And I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the vessels, the offering for the house of our God that the king and his counselors and his lords and all Israel there present had offered.
We have here an account of the particular care which Ezra took of the treasure he had with him, that belonged to God's sanctuary, Observe, 1. Having committed the keeping of it to God, he committed the keeping of it to proper men, whose business it was to watch it, though without God they would have waked in vain.
Commenting on Ezra 8:24-30
I even weighed unto their hand six hundred fifty talents of silver,.... Which, according to Scheuchzer (a) amount to 975,000 imperials, and, of our money, 2,229,450 pounds sterling: and silver vessels one hundred talents; which came to 35,300 pounds, or 50,000 imperials; according to Jarchi, there were one hundred vessels, and every vessel weighed a talent, and so Aben Ezra, which, with Brerewood (b), was...
A FAST PROCLAIMED. (Ezra 8:21-36) Then I proclaimed a fast there--The dangers to travelling caravans from the Bedouin Arabs that prowl through the desert were in ancient times as great as they still are; and it seems that travellers usually sought the protection of a military escort.
Commenting on Ezra 8:21-36