Ezra 6:15

6:13-22 The gospel church, that spiritual temple, is long in the building, but it will be finished at last, when the mystical body is completed. Every believer is a living temple, building up himself in his most holy faith: much opposition is given to this work by Satan and our own corruptions. We trifle, and proceed in it with many stops and pauses; but He that has begun the good work, will see it performed. Then spirits of just men will be made perfect. By getting their sins taken away, the Jews would free themselves from the sting of their late troubles. Their service was with joy. Let us welcome holy ordinances with joy, and serve the Lord with gladness.

(15) The third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year. —The event around which this part of the history revolves is dated with due care; it was on the third day of the last month of the ecclesiastical year, B.C. 516-515. Haggai ( Haggai 1:15 ) gives the exact date of the re-commencement: the time therefore was four years five months and ten days. But, dating from the first foundation ( Ezra 3:10 ), no less than twenty-one years had elapsed.

Ezra 6:15 . This house was finished in the third day of the month Adar — The tenth of March, in the year of the world 3489, in little more than four years after the Jews had returned to the work, and engaged heartily in it, in consequence of the reproofs and exhortations of Haggai and Zechariah; in something more than two years after the forementioned decree of Darius had been given forth; in about twenty years after the return from captivity; and five hundred and fifteen before the coming of the Messiah.

Verse 15. - The house was finished on the third day of the month Adar. Haggai ( Haggai 1:15 ) gives the exact day of the recommencement of the work as the twenty-fourth of Elul in Darius's second year. Ezra here gives the exact day of the completion. From Zerubbabel's laying of the foundation ( Ezra 3:10 ), the time that had elapsed was twenty-one years. From the recommencement under the inspiriting influence of the two prophets, the time was only four years, five months, and ten days. DEDICATION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE ( Ezra 6:16-18 ). Following the example of Solomon, who had solemnly "dedicated" the first temple ( 1 Kings 8:63 ), and had offered on the occasion a sacrifice unexampled for its magnitude in the whole of Jewish history ( ibid. ), Zerubbabel now, under the advice of two prophets, inaugurated the new building with a similar ceremony. In "the day of small things" it was not possible for him to emulate Solomon's magnificence in respect of the number of victims. Solomon had sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Zerubbabel's means only enabled him to make an offering of 712 animals, more than half of them lambs. He did, however, according to his ability; and God, who accepts all our endeavours according to that we have, and not according to that we have not, was content to receive graciously the humble offering made to him, and to bless the building thus inaugurated with a glory unknown to the first temple.

The Lord himself, the Messenger of the covenant, so long sought by his people, suddenly came to this temple ( Malachi 3:1 ) - came to it, and frequented it, and taught in it, and gave it a dignity and a majesty far beyond the first temple, which possessed indeed the Shechinah, but was once, and once only, vouchsafed a brief manifestation of the actual Divine presence ( 2 Chronicles 7:1 ). Ezra 6:15

Ezr 6:13-15. The Temple Finished. 13-15. Then Tatnai … did speedily—A concurrence of favorable events is mentioned as accelerating the restoration of the temple and infusing a new spirit and energy into the workmen, who now labored with unabating assiduity till it was brought to a completion. Its foundation was laid in April, 536 B.C. (Ezr 3:8-10), and it was completed on February 21, 515 B.C., being twenty-one years after it was begun [Lightfoot].

15 . The date here given is the 3rd of Adar (the 12th month) in the 6th year of Darius (516–515). The month Adar is about equivalent to our March. The name seems to be derived from an Assyrian god ‘Adar’, which appears in such names as Adrammelech. Haggai ( Haggai 1:15 ) mentions that the work had been recommenced on the 24th day of the 6th month (Elul = September) in the 2nd year of Darius. It had therefore been going on for nearly 4½ years. But the foundations had been laid twenty years previously, b.c. 536 (see Ezra 3:8 ). Another date, the 23rd of Adar, is given in 1Es 7:5 . To account for this variation, it has been suggested that the last 8 days of the year would to a scribe seem best suited for the celebration of such a festival as that of the dedication (compare the 8 days in 2 Chronicles 29:17 ). In order that the regular services of the Temple might seem to have been resumed with the new year, he represented this festival as commencing on the 23rd of the 12th month. This is almost too ingenious. Either the figure ‘twenty’ has accidentally been omitted in the text of our verse, or, as seems equally probable (since the LXX. supports the Hebrew text here), the composer of 1 Esdras has mistaken some letter for the symbol or contraction which represented the number.

And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar (the twelfth month), which is the sixth year of the reign of King Darius. שׁיציא, according to the Keri שׁיצי, with the א dropped, is the Shaphel of יצא, to bring a thing to an end, to finish it. The form שׁיציא is not a participle pass. formed from the Shaphel (Gesen.), for this would be משׁיציא, but a Hebraized passive form of the Shaphel in the meaning of the Targumistic Ishtaphal, like חיתיוּ, Daniel 3:13 , and חיתית, Daniel 6:18 , with the active היתיו, Daniel 6:17 . In the Targums שׁיצי has mostly an active, and only in a few passages the intransitive meaning, to end, to be at the end; comp. Levy, chald. Wrterbuch, s.v. (Note: Instead of the "third day," which the lxx also has, in accordance with the Hebrew text, 1 Esdr. 7:5 gives the three-and-twentieth day of the month Adar, - a statement which Bertheau arbitrarily insists upon regarding as the original reading, because "the view that the compiler altered the third into the twenty-third day, because it seemed to him more fitting to assume an eight days' celebration of the dedication (comp. 1 Kings 8:60; 2 Chronicles 29:18), and to fill up therewith also the eight last days of the year, is rather far-fetched." Such a view, however, would be entirely consistent with the whole spirit of 1Esdras.)