Ezra 1:4

And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth,.... Is left behind, and cannot go up through poverty, not having a sufficiency to bear his charges in his journey to Jerusalem: let the men

And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.

Whosoever remaineth; who, when his brethren were gone up, was desirous to go with them, but forced to tarry there for want of necessaries for his journey. Let the men of his place help him; I require my officers to take care that they may be supplied, either by the voluntary contributions of the people, or by a moderate tax to be laid either only upon those Jews who were resolved to stay, or upon the Gentiles also, which the Persian monarchs, being absolute, had a power to do; and which was the more reasonable, because the king himself submitted to it, and bore a great part of the burden, and because it was for the house of that great God to whom they all owed their present peace and great felicity. With silver and with gold, which upon this occasion I give you leave to transport.

Ezra 1:4 And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that [is] in Jerusalem.Ver. 4. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth] Heb. Gershom. A name that Moses gave his eldest son born in his banishment; for he said, "I have been a stranger in a strange land," Exodus 2:22. These poor captives had been longer so than Moses in Midian, and met with more hard measure, Psalms 137:1; Psalms 137:8. But as those who are born in hell know no other heaven (as the proverb is), so fared it not with a few of these; loth to be at the pains and run the hazard of a voyage to the Holy Land. A little with ease is held best. Let us, who are strangers here, haste homeward, heavenward. Some of these poor Jews had a mind to return, but wanted means. For these necessitous people the king takes care and course here, that they be supplied and set forward on their journey, after a godly sort, or worthy of God, as St John phraseth it, 3 John 1:6, who else will require it. Let the men of his place] Whether Jews or proselytes, brethren by race, grace, or place only. Help him with silver] Heb. Give him a lift out of the dust, as Job’ s friends did him off the dunghill; as Joseph did his brethren when he filled their bags, and returned them their moneys; and as all Christians are bound and bid to support or shore up their weaker brethren, 1 Thessalonians 5:14 (Aντεχεσθετωνασθενων). With silver, and with gold] These are notable good levers at a dead lift in this present world where money bears the mastery, and answereth all things, Ecclesiastes 10:14, a satisfactory answer it giveth to whatsoever is desired or demanded. He that helpeth a man, therefore, in his necessity with silver and gold is a friend indeed. Let a man make God his friend, and then (saith Eliphaz) the Almighty shall be his gold, and he shall have plenty of silver, Job 22:25; Jacob shall be sure of so much as shall bring him to his journey’ s end, a sufficiency, if not a superfluity, of all things needful to life and godliness. And with goods] Heb. Recush (whence haply our English words riches and cash), chattels, movables, gathered substance, as the word signifieth, which whosoever he was that first called substance was utterly mistaken; sith wisdom only (that is, godliness) is durable substance, Proverbs 8:21. Wealth is but a semblance, Proverbs 23:5 1 Corinthians 7:31 And he that first called riches goods was a better husband than divine. But it may be thought the most are such husbands; since the common cry is, Who will show us any good? a good booty, a good bargain, a good beast? &c., Psalms 4:6.

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.

Verse 4. Whosoever remaineth in any place] Every one was at liberty to go, but none was obliged to go. Thus their attachment to God was tried; he whose heart was right with God went; he who was comfortably settled in Babylon, might go if he chose. Those who did not go, were commanded to assist their brethren who went.

4. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth] R.V. And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth. The wording of this clause is a little ambiguous. The following paraphrase will give the meaning. ‘In any place where survivors of the Jewish captivity are to be found sojourning, there let the natives of the place, the non-Israelite neighbours, render him all assistance.’ That this is the right interpretation is shown by the passages Nehemiah 1:2, ‘The Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity’ and Haggai 2:3, ‘Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory’. Cf. 2 Kings 25:22 and ‘the residue’ (R.V.) in Jeremiah 8:3; Jeremiah 24:8; Jeremiah 39:9, &c. The A.V. gives no intelligible sense. The R.V. (1) by altering ‘remaineth’ to ‘is left’ preserves the application of the word in the original to the survivors of the Captivity, (2) by punctuation indicates the construction of the verse, in which ‘whosoever is left’ is placed independently as a heading to the whole sentence; while the words ‘in any place where he sojourneth’ do not belong to ‘whosoever is left’ but introduce the succeeding clause ‘let the men &c.’ The passage is somewhat awkwardly worded, but with the above explanation is rendered quite clear in meaning. The decree made no universal requisition for aid to the Jews. It only enjoined that local assistance should be given by neighbours, wherever any resident Jew availed himself of the king’s edict for the Return. sojourneth] The word in the original regularly used in the sense of ‘to dwell as a stranger’. Cf. Leviticus 19:34. help] The A.V. margin has ‘Heb. lift him up’. The word in the original is the intensive Mood of the verb ‘to lift or carry’, and occurs in 1 Kings 9:11 = ‘furnished’. The LXX. (ἀντιλαμβανέσθωσαναὐτοῦ) renders the sense well by the Greek word so familiar to English readers in the words ‘He hath holpen Israel his servant’ (Luke 1:54). with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts] The assistance should be given in money for the journey, in necessaries for the new homes, and in means of transport.—“Goods” a vague word, reproducing the indefiniteness of the original. It occurs again Ezra 8:21, Ezra 10:8, = ‘substance’ in A.V. and R.V. (LXX. κτῆσις and ὕπαρξις, Vulgate ‘substantia’). Here the LXX. has ἀποσκευή and the Vulgate ‘substantia’. From its use in these passages and in Genesis 12:5; Genesis 13:6, we gather that the word means the moveables of a household. ‘Beasts’ i.e. beasts of burden—horses, camels and asses. Cf. Ezra 2:66-67. besides the freewill offering] ‘beside’, i.e. along with (Vulg. wrongly ‘excepto quod’) certain voluntary gifts of a more private nature especially intended for the Temple, as in chap. Ezra 8:25. Compare the freewill-offerings mentioned in Exodus 35:29; Leviticus 22:23. This freewill offering is not to be restricted, as by some commentators, to the gifts either of Cyrus or of the Jews who remained behind.

Let the men of his place help him - i. e., “Let the pagan population help him” (see Ezra 1:6). The freewill offering - Probably that made by Cyrus himself Ezra 1:7-11.

4. Whosoever remaineth — Or rather, all the remnant, that is, all the exiles still living. Compare the use of the same word in Nehemiah 1:2. The word is best taken as nominative absolute, and as for all the remnant.