Ezra 1:3

Who is there among you of all his people?.... The people of God, the Israelites, as well of the ten tribes, as of the two of Judah and Benjamin; for this edict was published throughout all his

Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.

Of all his people, to wit, of Israel. A material clause; by virtue of which they justly refused the help of those aliens who pretended to join with them in the building, ,3. His God be with him; let his God help him, as I also shall do. Which is in Jerusalem, or only in Jerusalem, as it is in the Hebrew. So it notes the place where he allows and requires them to build it.

Ezra 1:3 Who [is there] among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which [is] in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he [is] the God,) which [is] in Jerusalem.Ver. 3. Who is there among you of all his people?] Many there were among them that affirmed deeply of being the people of God, who yet ( tanquam monstra marina) passed by this proclamation with a deaf ear; and preferring haram domesticam arae dominicae, a swine sty before a sanctuary, chose rather to abide in Babylon, and there to dwell amongst plants and hedges, 1 Chronicles 4:23, making pots for the king’ s garden, than to go up to Jerusalem. So that, besides this O yes, by the king, God was fain to cry, "Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north." "Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon," Zechariah 2:6-7. "Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction," Micah 2:10. Look how the eagle hath much ado to get her young ones out of the nest, pricking and beating them with her wings and talons; so was it here: and neither so could the Lord prevail with the most of them, being as loth to depart as Lot was out of Sodom, vel canis ab uncto corio, or a dog from a fat morsel. His God be with him] And then he needs no better company, no greater happiness; for he is sure of a confluence of all comforts, of all that heart can wish or need require. Tua praesentia, Domine, Laurentio ipsam craticulam fecit dulcem, saith an ancient, Thy presence sweeteneth all our occurrences (Aug.). This was, therefore, a good wish of King Cyrus; neither did he therein any disservice to himself; for God hath promised to bless those that bless any of his, Genesis 12:3, and not to let a good wish to such go unrewarded, 2 Corinthians 13:9. Let him go up and build, &c.] As God had charged him, Ezra 1:2, so doth he them. And it is as if he should have said with that father (Bernard), Unless I stir up your hearts, as the Lord hath done mine, unless I lay God’ s charge upon you to set strenuously upon this service of his, Vobis erit damnosum, mihi periculosum. Timeo itaque damnum vestrum, timeo damnationem meam, si tacuero. If now you go not up upon so great encouragement, God will surely meet with you. He is the God] The only true God, John 17:3, none like him, Micah 7:18. "The Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible," Deuteronomy 10:17. Is it not fit, therefore, that he have a temple, a place of Divine worship, which the heathens deny not to their dunghill deities?

I. THE FIRST RETURN UNDER .(1-4) The decree of Cyrus: marking an epoch of very great importance, and therefore repeated almost word for word from the end of Chronicles. (1) The first year.—Cyrus became king of Persia in B.C. 559. Twenty years afterwards he took Babylon from Belshazzar; and this first year of his rule in Babylon was his beginning as an agent in Jewish affairs and for the Kingdom of God. Stirred up.—By a direct influence, probably through the instrumentality of Daniel. This prophet we may suppose Cyrus to have found in Babylon, and to have had his mind directed to the express prediction of Isa 44:28, where his name is mentioned. But the writer, who again and again records the prophetic intervention of Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1; Ezra 6:14), makes no allusion to the part that Daniel the earlier prophet had taken. He refers only to the Divine prediction by Jeremiah, which must be fulfilled: “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon” ( Jeremiah 25:12); “For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10). (2) Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia.—In the interpretation of this decree two courses are open. We may suppose that “the spirit” of Cyrus was so effectually “stirred up” by the Spirit of God, through the prophecies of Isaiah, as to send out a written proclamation avowing his faith in Jehovah-Elohim, and thus publicly accepting the prediction: “He hath charged me to build.” In this case the parenthesis of Ezr 1:3 (He is the God) may be compared with the confession of his father-in-law, Darius the Mede: “He is the living God” (Daniel 6:26). Or we may assume that “Ormazd” in the original was reproduced in the Hebrew version that accompanied it by its equivalent, “Jehovah.” The latter supposition avoids the difficulty involved in making Cyrus disavow the national faith in the presence of his empire. The decree itself runs much in the style of those found in the majority of Persian inscriptions, such as “By the grace of Ormazd is Darius king;” and the spirit of tolerance! and piety in it is perfectly in harmony with all ancient testimonies to the character of Cyrus. (4) Whosoever remaineth.—As to all the Remnant in all places. There is a singular correspondence between this and the beginning of Nehemiah; but there this familiar name for the survivors of the great national catastrophe is used of those who had returned to Jerusalem, while here it is used for the dispersion in all the provinces of the empire (Nehemiah 1:3). Where he sojourneth.—Every individual Jew is thus significantly supposed to be only an exile. Let the men of his place help him.—The heathen subjects of Cyrus are required to assist the departing sojourner, and expected also to send freewill offerings to the Temple.

