many years (accusative of time), i.e., many years before the present time.
Verse 12
For this reason (להן), because (מן־דּי = מאשׁר, e.g., Isa 43:4) our fathers provoked the God of heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, and he (Nebuch.) destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. For כּסדּיא the Keri requires כּסדּאה, the ordinary form of the absolute state of the noun in ai. סתר, Pael, in the sense of destroy, appears only here in biblical Chaldee, but more frequently in the Targums. עמּה, its people, would refer to the town of Jerusalem; but Norzi and J. H. Mich. have עמּהּ, and the Masora expressly says that the word is to be written without Mappik, and is therefore the stat. emphat. for עמּא.
Verses 13-14
In the first year, however, of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus made a decree, etc.; comp. Ezr 1:3. The infin. לבנא like Ezr 5:3. - On Ezr 5:14 and Ezr 5:15, comp. Ezr 1:7-11. ויחיבוּ, praeter. pass. of Peal; they were given to one Sheshbazzar, (is) his name, i.e., to one of the name of Sheshbazzar, whom he had made pechah. Zerubbabel is also called פּחה, Hag 1:1, Hag 1:14, and elsewhere.
Verse 15
Take these vessels, go forth, place them in the temple. For אלּה the Keri reads אל, according to 1Ch 20:8. אחת is imperat. Aphel of נחת. The three imperatives succeed each other without any copula in this rapid form of expression. The last sentence, ”and let the house of God be built in its place,” i.e., be rebuilt in its former place, gives the reason for the command to deposit the vessels in the temple at Jerusalem, i.e., in the house of God, which is to be rebuilt in its former place.
Verse 16
In virtue of this command of Cyrus, this Sheshbazzar came (from Babylon to Jerusalem), and laid then the foundations of the house of God, and from that time till now it has been building, and is not (yet) finished. שׁלים, part. pass. of שׁלם, often used in the Targums and in Syriac for the Hebrew תּמם; hence in Dan 5:26 the Aphel, in the meaning of to finish, and Eze 7:19, to restore. This statement does not exclude the cessation from building from the last year of Cyrus to the second of Darius,
