Commentaria in I Esdrae
Chapter 3. Synopsis of the Chapter
Jesus the Pontiff and Zorobabel the leader, with the people returning to Jerusalem, build an altar, sacrifice, celebrate the feast of Tabernacles, and lay the foundations of the new temple.
1. And now the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in their cities: and the people assembled as one man to Jerusalem. 2. And Josue the son of Josedec arose, and his brethren the priests, and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and his brethren, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer holocausts upon it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. 3. And they set the altar of God upon its bases, while the people of the lands round about terrified them, and they offered upon it a holocaust to the Lord morning and evening. 4. And they kept the feast of Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered holocaust every day by order according to the commandment, the work of each day in its day. 5. And after this the continual holocaust, both on the calends, and on all the solemnities of the Lord that were consecrated, and on all on which a free-will offering was made to the Lord. 6. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer holocaust to the Lord: but the temple of God was not yet founded. 7. And they gave money to the masons and stone-cutters: and food and drink and oil to the Sidonians and Tyrians, to bring cedar trees from Libanus to the sea of Joppe, according as Cyrus king of the Persians had commanded them. 8. And in the second year of their coming to the temple of God in Jerusalem, in the second month, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue the son of Josedec, began, and the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come from the captivity to Jerusalem, and they appointed the Levites from twenty years old and upward, to hasten on the work of the Lord. 9. And Josue and his sons, and his brethren, Cedmihel and his sons, and the sons of Juda, stood as one man, to press forward them that did the work in the temple of God: the sons of Henadad, and their sons, and their brethren the Levites. 10. And when the masons had laid the foundations of the temple of the Lord, the priests stood in their ornaments with trumpets: and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise God by the hands of David king of Israel. 11. And they sung together hymns and praise to the Lord: Because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever towards Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, praising the Lord, because the foundations of the temple of the Lord were laid.
12. And many of the priests and Levites, and the chief of the fathers, and the ancients, who had seen the former temple, when it was founded, and this temple before their eyes, wept with a loud voice: and many shouting for joy lifted up their voice. 13. And no man could distinguish the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.
1. And now the seventh month was come.—In Hebrew called Tisri, which corresponds partly to our September, partly to October. For the Hebrews used lunar months, which the single lunations make up.
Hence it seems that the Jews departed from Babylon at the beginning of spring, in the first year of Cyrus, and after four months of journey arrived at Jerusalem in the month of July, and soon erected the altar, and prepared themselves for the feast of Tabernacles and the other things to be celebrated in the seventh month. In like manner Esdras in the seventh year of Artaxerxes departed from Babylon on the first day of the first month, and arrived at Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month, as we shall hear in chapter 7, verse 1.
2. And Josue (or Jesus) the son of Josedec arose (who, on the death of his father Josedec, had succeeded him in the Pontificate, and was the nephew of Esdras through his brother; for Esdras was the brother of Josedec), and Zorobabel the son of Salathiel—son of Jechonias, who on the death of his grandfather and father succeeded to the leadership of the people. These two were therefore the leaders of the people brought back to Jerusalem: Jesus in ecclesiastical, Zorobabel in political matters.
4. And they kept the feast (that is, celebrated the feast of “Tabernacles,” or “Scenopegia,” on the 15th day of the seventh month for seven days) and offered holocaust every day by order according to the commandment, the work of each day in its day—as if to say: They offered daily throughout the whole octave of the feast as many victims, and of such kind, and with such rite as God had commanded them to offer, Numbers 29.
5. And after this the continual holocaust—of which I spoke on verse 6.
8. And in the second year of their coming to the temple (to the place in which the temple had stood, already burnt by the Chaldeans) of God in Jerusalem, in the second month they began to rebuild the temple.
10. The temple therefore being founded by the masons (that is, the foundations of the temple being now laid) to praise God by the hands of David—that is, by the works of David, namely by the Psalms composed by David, and by the musical instruments skilfully devised by him for singing the praises of God in the temple.
11. Because the foundations of the temple were laid—that is, because the foundations of the temple were now laid, but the walls not yet raised, as is plain from what follows.
12. They wept with a loud voice—because the foundations of the new temple did not answer to the greatness and majesty of the former temple, and because they beheld its ruins all about: yet in turn they rejoiced at the rebuilding of the new temple, and at their return to their country, and at the benevolence of Cyrus, but especially because God, formerly angry, was now reconciled to them; wherefore this weeping was mingled with joy, and the voices of those weeping and of those exulting, mingled together, made a harmony compounded of lamentation and jubilation.