:1

basis: No Verifier-computed shared lexeme supports any of these refs from this unit's candidate set. The 1 Kings 18:37 idiom is on Cambridge's recorded authority; Ezra 7:27 is Gill's; Proverbs 21:1 is a proverbial parallel that Gill paraphrases without citing. Provenance is further contested because Cambridge allows that 'king of Assyria' here may be a copyist's error and Pulpit denies a personal reference to Darius. Flagged pending source verification.

To strengthen their hands structural / thematic: confirmed

The closing idiom, לְחַזֵּק יְדֵיהֶם (châzaq H2388 Piel with yâd H3027), is a fixed Hebrew figure for supplying courage and capacity for a task. Cambridge gathers the parallels: Nehemiah 2:18, where the people resolve to build and are strengthened for the good work; Nehemiah 6:9, where the enemies' whole aim is to weaken their hands from it; Judges 7:11, where Gideon's hands are strengthened by what he is sent to overhear; and Isaiah 35:3, the prophetic command to strengthen weak hands. K&D adds 1 Samuel 23, where Jonathan strengthens David's hand in God. ⚙ Read together, the idiom always concerns a work in danger of being abandoned, and in this unit it is the last thing said about the temple: the king's turned heart resolves into builders who did not quit.

Nehemiah 2:18 · Nehemiah 6:9 · Isaiah 35:3 · Judges 7:11

basis: Not in the Verifier candidate list; the recorded basis is Cambridge's explicit note on Ezra 6:22 ('strengthen their hands: Cf. Nehemiah 2:18; Nehemiah 6:9; Jdg 7:11; Isaiah 35:3') and K&D's citation of 1 Samuel 23. A shared Hebrew idiom and motif, claimed as structural only.

Christ our Passover, and the week of unleavened bread typological

Pulpit, commenting on the seven days of maṣṣôwṯ, sends the reader to the New Testament without argument: “On the spiritual meaning of the feast, see 1 Corinthians 5:8.” Paul there sets the slain Passover and the purged leaven side by side, which is precisely the pairing Ezra 6:19-22 makes narratively: a lamb killed by clean hands, then seven days of bread that has had something taken out of it. Ellicott, independently, calls the Mazzoth “the symbol of entire separation from evil, to the service of that God whom on the Passover they accepted as their God.” ⚙ The link cannot be a verbal one and is not claimed as one: Paul writes Greek and Ezra writes Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number is possible and none is alleged. What is shared is a structure of thought, and its ancient pedigree is Paul's own.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

basis: Cross-Testament Greek to Hebrew: shared Strong's numbers are impossible between the Greek NT and the Hebrew OT, so no verbal tier may be used and none is claimed. The recorded basis is Pulpit's explicit cross-reference at Ezra 6:22 to 1 Corinthians 5:8, plus Ellicott's reading of the unleavened week as separation from evil. Widely held figural reading.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The lamb killed by hands that were clean, for people who were not ancient/widely-held

⚙ The oddest sentence in the unit is the one every commentator has to explain: the Levites “killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.” K&D gives the reason for the laity, “that no person who was unclean might kill the paschal lamb,” and for the priests, that their labours might be lightened. Cambridge traces the three stages of the custom and frankly calls the change practical. ⚙ Practical or not, the shape it produces is exact: a single purified group performs the death on behalf of everyone, including the officiating priesthood itself, because the rest of the congregation is not clean enough to touch it. The New Testament claims that this shape was eventually filled by one person rather than a class. Paul names the lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7); John's Baptist names it in the singular and gives it an object (John 1:29); Hebrews 10:10 says the offering was made once, by a will not the worshipper's own. Pulpit makes the same move from this very text. This is the ancient and widely held reading, and Ezra 6:20 is one of the Old Testament's clearest pictures of why it was needed: the people at the feast of their redemption could not be trusted to kill their own lamb.

