Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ezra 2:64
A historical reference excerpt for this verse.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 whole number of those who returned, their servants, maids, and beasts of burden. Comp. Neh 7:66-69. \- The sum-total of the congregation (כּאחד, as one, i.e., reckoned together; comp. Ezr 3:9; Ezr 6:20) is the same in both texts, as also in 1 Esdras, viz., 42,360; the sums of the separate statements being in all three different, and indeed amounting in each to less than the given total. The separate statements are as follow: - AccordingtoEzra AccordingtoNehemiah Accordingto1 Esdras Men of Israel 24,144 25,406 26,390 Priests 4,289 4,289 2,388 Levites 341 360 341 Nethinim and servants of Solomon 392 392 372 Those who could not prove their Israelitish origin 652 642 652 Total 29,818 31,089 30,143 These differences are undoubtedly owing to mere clerical errors, and attempts to reconcile them in other ways cannot be justified. Many older expositors, both Jewish and Christian (Seder olam, Raschi, Ussher, J. H. Mich., and others), were of opinion that only Jews and Benjamites are enumerated in the separate statements, while the sum-total includes also those Israelites of the ten tribes who returned with them. In opposing this notion, it cannot, indeed, be alleged that no regard at all is had to members of the other tribes (Bertheau); for the several families of the men of Israel are not designated according to their tribes, but merely as those whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away to Babylon; and among these would certainly be included, as Ussher expressly affirms, many belonging to the other tribes who had settled in the kingdom of Judah. But the very circumstances, that neither in the separate statements nor in the sum-total is any allusion made to tribal relations, and that even in the case of those families who could not prove their Israelitish origin the only question was as to whether they were of the houses and of the seed of Israel, exclude all distinction of tribes, and the sum-total is evidently intended to be the joint sum of the separate numbers. Nor can it be inferred, as J. D. Mich. conjectures, that because the parallel verse to Ezr 2:64 of our present chapter, viz., 1 Esdr. 5:41, reads thus, "and all of Israel from twelve years old and upwards, besides the servants and maids, were 42,360," the separate statements are therefore the numbers only of those of twenty years old and upwards, while the sum-total includes those also from twelve to twenty years of age. The addition "from twelve years and upwards" is devoid of critical value; because, if it had been genuine, the particular "from twenty years old and upwards" must have been added to the separate statements. Hence it is not even probable that the author of the 1st book of Esdras contemplated a reconciliation of the difference by this addition. In transcribing such a multitude of names and figures, errors could scarcely be avoided, whether through false readings of numbers or the omission of single items. The sum-total being alike in all three texts, we are obliged to assume its correctness. Ezr 2:65 "Besides these, their servants and their maids, 7337." אלּה is, by the accent, connected with the preceding words. The further statement, "And there were to them (i.e., they had) 200 singing men and singing women," is striking. The remark of Bertheau, that by להם the property of the community is intended to be expressed, is incorrect; להם denotes merely computation among, and does not necessarily imply proprietorship. J. D. Mich., adopting the latter meaning, thought that ox…
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