Ezra 7:1

CHAPTER VII

In the seventh year of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra goes up

to Jerusalem; and with him certain of the priests, Levites,

porters, and Nethinim: his character, 1-10.

The letter and decree of Artaxerxes in behalf of the Jews,

11-26.

Ezra's thanksgiving to God for these mercies, 27, 28.

NOTES ON CHAP. VII

Verse Ezra 7:1. In the reign of Artaxerxes] This was Artaxerxes Longimanus, the seventh of whose reign chronologers place A.M. 3547, sixty-eight years after Cyrus had sent back Zerubbabel. - Calmet. See the introduction.

Son of Seraiah] Either this could not have been Seraiah the high priest, who had been put to death by Nebuchadnezzar one hundred and twenty-one years before this time, or the term son here must signify only his descendants, or one of his descendants. Were it otherwise, Ezra must now be at least one hundred and twenty-two years of age, supposing him to have been born in the year of his father's death; if, indeed Seraiah the high priest was his father; but this is evidently impossible. In this place there are only sixteen generations reckoned between Ezra and Aaron, but in 1 Chronicles 6:3; Ezra 6:4, c., there are not less than twenty-two. We must therefore supply the deficient generations from the above place, between Amariah son of Meraioth, 1 Chronicles 6:7, and Azariah the son of Johanan, 1 Chronicles 6:10. There are other discrepancies relative to genealogies in these historical books which it would be useless to investigate. On these differences much has been already said in different parts of this comment.