3. Who is there among you of all his people? his God, &c.] R.V. Whosoever there is among you of all his people, his God, &c., rightly translating by the indefinite relative instead of by the interrogative pronoun. among you] The decree is addressed to the inhabitants of the many kingdoms which the Persian Empire included. of all his people] From the context, in which Judah and Jerusalem alone are mentioned, it is clear that the edict referred only to the Southern kingdom whose inhabitants had been ‘deported’ by Nebuchadnezzar. It is not likely that Cyrus would have been acquainted with the circumstances of the ‘deportation’ of the Northern kingdom by Sargon the Assyrian, so many years previously (721 b.c.), even if (which is most unlikely) the identity of the Ten Tribes had been preserved. At the same time there is good reason to suppose that some captives from the Northern tribes, who had preserved their lineage and their national religion, availed themselves of the opportunity which the decree of Cyrus offered them. See on Ezra 2:2. Cf. 1 Chronicles 9:3. his God be with him] The parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 36:23 reads ‘the Lord (Jahveh) his God be with him’. As it is more probable that the sacred Name should have been inserted than omitted by the Jewish copyists, the text as it stands in our verse is preferable; it is also supported by the LXX. and by 1Es 2:5. The word in the original for ‘be’ (y‘hξ), containing the first two consonants of ‘Jahveh’, may possibly have been mistaken for it and have given rise to the variation. The words are a common form of blessing. Cf. English ‘Good-bye’ (God be with you). After the blessing comes the substance of the decree, (1) the Return, (2) the Building of the Temple. and let him go up] Change of subject, “His God be with him and let such an one ‘go up’ ”. The journey to the land of Judah is treated as an ascent. Cf. “The Songs of Ascents”, Psalms 120-134. and build] i.e. rebuild. the Lord God of Israel] R.V. the Lord, the God of Israel, in the original ‘Jahveh the God of Israel’; ‘the God of Israel’, the old national title used freely without room for misconception after the destruction of the Northern kingdom (cf. in Ezra 4:1; Ezra 4:3; Ezra 5:1; Ezra 6:14; Ezra 6:21-22; Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:15; Ezra 8:35; Ezra 9:4; Ezra 9:15). The discipline of the Captivity had revived the conception of the true Israel (see Isaiah 41:17; Jeremiah 30:2; Ezekiel 8:4). (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem] So R.V. text, but R.V. margin ‘he is the God which is in Jerusalem’, gives an alternative rendering. (a) If the words ‘he is the God’ be taken parenthetically as in A.V. and R.V. text, then ‘which is in Jerusalem’ refers to ‘the house of Jahveh’. It gives an additional piece of information necessary to those who did not associate the temples of gods with any one place.

3. All his people — No distinction of Judah and Israel is recognized in this proclamation, but the whole Israelitish population throughout the land is addressed.