Ezra 7:22 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezra 7:22
Unto an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and to an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much.
a hundred · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
talents
כַּכְּרִ֣יןka.ke.Rin
H3604
a talent · noun, common masculine plural absolute
silver
כְּסַף֮ke.Saf
H3702
silver (from its pale color) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
hundred
מְאָ֔הme.'Ah
H3969
a hundred · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
measures
כֹּרִ֣יןko.Rin
H3734
properly · noun, common masculine plural absolute
wheat
חִנְטִין֙chin.Tin
H2591
wheat · noun, common masculine plural absolute
hundred
מְאָ֔הme.'Ah
H3969
a hundred · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
baths
בַּתִּ֣יןba.Tin
H1325
a bath or Hebrew measure (as a means of division) of li… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
wine
חֲמַר֙cha.Mar
H2562
wine · noun, common both genders singular absolute
hundred
מְאָ֑הme.'Ah
H3969
a hundred · cardinal number, both genders singular absolute
baths
בַּתִּ֥יןba.Tin
H1325
a bath or Hebrew measure (as a means of division) of li… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
oil
מְשַׁ֖חme.Shach
H4887
oil · noun, common both genders singular absolute
salt
וּמְלַ֖חu.me.Lach
H4416
salt · conjunction + noun, common both genders singular absolute
without
לָ֥אla'
H3809
not (the simple or abs. negation) · negative particle
prescribing
כְתָֽבkhe.Tav
H3792
something written · noun, common both genders 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
Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lac…
Ezekiel 45:14 Concerning the ordinance of oil, the bath of oil, ye shall offer the tenth part of a bath out of the cor, which is an homer of ten baths; fo…
Luke 16:6-7 And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezra 7:11-26
We have here the commission which the Persian emperor granted to Ezra, giving him authority to act for the good of the Jews; and it is very ample and full, and beyond what could have been expected. The commission runs, we suppose, in the usual form: Artaxerxes, King of kings. This however is too high a title for any mortal man to assume; he was indeed king of some kings, but to speak as if he were king of all kings was to usurp his prerogative who hath all power both in heaven and in earth. He sends greeting to his trusty and well-beloved Ezra, whom he calls a scribe of the law of the God of heaven (Ezr 7:12), a title which (it seems by this) Ezra valued himself by, and desired no other, no,…
an hundred talents of silver--£22,000 according to the rate of the silver talent of Babylon. Fourthly, Artaxerxes gave his royal sanction in the establishment of the divine law, which exempted priests and Levites from taxation or tribute and confirmed to them the exclusive right to officiate in the sacred services of the sanctuary. And, finally, in the expression of the king's desire for the divine blessing upon the king and his government (Ezr 7:23), we see the strong persuasion which pervaded the Persian court, and had been produced by the captivity of the Hebrew people, as to the being and directing providence of the God they worshipped. It will be observed, however, that the commission…
A hundred talents of silver - The talent of silver was 450.
A hundred measures of wheat - A hundred cors; each cor was a little more than seventy-five gallons, one quart, and a pint, wine measure.
A hundred baths of wine - Each bath was seven gallons and five pints.
John Gill on Ezra 7:22
Unto one hundred talents of silver,.... Which amounted to 35,300 pounds sterling; these, according to Jarchi, were to buy the offerings or sacrifices with:
and an hundred measures of wheat; or corn, the same measure with the homer, each of which held ten ephahs, or seventy five wine gallons, five pints, and upwards; these, according to the same writer, were for meat offerings, made of fine flour, or rather bread offerings, as they may be called:
and to an hundred baths of wine; which was the same measure in liquids as the ephah in things dry, a tenth part of the cor or homer, and held seven wine gallons, five pints, and upwards (u); these were for the drink offerings:
and to an hundred ba…
The Church Fathers
But salt without measure. Everything that pertains to the rite, etc. It is agreed by all that salt signifies wisdom, whence in common speech dull-witted people are called tasteless; but it matters what kind of salt it is. For the Lord also commanded that in every sacrifice salt be offered (Levit. II), and in the Gospel He says: Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another (Mark IX). Nor is it in vain that David is read to have struck the Edomites in the Valley of Salt, because surely we are commanded to offer the salt of heavenly wisdom, by which catechumens are initiated, in all our works' sacrifices. David indeed strikes the Salt Pans of the valleys with their inhabitants, as Christ destroys weak and worldly wisdom along with its followers. Hence it is well ordered now that salt be given diligently without measure in the house of the God of heaven; because it is surely necessary that whatever wisdom anyone has, they should exhibit it all in service to their Creator. And it is to be recalled that the Samaritans, writing to another Artaxerxes, were said to have mentioned the salt they had eaten in the palace, and therefore could not tolerate that the temple and the city of God be built against his interests. But now here Artaxerxes commands all the guardians of the public treasury, among other donations, to give their salt to the house of the God of heaven as much as is needed. For it is recognized there that heretics sometimes are emboldened to attack the Church with the deceitful taste of human wisdom. But here it is implied that those converted to the faith at the same time as wisdom often assist that very faith through the discipline of the same secular wisdom, as they more powerfully conquer its adversaries through it.
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
Bible — Bible, the English form of the Greek name Biblia, meaning “books,” the name which in the fifth century began to be given to the entire collection of sacred books, the “Library of Divine Revelation.”…
Chaldee language — Employed by the sacred writers in certain portions of the Old Testament, viz., Dan. 2:4-7, 28; Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Gen. 31:46; Jer. 10:11. It is the Aramaic dialect, as it is sometimes called, as…
Persia — An ancient empire, extending from the Indus to Thrace, and from the Caspian Sea to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Persians were originally a Medic tribe which settled in Persia, on the eastern…
Weights And Measures — A. WEIGHTS.—The general principle of the present inquiry is to give the evidence of the monuments the preference on all doubtful points. All ancient Greek systems of weight were derived, either…
Wine — The common Hebrew word for wine is yayin, from a root meaning “to boil up,” “to be in a ferment.” Others derive it from a root meaning “to tread out,” and hence the juice of the grape trodden out.…
Bath · three quarts — three quarts
Cor · Ren — Ren
Measure · and one-ninth bushels — and one-ninth bushels
Salt · Liberally afforded to the Jews after the captivity — Liberally afforded to the Jews after the captivity
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).
The commission given by Artachshasta to Ezra (Ezr 7:11), with a short postscript by Ezra (Ezr 7:27 and Ezr 7:28). - Ezr 7:11 The introductory title, "This is the copy of the letter," On פּרשׁגן, comp. Ezr 4:11, and on נשׁתּון, Ezr 4:7. Ezra is here, as also in the letter itself, Ezr 7:12, Ezr 7:21, and in Neh 8:9; Neh 12:26, called only הסּופר הכּהן, the priest, the scribe; in other places we find merely one title or the other: either the priest, Neh 10:10, Neh 10:16, Neh 8:2; or the scribe, Neh 8:4, Neh 8:13; Neh 12:36. To designate him according to his rank, as the priest, seems to have subsequently become more customary; hence in the first book of Esdras he is constantly called ὁ Ἱιερευ…
