Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ezra 2:36
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The list of the priests is identical, both in names and numbers, with that of Neh 7:39-42. These are: The sons of Jedaiah, of the house of Jeshua 973 The sons of Immer 1052 The sons of Pashur 1247 The sons of Harim 1017 Total 4289 Jedaiah is the head of the second order of priests in Ch1 24:7. If, then, Jedaiah here represents this order, the words "of the house of Jeshua" must not be applied to Jeshua the high priest; the second order belonging in all probability to the line of Ithamar, and the high-priestly race, on the contrary, to that of Eleazar. We also meet the name Jeshua in other priestly families, e.g., as the name of the ninth order of priests in Ch1 24:11, so that it may be the old name of another priestly house. Since, however, it is unlikely that no priest of the order from which the high priest descended should return, the view that by Joshua the high priest is intended, and that the sons of Jedaiah were a portion of the house to which Joshua the high priest belonged, is the more probable one. In this case Jedaiah is not the name of the second order of priests, but of the head of a family of the high-priestly race. Immer is the name of the sixteenth order of priests, Ch1 24:14. Pashur does not occur among the orders of priests in 1 Chron 24; but we find the name, Ch1 9:12, and Neh 11:12, among the ancestors of Adaiah, a priest of the order of Malchijah; the Pashur of Jer 20 and Jer 21:1-14 being, on the contrary, called the son of Immer, i.e., a member of the order of Immer. Hence Bertheau considers Pashur to have been the name of a priestly race, which first became extensive, and took the place of an older and perhaps extinct order, after the time of David. Gershom of the sons of Phinehas, and Daniel of the sons of Ithamar, are said, Dan 8:2, to have gone up to Jerusalem with Ezra, while the order to which they belonged is not specified. Among the priests who had married strange wives ( Ezr 10:18-22) are named, sons of Jeshua, Immer, Harim, Pashur; whence it has been inferred "that, till the time of Ezra, only the four divisions of priests here enumerated had the charge of divine worship in the new congregation" (Bertheau). On the relation of the names in Ezr 2:36-39 to those in Neh 10:3-9 and 12:1-22, see remarks on these passages. Ezra 2:40
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