Ezra 2:55

The children of Solomon's servants: the children of Sotai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Peruda,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(55) The children of Solomon’s servants.—These are mentioned in 1 Kings 9 as a servile class, formed of the residue of the Canaanites. They were probably inferior to the Nethinims, but are generally classed with them, as in the general enumeration here. Both these classes retained during their captivity their attachment to the service into which they had been received; and, the Levites being so few, their value in the reconstitution of the Temple gave them the special importance they assume in these books.

Benson Commentary

Ezra 2:55. The children of Solomon’s servants — Who had lived in Solomon’s family, and after his death called themselves and their families by that name, esteeming it a great honour that they had been servants to so great a prince.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:36-63 Those who undervalue their relation to the Lord in times of reproach, persecution, or distress, will have no benefit from it when it becomes honourable or profitable. Those who have no evidence that they are, by the new birth, spiritual priests unto God, through Jesus Christ, have no right to the comforts and privileges of Christians.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Nethinims - The hieroduli or sacred slaves, "given" to the Levites to assist them in their work (see 1 Chronicles 9:2 note).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

55. The children of Solomon's servants—either the strangers that monarch enlisted in the building of the temple, or those who lived in his palace, which was deemed a high honor.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The children of Solomon’s servants; either of those strangers and proselytes whom Solomon used in the building of the temple, 1 Kings 9:21, to the service of which, as some add, he devoted them, as there should be occasion hereafter; or others who had lived in Solomon’s family, and after his death called themselves and their families by that name, as esteeming it, a great honour to them that they had been servants to so great a prince.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Nethinims,.... Supposed by Aben Ezra and Jarchi to be the Gibeonites, who were "given" by Joshua, as the word Nethinims signifies, to the congregation, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; but rather were those that were given by David to assist the Levites; of these is an account from hence to the end of Ezra 2:58, together with those who descended from Solomon's servants, who seem to be the remains of the Canaanites in the land, whom Solomon made bondservants of, 1 Kings 9:20, who, and their posterity, became proselytes; or those sprung from men that were domestic servants of Solomon's, and valued themselves on that account; the number of the Nethinims and these together were three hundred ninety and two.

Geneva Study Bible

The children of Solomon's {i} servants: the children of Sotai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Peruda,

(i) Which came of them that Solomon had appointed for the work of the temple.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

55. Sophereth] R.V. Hassophereth. The A.V. gives the name as it appears in Nehemiah 7:57.

Peruda] appears in Nehemiah 7:57 as ‘Perida’.

55–58. Solomon’s servants, a class similar to the Nethinim, with whom they are also found in conjunction Nehemiah 7:60; Nehemiah 11:3. They are apparently included under the more general term Nethinim in such passages as Nehemiah 10:28. They have been traditionally understood to be the descendants of those inhabitants of the land ‘that were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites’ of whom Solomon had hired ‘bondservants’ for the work of building his temple (1 Kings 5:13).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 55. - Solomon's servants. Solomon formed the remnant of the Canaanitish population which survived at his day into a separate servile class, which he employed in forced labours (1 Kings 9:20, 21). It would seem that the descendants of these persons, having been carried into captivity by the Chaldaeans, continued to form a distinct class, and had become attached to the sacerdotal order, as a body of hieroduli inferior even to the Nethinims. We may account for their special mention at this time by the importance of their services, when such a work as that of rebuilding the temple was about to be taken in hand. Ezra 2:55

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Nethinim, i.e., temple-bondsmen, and the servants of Solomon, are reckoned together, thirty-five families of Nethinim and ten of the servants of Solomon being specified. The sum-total of these amounting only to 392, each family could only have averaged from eight to nine individuals. The sons of Akkub, Hagab and Asnah (Ezra 2:45, Ezra 2:46, and Ezra 2:50), are omitted in Nehemiah; the name Shalmai (Ezra 2:46) is in Nehemiah 7:48 written Salmai; and for נפיסים, Ezra 2:50, Nehemiah 7:52 has נפושׁסים, a form combined from נפוּסים and נפישׁים. All other variations relate only to differences of form. Because Ziha (ציהא, Ezra 2:43) again occurs in Nehemiah 11:21 as one of the chiefs of the Nethinim, and the names following seem to stand in the same series with it, Bertheau insists on regarding these names as those of divisions. This cannot, however, be correct; for Ziha is in Nehemiah 11:21 the name of an individual, and in the present list also the proper names are those of individuals, and only the sons of Ziha, Hasupha, etc., can be called families or divisions. Plural words alone, Mehunim and Nephisim, are names of races or nations; hence the sons of the Mehunim signify individuals belonging to the Mehunim, who, perhaps, after the victory of King Uzziah over that people, were as prisoners of war made vassals for the service of the sanctuary. So likewise may the sons of the Nephisim have been prisoners of war of the Ishmaelite race נפישׁ. Most of the families here named may, however, have been descendants of the Gibeonites (Joshua 9:21, Joshua 9:27). The servants of Solomon must not be identified with the Canaanite bond-servants mentioned 1 Kings 9:20., 2 Chronicles 8:7., but were probably prisoners of war of some other nation, whom Solomon sentenced to perform, as bondsmen, similar services to those imposed upon the Gibeonites. The sons of these servants are again mentioned in Nehemiah 11:3. In other passages they are comprised under the general term Nethinim, with whom they are here computed. Among the names, that of הצּבים פּכרת (Ezra 2:57), i.e., catcher of gazelles, is a singular one; the last name, אמי, is in Nehemiah 7:59 אמון.