6–15. The Assembly and the Reform

6. went into the chamber] See on Ezra 8:29, and cf. Nehemiah 13:4.

Johanan the son of Eliashib] R.V. Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. The best-known Eliashib of this period is the High-priest who appears as a contemporary of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 3:1; Nehemiah 13:4; Nehemiah 13:28). In Nehemiah 12:23 we find the mention of a ‘Johanan the son of Eliashib’, but who, by comparison with Ezra 10:7; Ezra 10:22, must have been this Eliashib’s grandson. It is probable that the ‘Jehohanan the son of Eliashib’ is the same as that ‘Johanan the son of Eliashib’. If so, how are we to account for a chamber, presumably in the Temple precincts, being assigned to one who was the grandson of the High-priest Eliashib? (a) Some suppose that Johanan the grandson of Eliashib was old enough at this time to receive as one of the High-priestly family a special chamber. But why should Ezra betake himself to the chamber of one who must have been but a mere boy? For Eliashib was living 20 years later (cf. Nehemiah 13:7). (b) Others suppose the Compiler to be using the language of a considerably later generation than that of Ezra; he knew of a certain chamber in the Temple’s precincts as Johanan’s chamber, because it had become associated with the name of Eliashib’s grandson during his High-priesthood. This appears to be the most probable explanation. If so, the use of the name helps to determine the date at which Ezra’s Memoirs were compiled. It is however possible that the Jehohanan the son of Eliashib was of a different family from the Johanan the son of Joiada and grandson of Eliashib, and that the difficulty is only an apparent one arising from the similarity of names in the families of the same great house or tribe.

and when he came thither, he did eat, &c.] So the R.V. text. The R.V. marg. says ‘According to some ancient versions, and he lodged there’. The Hebrew word for ‘he came’ is the same as that for ‘went’ in the previous clause. This reading is supported by the Hebrew text and by the LXX. (καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἐκεῖ). It is however hard to believe that it can be the original reading. (1) The repetition of the word is awkward. (2) The clause, stating that he refused to taste food, does not follow suitably upon the mention of his arrival. (3) The adverb in the original does not strictly mean ‘thither’, but ‘there’. The parallel passage in 1 Esdras (Ezra 9:2) has ‘and having lodged there’, and this reading is supported by the Syriac Peshitto and the Arabic. The variation in the Hebrew text requisite to give this meaning is exceedingly small. In the old Hebrew characters the two letters (ן and ך) are very liable to be confused, while the use of the very similar verb just before made an accidental repetition very possible.

This reading is probably correct, and we should accordingly translate ‘And he lodged (or passed the night) there’. The words are then the same as in Genesis 28:11, ‘And he tarried there all night’; Genesis 32:13, ‘And he lodged there that night’; Joshua 8:9, ‘but Joshua lodged that night’. The point emphasized is that Ezra continued in the precincts of the Temple all that night and protracted his fast. ‘He lodged there and did eat no bread nor drink water’: i.e. while he lodged there, he fasted.

because of the transgression of them that had been carried away] R.V. because of the trespass of them of the captivity. ‘Trespass’, cf. Ezra 9:4. ‘Them of the captivity’, i.e. ‘haggolah’, cf. on Ezra 8:35.

Verse 6. - The chamber of Johanan. On the temple chambers see comment on Ezra 8:29. Johanan appears by Nehemiah 12:22, 23, compared with vers. 10-11, to have been really the grandson of Eliashib, who, as high priest, would have the right of assigning him a chamber in the temple (compare Nehemiah 13:4, 5). I did eat no bread nor drink water. Strict fasts of this kind had been observed by Moses twice (Exodus 34:28, and Deuteronomy 9:18), and by the Ninevites (Jonah 3:7), but they were very uncommon. Usually it was considered enough to abstain from eating (1 Samuel 1:7; 1 Samuel 20:34; 2 Samuel 3:35). Sometimes the person who fasted merely abstained from "meat and wine, and pleasant bread (Daniel 10:3). Ezra's great earnestness appears in the severity of his fast, which (it is to be remembered) was not for his own sins, but for those of his brethren. PROCLAMATION MADE, SUMMONING ALL THE JEWS TO JERUSALEM (vers. 7- 9). After due deliberation between Ezra, the princes, and the elders (ver. 8), it was resolved, as a first step, to summon all Jews - or, rather, all those who had returned from the captivity, whether they were Jews or Israelites - to Jerusalem, in order that the decision come to with respect to the mixed marriages might be communicated to them. The limit of three days was fixed as the latest date at which any one might make his appearance, and absentees were threatened with the heavy penalties of excommunication and forfeiture of all their possessions. Proclamation having been made to this effect "throughout Judah" (ver. 7), there was a gathering of all the males of full age to Jerusalem within the prescribed time. The place of meeting was the great court of the temple (ver. 9). According to Hecataeus of Abdera (Fr. 14), this was "a stone-walled enclosure, about 500 feet long and 150 feet wide," which might perhaps afford sitting room for 20,000 men. Deducting the aged and infirm, the sick, and those between twelve and twenty years of age, the country Jews would scarcely have reached this number. Ezra 10:6Hereupon Ezra left the place before the house of God, and went into the chamber of Johanan the son of Eliashib, to fast and mourn there for the unfaithfulness (transgression) of them that had been carried away (הגּולה מעל like Ezra 9:4). Johanan the son of Eliashib cannot actually be Johanan ben Eliashib (Nehemiah 12:23) the high priest, however natural it may be to understand by the chamber of Johanan one of the chambers in the out-buildings of the temple, called after the name of some well-known individual. For the high priest Eliashib was a contemporary of Nehemiah, and the high priest Johanan was not the son, but, according to the definite statement, Nehemiah 12:10, the grandson, of Eliashib, and the son of Joiada (the correct reading of Nehemiah 12:11 being: Joiada begat Johanan and Jonathan). Now a chamber of the temple could not in Ezra's time have been as yet called after a grandson of Eliashib the contemporary of Nehemiah;

(Note: This would not, indeed, be impossible, because, as we shall subsequently show (in our Introduction to the book of Nehemiah, 2), Eliashib's grandson Johanan might be already ten years of age at the time of the transaction in question; so that his grandfather, the high priest Eliashib, might have called a chamber of the temple after the name of his grandson. This view is not, however, a very probable one.)

and both Johanan and Eliashib being names which frequently occur (comp. Ezra 10:24, Ezra 10:27, Ezra 10:36), and one of the twenty-four orders of priests being called after the latter (1 Chronicles 24:12), we, with Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 228), regard the Johanan ben Eliashib here mentioned as an individual of whom nothing further is known-perhaps a priest descended from the Eliashib of 1 Chronicles 24:12, and who possessed in the new temple a chamber called by his name. For there is not the slightest reason to suppose, with Bertheau, that a subsequent name of this chamber is used in this narrative, because the narrator desired to state the locality in a manner which should be intelligible to his contemporaries. Cler. and Berth. desire, after 1 Esdr. 9:1((καὶ αὐλισθεὶς ἐκεῖ), to change שׁם ויּלך into שׁם ויּלן: and he passed the night there without eating bread or drinking water. But the lxx having καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἐκεῖ, and the repetition of the same word being, moreover, by no means infrequent, comp. e.g., ויּקם in Ezra 10:5, Ezra 10:6, and finally שׁם repeatedly standing for thither, e.g., 1 Samuel 2:14 (שׁם הבּאים), there are no adequate grounds for an alteration of the text. The paraphrase of 1 Esdr. arises merely from the connection, and is devoid of critical value. To eat no bread, etc., means to fast: comp. Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9.

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