1 Corinthians 5:7 · John 1:29 · Hebrews 10:10 · Exodus 12:6

Strangers who separated themselves, and ate ancient/widely-held

⚙ Verse 21 admits to the Passover a second class of people, and the law had already provided for it. Exodus 12:48, the statute JFB, Poole and Gill all cite here, admits the sojourning stranger to the Passover on the condition of circumcision and then reckons him as one born in the land. Benson, expounding this verse, goes straight to the consequence: those who separate themselves from the filthiness of sin and set themselves to seek the God of Israel, “though strangers and foreigners, are welcome to eat of the gospel-feast, as fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,” which is Ephesians 2:19 in all but name. ⚙ The honest caution is that Ellicott, K&D and Cambridge deny these particular people were Gentiles at all. But the caution does not touch the christological point, because Exodus 12:48 stands whatever Ezra 6:21 means: the Passover was, from the beginning, a meal with a door in it. Paul's claim in Ephesians 2:12-13 is that the door was widened by blood, the same currency the door had always required.

Exodus 12:48 · Ephesians 2:12-13 · Ephesians 2:19

A priesthood pure as one man novel

⚙ This reading is the tool's own, and is marked as novel. Verse 20 makes purity the condition of everything: kî hiṭṭahărū, “for they had purified themselves,” and the whole feast waits on it. Whether the accentuation is read with Cambridge and K&D (both orders clean without exception) or with Ellicott, Barnes and Pulpit (the Levites clean to a man, the priests only generally), the text records a priesthood whose purity is achieved, reflexive, repeatable and never quite uniform. Hebrews 7:26-27 answers exactly that irregularity: a high priest described there as holy, undefiled and separate from sinners, and who therefore has no need, as those high priests had, to offer first for his own sins and then for the people's. ⚙ The Levites in Ezra 6:20 killed for themselves as well as for others, which is the very doubling Hebrews says was abolished. No commentator in this brief draws that line, and it is offered here as synthesis to be tested, not as received exposition.

Hebrews 7:26-27 · Hebrews 9:14

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)
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)
The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text and language. Barnes and Cambridge both record that the Hebrew of Ezra resumes at 6:19 after the Aramaic section that began at 4:8; with the exception of the letter of Artaxerxes in 7:12-26, the rest of the book is Hebrew. That is a textual fact, and the reading of it as significant (empire's language stops, worship's language starts) is ⚙ synthesis.

Word order. The interlinear gloss order in this unit's source data follows the English of the BSB, not the Hebrew. The literal renderings above are set in Masoretic order, which differs most visibly at 6:19 (the verb and subject stand first in Hebrew, the date last) and at 6:22. Note keys remain the source's word indices.

Ezra 6:20, the accentuation. The verse is genuinely disputed. Ellicott translates it “contrary to the present accentuation,” and Pulpit calls the AV rendering a mistranslation; Barnes reports the resulting contrast between Levitical and priestly purity. Cambridge and K&D keep the received phrasing and read both orders as purified together. This synthesis records the dispute and does not adjudicate it. One word in the verse, index 14 (wə·lā·hem, “and for themselves”), carries no Strong's number in the source data; it is a conjunction plus preposition plus suffix and needs none.

Ezra 6:21, who separated themselves. Six sources in the brief (JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Benson, Pulpit) read them as Gentile proselytes; three (Ellicott, K&D, Cambridge) read them as Israelites who had remained in the land. K&D names Aben Ezra, Rashi and Clericus among the holders of the view he rejects, and quotes Bertheau for his own. The Hebrew participle decides nothing, and no claim above depends on a resolution.

Ezra 6:22, “king of Assyria.” Applied to a Persian king this title is, as Pulpit says, without parallel in Scripture. The explanations offered in this brief are: inherited imperial name (Barnes, JFB, Poole, K&D, Geneva); a general symbol of the Western Asian power rather than a personal reference to Darius (Pulpit, and Cambridge's third option); and possible copyist's error (Cambridge, raised and left open). The thread built on this clause is tiered “flagged: verify source” for that reason.

Voices. Ten of the twelve authors in the brief are quoted; Poole has no entry at 6:19 or 6:20, and the Geneva notes at 6:19, 6:20 and 6:21 are chiefly the verse text with a short gloss. Matthew Henry's entry is one block comment on Ezra 6:13-22 repeated at each verse, not a verse-by-verse note, and is labelled as such where used. Maclaren's entry at 6:22 is a sermon and is capped in the source; only its opening movement is quoted here.

Thread bases. Three threads rest on Verifier-computed shared lexemes (Exodus 34:25, the Chronicles Passovers, and the gôwlâh cluster). Three rest on cross-references recorded explicitly by the commentators rather than by computation, and say so in their badge. No cross-Testament link is tiered verbal, since shared Strong's numbers between Greek and Hebrew are impossible.

✦ = 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)