orders of priests being called after the latter (1Ch 24:12), we, with Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 228), regard the Johanan ben Eliashib here mentioned as an individual of whom nothing further is known-perhaps a priest descended from the Eliashib of 1Ch 24:12, and who possessed in the new temple a chamber called by his name. For there is not the slightest reason to suppose, with Bertheau, that a subsequent name of this chamber is used in this narrative, because the narrator desired to state the locality in a manner which should be intelligible to his contemporaries. Cler. and Berth. desire, after 1 Esdr. 9:1 (καὶ αὐλισθεὶς ἐκεῖ), to change שׁם ויּלך into שׁם ויּלן: and he passed the night there without eating bread or drinking water. But the lxx having καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἐκεῖ, and the repetition of the same word being, moreover, by no means infrequent, comp. e.g., ויּקם in Ezr 10:5, Ezr 10:6, and finally שׁם repeatedly standing for thither, e.g., 1Sa 2:14 (שׁם הבּאים), there are no adequate grounds for an alteration of the text. The paraphrase of 1 Esdr. arises merely from the connection, and is devoid of critical value. To eat no bread, etc., means to fast: comp. Exo 34:28; Deu 9:9.
Verses 7-8
The resolution carried into execution. - Ezr 10:7, Ezr 10:8. A proclamation was sent forth throughout Judah and Jerusalem (קול העביר, comp. Ezr 1:1) to all the children of the captivity to assemble at Jerusalem under pain of the punishment, that whoever should not come within three days, all his substance should be forfeited and himself excluded from the congregation, according to the decision of the princes and elders, who, as the heads of the community, had taken the matter in hand, and made this announcement. The forfeiture of substance is not its destruction, as prescribed Deu 13:13-17 in the case of a city fallen into idolatry, but its appropriation to the benefit of the temple, after the analogy of Lev 27:28.
Verse 9
After three days all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem. This took place on the twentieth day of the ninth month. On this statement of time, see the remark in Ezr 9:1. The assembled multitude sat there on the open space of the house of God,
