Ezra 3:12 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezra 3:12
But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:
abundant (in quantity · conjunction + adjective, masculine plural absolute
priests
מֵהַכֹּהֲנִ֣יםme.ha.ko.ha.Nim
H3548
literally one officiating · preposition + definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Levites
וְהַלְוִיִּם֩ve.hal.vi.Yim
H3881
a Levite or descendant of Levi · conjunction + definite article + noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
chief
וְרָאשֵׁ֨יve.ra.Shei
H7218
the head (as most easily shaken) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct
fathers
הָאָב֜וֹתha.'a.Vot
H1
father · definite article + noun, common feminine plural absolute
men
הַזְּקֵנִ֗יםha.ze.ke.Nim
H2205
old · definite article + adjective, masculine plural absolute
seen
רָא֜וּra.'U
H7200
to see · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
first
הָֽרִאשׁוֹן֙ha.ri.shOn
H7223
first · definite article + ordinal number, masculine singular absolute
house
הַבַּ֤יִתha.Ba.yit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
foundation
בְּיָסְד֔וֹbe.ya.se.Do
H3245
to set (literally or figuratively) · preposition + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
house
הַבַּ֙יִת֙ha.Ba.yit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
laid
יָסַדyâçad
H3245
to set (literally or figuratively)
eyes
בְּעֵ֣ינֵיהֶ֔םbe.'Ei.nei.Hem
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
wept
בֹּכִ֖יםbo.Khim
H1058
to weep · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
loud
גָּד֑וֹלga.Dol
H1419
great (in any sense) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
voice
בְּק֣וֹלbe.Kol
H6963
a voice or sound · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
many
וְרַבִּ֛יםve.ra.Bim
H7227
abundant (in quantity · conjunction + adjective, masculine plural absolute
shouted
בִּתְרוּעָ֥הbit.ru.'Ah
H8643
clamor · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
aloud
לְהָרִ֥יםle.ha.Rim
H7311
to be high actively · preposition + verb, hiphil infinitive construct
joy
בְשִׂמְחָ֖הve.sim.Chah
H8057
blithesomeness or glee · preposition + noun, common feminine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Haggai 2:3 Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothin…
Job 8:7 Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.
Psalms 126:6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
Isaiah 60:22 A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I the LORD will hasten it in his time.
Jeremiah 31:8-9 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the wo…
Daniel 2:34-35 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to p…
Zechariah 4:10 For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven;…
Matthew 13:31-32 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezra 3:8–end
There was no dispute among the returned Jews whether they should build the temple or no; that was immediately resolved on, and that it should be done with all speed; what comfort could they take in their own land if they had not that token of God's presence with them and the record of his name among them? We have here therefore an account of the beginning of that good work. Observe,
I. When it was begun-in the second month of the second year, as soon as ever the season of the year would permit (Ezr 3:8), and when they had ended the solemnities of the passover. They took little more than half a year for making preparation of the ground and materials; so much were their hearts upon it. Note, W…
But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers . . . wept with a loud voice--Those painful emotions were excited by the sad contrast between the prosperous circumstances in which the foundations of the first temple had been laid and the desolate, reduced state of the country and city when the second was begun; between the inferior size and less costliness of the stones used in the foundations of the second (Kg1 7:9-10), and the much smaller extent of the foundation itself, including all the appurtenances of the building (Hag 2:3); between the comparative smallness of their present means and the immense resources of David and Solomon. Perhaps, however, the chief cause of grief w…
Wept with a loud voice - They saw that the glory had departed from Israel; in their circumstances it was impossible to build such a house as the first temple was; and had this been even possible, still it would have been greatly inferior, because it wanted the ark of the covenant, the heavenly fire, the mercy-seat, the heavenly manna, Aaron's rod that budded, the Divine shechinah, the spirit of prophecy, and most probably the Urim and Thummim.
