Ezra 6:21 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezra 6:21
And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel, did eat,
to divide (in variation senses literally or figuratively · definite article + verb, niphal active participle, masculine singular absolute
filthiness
מִטֻּמְאַ֥תmi.tum.'At
H2932
religious impurity · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
heathen
גּוֹיֵֽgo.ye-
H1471
a foreign nation · noun, common masculine plural construct
land
הָאָ֖רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
seek
לִדְרֹ֕שׁlid.Rosh
H1875
properly · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
LORD
לַֽיהוָ֖הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
God
אֱלֹהֵ֥י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵֽלYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
eat
וַיֹּאכְל֣וּvai.yo.khe.Lu
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
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
Ezra 9:11 Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthi…
Isaiah 52:11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of th…
2 Corinthians 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness i…
Exodus 12:47-49 All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.
Ezra 9:1 Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated…
Nehemiah 9:2 And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all strangers, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.
Ezekiel 36:25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.
Numbers 9:6-7 And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came bef…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezra 6:13–end
Here we have, I. The Jews' enemies made their friends. When they received this order from the king they came with as much haste to encourage and assist the work as their predecessors had done to put a stop to it, Ezr 4:23. What the king ordered they did, and, because they would not be thought to do it with reluctance, they did it speedily, Ezr 6:13. The king's moderation made them, contrary to their own inclination, moderate too.
II. The building of the temple carried on, and finished in a little time, Ezr 6:14, Ezr 6:15. Now the elders of the Jews built with cheerfulness. For aught I know, the elders themselves laboured at it with their own hands; and, if they did, it was no disparagement t…
AND OF THE PASSOVER. (Ezr 6:19-22)
all such as had separated themselves . . . from the filthiness of the heathen of the land--that is, who had given satisfactory evidence of being true proselytes by not only renouncing the impure worship of idolatry, but by undergoing the rite of circumcision, a condition indispensable to a participation of the passover.
Adam Clarke on Ezra 6:21
And all such as had separated themselves - These were the proselytes who had embraced the Jewish religion by having mingled with the Jews in their captivity. This proves that there the poor captives had so acted according to the principles of their religion, that the heathens saw it, and walked in the light of the Lord with them. A good example is very persuasive; and particularly so when founded on pure principles.
John Gill on Ezra 6:21
And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity,.... The tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with some of the ten tribes mixed with them:
and all such as had separated themselves unto them, from the filthiness of the Heathen of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel, did eat; such of the Gentiles in the dominions of Babylon, and came with the Jews from thence, who were enlightened into the knowledge and worship of the true God, and not only renounced their idolatry, here called filthiness, but were circumcised, and embraced the religion of the Jews, and so were proselytes of righteousness, as they call them; or otherwise they would not have been allowed to eat of the passover…
The Church Fathers
And the children of Israel ate, etc. Therefore, the Passover was sacrificed for all the children of the exile, all the children of Israel ate, not only those who had returned from captivity, but also all who had previously been situated elsewhere, who had at that time purified themselves from the defilements of the people of the land to come to them. This can also be rightly understood of the proselytes, who, though naturally Gentile, were converted to the people of God, having received circumcision and being purified by legal sacrifices, so that they too were worthy of participating in the saving sacrifice. And it is to be noted that he calls the people of the land those who serve the defilers; so that by contrast, he might teach that the people of heaven are those who, being separated from them, serve the Lord in unity and chastity, and celebrate his solemnities with a sincere heart. Nowhere else, unless I am mistaken, is the same people of Israel found to have existed with such devotion with the priests and Levites, their teachers that is, since they came out of Egypt through Moses; but this devotion was made by divine chastisement, for when they were delivered to be afflicted by their enemies for their sins, afflicted by adversities, they were turned away from sins by repentance; by the merit of repentance and conversion, they were freed from their enemies: and being destined to serve God better, they were called back to their own homeland. But up to this point, we often see even those who have frequently defiled the temple of their body by sinning, and thereby have been taken captive by the devil, returning to the Lord through repentance. And rightly so, with greater diligence than they were accustomed to before, they have striven in good works to prepare again in themselves a dwelling place for their Creator. It is to be noted indeed that Solomon first completed the temple in the greatest peace of his kingdom, in a very short time, with no one contradicting in any way; but now, having been destroyed on account of sins, the children of the exile, with great contrition of heart, labored in a long work, often delayed by the enemies, and finally, divinely aided, restored it. For it is easy indeed for anyone converted to faith and recognition of the truth, to renounce the devil and confess the living and true God, to receive the sacraments of Christ; and…
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
Captivities Of The Jews — The present article is confined to the forcible deportation of the Jew; from their native land, and their forcible detention, under the Assyrian or Babylonian kings. Captives of Israel.—The kingdom…
Pentateuch — The five-fold volume, consisting of the first five books of the Old Testament. This word does not occur in Scripture, nor is it certainly known when the roll was thus divided into five portions…
Alliance And Society With The Enemies Of God · Saints are separate from — Saints are separate from
Heathen, The · Described as: Filthy — Described as: Filthy
Proselytes · Required: To give up all heathen practices — Required: To give up all heathen practices
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).
Celebration of the feast of the passover, and of the feast of unleavened bread, in the year following the dedication, as an historical testimony to the fact that the worship of God with its festivals was regularly carried on in the new temple.
Ezr 6:19-20
The feast of the passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month, took place only a few weeks after the dedication of the temple. The reason given in Ezr 6:20 - for the priests and Levites had purified themselves without exception (כּאחד, like Ezr 3:9); they were all clean, and they killed the passover for all the sons of the captivity (i.e., the laity who had returned from exile), and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves -…
and by the others in the land who had turned from their immoral customs: The exclusion of foreigners in 4:1-5 was due to their pagan religious practices, not their ethnicity (see also 9:1-2).
Rashi on Ezra 6:21
and whoever separated They are the proselytes, who were separated from the defilement of the nations to cleave to Israel.
