aooording to the writing of the book of the priests. It would seem that as in lllloeee. But the "courses" themselves were Hezekiah's time, "the Levites we{'O more not established till David's time. upright in heart to sanctify themselves than CELEBRATION OF THE PASSOVER IN THE the priests" (2 Chron. xxix. 34). ENSUING MO?ITH, AND OBSERVANOE OF THE Ver. 21.-Suoh as had separated them- FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD (eh. vi. 19- selves unto them. I. e. such proselytes a.a had been made since the retum from the 22). Specie.Uy solemn passovers were cele- captivity. We have perhaps II mention of brated on specie.Uy solemn occasions ; and some of these proselytes in the '' Sherezer" these received special record at the hands and "Regem-melech " sent by the men of of the sacred writers. Of this kind are the Bethel a. short time before this to make passover celebrated by Hezekiah in the year inquiries of the priests at Jerusalem in respect of fasting (Zech. vii. 2). These :B.C. 726, recorded in 2 Chron. xxx., and names are Assyrian, and not likely to have that celebrated by J osio.h in B. c. 624, recorded been given to persons born Jews. From the in 2 Chron. x=v. Both of these followed filthiness of the heathen means "from their upon a cleansing of the temple, and restor- moral defilements" (see eh. ix. 11). It is ation of the temple worship after a period of always to be borne in mind that heathen idole.try,was full of such impurities. suspension. Ezra seems to place the pass- Ver. 22.-Xept the feast of unleavened over of JI.C. 516 in the same category. It bread seven days. As required by the law marked the period of the full re-establish- (Exod. xii 15 ; xiii 7 ; Lev. x.riii. 6, &c.). ment of the regular ordinances of religion, On the spiritual meaning of the feast, see more or less interrupted from the time of l Cor. v. 8. The Lord had . . . turned the the destruction of the temple by Nebuchad- heart of the king of Assyria.. It has been generally supposed that Darius is personally nezzar. It terminated the abnormal and meant here, and surprise has been expressed commenced the normal condition of things. at his being called "ldngof AsS'!fria." That Perhaps it is to mark this, that Ezra at this title is never elsewhere given in Scripture to point disuses the Chaldee dialect, which he a. king of Persia.. Perhaps the writer's real intention in this place is to express in a had introduced in eh. iv. 8, and returns to general way the thankfulness of the Jews the Hebrew, the established language of the that God had turned the hearts of their civil J e"ish religion. rulers, whether Assyria.us, Babylonians, or Ver. 19. -Upon the fourteenth day of the Persians, from hostility to friendship, ha.ving first month. The day fixed by the law of replaced the bitter enmity of Sennacherib and Moses (see Exod. xii 6). Nebucha.dnezz11.r by the hearty good-will of Yer. 20. -The opening section of this verse Cyrus and Darius. On this view, Assyria is mistranslated. Ezra really makes a dis- would represent merely the great power of tinction between the priests and the Levites, W estem Asia., and " the king" would not the former of whom, he says, "purified them- be Darius personally, but the lord of selves," while the latter "were all _pure, as Westem Asia. in a more genera.I way, who one man ; " wherefore the latter killed the by God's goodness h11.d become the perma• paschal lambs, not only for themselves and nent friend of Israel instead of her oppressor for the people, but also for their brethren and enemy.
HOMILETICS. Vers. 13-22.-The work complet,ed. These words form the conclusion of the first and longest portion of this scriptural Book of Ezra. All the remaining portion of the book is divided off from this in three separate ways. It is so, partly, on the question of time, a. gap of something like sixty years intervening between the events mentioned at the close of this sixth chapter and those referred to at the begin- ning of the seventh. It is also divided off in regard to its method, being not so much, like the former portion, a piece of history, strictly so called, as an interesting extract from the life--etory of one particular man. And it is, finally, divided off to some extent on the question of subject, inasmuch ae it only touches in a subsidiary and altogether supplemental manner on that which the former portion related at length. The proper record of the work of restoring the temple finishes here. Cor- responding to all this is the character of the passage itself. It bears the impress, in every way, of being a winding-up of that record. How the material building was finished ; how it was solen:uily set apart for its proper service ; and how it wua Gll. VI. 13-22.) 'l'HE BOOK OF EZRA. 89