They gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.
Here is, I. A general assembly of the returned Israelites at Jerusalem, in the seventh month, Ezr 3:1. We may suppose that they came from Babylon in the spring, and must allow at least four months for the journey, for so long Ezra and his company were in coming, Ezr 7:9.
Commenting on Ezra 3:1-7
They gave money also to the masons, and to the carpenters,.... To buy stone and timber with for the building of the temple: and meat and drink and oil unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre; which were more agreeable to them than money, because there was not plenty of such things in their country, as in the land of Israel: to bring...
OFFERINGS RENEWED. (Ezr 3:4-7) They kept also the feast of tabernacles . . . From the first day of the seventh month--They revived at that time the daily oblation, and it was on the fifteenth day of that month the feast of tabernacles was held.
Commenting on Ezra 3:4-7