Ezra 3:9

Then stood Jeshua, with his sons,.... Not Jeshua the high priest before mentioned, but Jeshua the Levite, Ezra 2:40, and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together; the same with

Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites.

Jeshua; not the high priest so called, but a Levite, of whom see . To set forward the workmen; by their presence and favour to encourage them to a cheerful and vigorous prosecution of the work.

Ezra 3:9 Then stood Jeshua [with] his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to set forward the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, [with] their sons and their brethren the Levites.Ver. 9. Then stood Jeshua] Not the high priest, but another, a Levite. The sons of Henadad, with their sons] A generation of godly and active men in the things of God, see Nehemiah 3:18; Nehemiah 3:24; Nehemiah 10:9. Grace is not hereditary, the white halcyons hatch black young ones, Heroum filii noxae. Nevertheless, nurture helpeth nature; and good men strive to mend that by education which they have marred by propagation. They cocker not, but correct their children; they pray for them, and drop good principles into them; they smooth them as arrows, Psalms 128:3-4, getting off the knottiness of their nature; and leave not till they see them the work of God’ s hands, so as to sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and to fear the God of Israel, Isaiah 29:23. These sons of Henadad, as they attended upon the temple work, so themselves were as the polished corners of the temple, Psalms 144:12.

(9) Together—As one man. Jeshua and Kadmiel, both of the stock of Judah, or Hodaviah (Ezra 2:40), or Hodevah (Nehemiah 7:43), were the two heads of Levitical families; and their fewness is compensated by their unanimity and vigour. Henadad is not mentioned in Ezra 2:40, though it is a Levitical name in Nehemiah. Why omitted there, or why inserted here, it is not possible to determine.

9. This verse presents considerable difficulty: (a) The English reader cannot fail to be struck with the awkwardness of the final clause, ‘the sons of Henadad … the Levites’. (b) The names here mentioned have been understood by different commentators to represent four, two and three families. (a) The manifest dislocation of the verse has caused some to conjecture that it is a gloss, which has found its way into the text, having been originally introduced to supplement the previous verse by the names of those who had been appointed to the work and by emphasizing the fact that they undertook the duty. This conjecture, which is not without probability, would assign a very early date to the gloss, since the verse appears in the LXX. and, though in a corrupt form, in 1Es 5:58, ‘Then stood up Jesus, and his sons and brethren, and Cadmiel his brother and the sons of Madiabun, with the sons of Joda the son of Eliadun, with their sons and brethren, all Levites, with one accord, betters forward of the business, labouring to advance the works in the house of God’ (A.V.). If we dismiss this conjecture on the ground of its lack of external evidence, we must be prepared to treat the verse as having come down to us in some way corrupted or mutilated. The key to the verse lies in the last words, ‘the Levites’. The verse describes who the Levites were that received the commission (described in Ezra 3:8), and how they discharged it. The student therefore will take care not to confound the Jeshua here mentioned with the Jeshua (the high-priest) mentioned in the previous verse. This Jeshua is the Levite whose name occurs in chap. Ezra 2:40. The natural arrangement of the words (illustrated by 1Es 5:58 quoted above) would be, ‘Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, (and) the sons of Henadad with their sons and their brethren (i.e. all) the Levites together, to have the oversight of the workmen in the house of God.’ The verse thus specifies the Levites who undertook the oversight of the workmen. (b) The names of the Levitical families who returned appear in chap. Ezra 2:40, where there is some uncertainty whether the expression ‘of the children of Hodaviah’ refers to Kadmiel alone or to ‘the children of Jeshua and Kadmiel’ taken together. The ‘Judah’ of our verse is probably a misreading for Hodaviah, not, as some prefer, an alternative name of the same person. (1) Some see in the verse a mention of four Levitical families, i.e. those of Jeshua, Kadmiel, Judah, and Henadad. (2) Others think that only two are intended, i.e. those of Jeshua and Kadmiel, who are further defined as sons of Hodaviah (=Judah), and as sons of Henadad.

Jeshua - See the marginal reference. Not the high priest, but the head of one of the two Levitical houses which had returned.

9. Jeshua… Kadmiel — Levites mentioned in the list of the returned, Ezra 2:40. This Jeshua is not to be confounded with the high priest, the son of Jozadak, of the same name.