Ezra 3:7 Commentary and Bible Study

They practiced stewardship with purpose. Their own workers were paid in money – the masons and the carpenters – but the people of Sidon and Tyre were paid in kind, supplying cedar from Lebanon the same wood as had ben used in Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 5:6). Why was there this difference? Presumably the Jews only had their own currency, so they could pay their own carpenters and masons, stonemasons, in cash, but internationally, when they went to the Tyre and Sidon for timber and stone, they paid in kind. And then they arranged it to be freighted all the way down to Joppa by sea. At the end of the verse there is a most important little note – ‘according to the grant that they had of Cyrus, king of Persia.’ The word ‘grant’ there doesn't mean money. Cyrus may have given them money, but it doesn't refer to that. It's an old-fashioned way of referring in the Hebrew to the permit or the licence. So they had official sanction, a law of Persia passed, allowing them to trade and secure stone and timber from those others surrounding satraps also under Persia, and to freight it and carry on with the rebuilding of their temple and of their city. They had a great deal going for them. They had the decree of Cyrus, which had enabled them to come. They had the means to come given them by God. They had a safe journey – and it was a very dangerous journey – down to Judah; they had the goodwill of the people and they all came together; and they had the official legal permits and licenses to do this. Without this permit maybe Tyre and Sidon would have refused to cooperate. This wasn't like the time of Solomon, when the kings of Tyre and Sidon were only too happy to trade with him. He was creditworthy. It was the wealthiest king in the region; he was spending a lot of money. There was tremendous trust recorded at the time of the building the first temple. It is all different now. They are no longer a nation. There are only 42,000 of them. They have got a certain amount of wealth, but nothing like the wealth of Judah and Israel in earlier years. Now nobody wants to trade with them. They are not creditworthy for anything. They have got to pay in kind, rather than in cash even, and they've got to have the sanction of the emperor for people to cooperate with them. What a difference! They are now much reduced in circumstances, but they have still got a lot to rejoice about.