Ezra 5:3-5

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Ezra 5:3 tn Aram “who placed to you a command?” So also v. 9.
2. Ezra 5:3 tn The exact meaning of the Aramaic word אֻשַּׁרְנָא (ʾussarnaʾ) here and in v. 9 is uncertain (BDB 1083 s.v.). The LXX and Vulgate understand it to mean “wall.” Here it is used in collocation with בַּיְתָא (baytaʾ, “house” as the temple of God), while in 5:3, 9 it is used in parallelism with this term. It might be related to the Assyrian noun ashurru (“wall”) or ashru (“sanctuary”; so BDB). F. Rosenthal, who translates the word “furnishings,” thinks that it probably enters Aramaic from Persian (Grammar, 62-63, §189).
3. Ezra 5:4 tc The translation reads with one medieval Hebrew ms, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta אֲמַרוּ (ʾamaru, “they said”) rather than the reading אֲמַרְנָא (ʾamarnaʾ, “we said”) of the MT.
4. Ezra 5:5 tn Aram “the eye of their God was on.” The idiom describes the attentive care that one exercises in behalf of the object of his concern.
5. Ezra 5:5 tn Aram “they did not stop them.”
6. Ezra 5:5 tn Aram “[could] go.” On this form see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 58, §169.