Many shouted for joy - Finding they were now restored to their own land, and to the worship of their God in his own peculiar city: these, in general, had not seen the original temple; and therefore could not feel affected in that way which the elderly…
The Church Fathers
Many also of the priests and Levites, etc., who had seen the first temple founded, and this temple before their eyes, were emitting voices partly of weeping, partly of joy. Joy indeed, because the temple of the Lord, which had been destroyed, had now begun to be restored. Weeping, however, because they were grieving, seeing how much the wall that had begun at that time differed from the most magnificent power of Solomon, by which the first temple was founded. They rejoiced greatly because, having been freed from captivity, they had received the ability to rebuild the temple. But they wept with a loud voice, because they knew that the first temple had been destroyed due to their own crimes, whose greatness nor glory they were able to match at all. For the prophet was saying: "Great will be the glory of this last house of the Lord, more than the first" (Haggai 2), because it pertains to a greater matter, not to the magnitude or ornament of the house; because it was a greater miracle and a more evident display of divine power that a few remnants of captives, even with enemies resisting, were able to complete such a work, than that the most opulent king, having no adversary at all, indeed having the most powerful and wealthy king of Tyre as a helper, did this with the most learned craftsmen as he desired. Also, the glory of that last house will be greater than the first; because in the former house, the devotees of the Old Testament proclaimed to the people the writings of the law and the prophets. In the second, however, Christ and the apostles evangelized the grace of the New Testament and the entrance of the heavenly kingdom. But even in the rebuilding of the spiritual temple, both weeping and joy are born among the leaders. For the holy teachers rejoice in the salvation of the penitent; they mourn because they have ever committed sins to be repented of, and have not always persisted in the will of their Creator. Those who have risen from the death of the soul through repentance rejoice in their salvation; they mourn having ever lost the life of the soul through sin. The neophytes also rejoice that they have been gathered by the grace of their Redeemer; they grieve that they, along with all humankind, perished in the first parent and, as if the temple of God was corrupted by enemies, were transferred to Babylon, that is, the confusion of the present exile,…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Temple — First used of the tabernacle, which is called “the temple of the Lord” (1 Sam. 1:9). In the New Testament the word is used figuratively of Christ’s human body (John 2:19, 21). Believers are called…
Jeshua · .Rebuilt the temple — .Rebuilt the temple
Shouting · IN JOY AND PRAISE — IN JOY AND PRAISE
Temple, The Second · Grief of those who had seen the first temple — Grief of those who had seen the first temple
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
But many of the priests and Levites, and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men,.... Seventy or eighty years of age:
that had seen the first house; the temple built by Solomon, as they very well might, since then it had been destroyed but fifty two years; for the seventy years captivity are to be reckoned from the fourth of Jehoiakim, when it began, and which was eighteen years before the destruction of the temple; the beginning of the next clause:
when in the foundation, according to the Hebrew accents, is to be connected with this:
that had seen the first house; not when first founded, for that was five hundred years ago, but in "its foundation"; they saw it standing upon its founda…
The foundation of the temple laid. - Ezr 3:8 In the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, i.e., after their arrival at Jerusalem on their return from Babylon, in the second month, began Zerubbabel and Joshua to appoint the Levites from twenty years old and upwards to the oversight of the work (the building) of the house of the Lord. That is to say, the work of building was taken in hand. Whether this second year of the return coincides with the second year of the rule of Cyrus, so that the foundations of the temple were laid, as Theophil. Antioch. ad Autolic. lib. 3, according to Berosus, relates, in the second year of Cyrus, cannot be determined. For nothing more is…
Those who wept aloud either were disappointed that the foundation of the Temple wasn’t as wonderful as the old one had been (cp. Hag 2:3) or were deeply moved with joy at seeing the Temple of the Lord restored.
Rashi on Ezra 3:12
when its foundation was laid Heb. בְּיָסְדוֹ, with its foundation. With the noun of יוֹסֶד and from יסד, he says בְּיָסְדוֹ, like from חדֶשּׁ, בְּחָדְשּׁוֹ, and from קדֶשּׁ, בְּקָדְשּׁוֹ.
this Temple When they would see the building of this Temple, they would weep because they remembered the large building of the First Temple.
and many who had not seen the building of the First Temple, were rejoicing and shouting for joy with a loud voice, out of their great joy that they had emerged from their exile.
