Ezra 6:20

For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) Purified together.—This verse should be translated as follows, contrary to the present accentuation: “The priests were purified; and the Levites were purified as one man: all were pure; and killed.” In this fact the present Levitical and official purity of both orders surpassed that of Hezekiah’s celebration (2Chronicles 29:34; 2Chronicles 30:3). It had come to be the practice that the Levites slaughtered all the paschal lambs.

Benson Commentary

Ezra 6:20. The priests and Levites were purified together — Hebrew, כאחד, cheechad, as one man, so the word signifies. They were unanimous, both in their resolutions, and in their endeavours, to make and keep themselves ceremonially clean for this solemnity: and they joined together in their preparations, that they might help one another; so that all of them were legally pure, and, in this respect, excelled the priests and Levites in Hezekiah’s time, who were many of them under blame for not purifying themselves according to the law. The purity of ministers adds much to the beauty and honour of their ministrations, as doth their unity also.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:13-22 The gospel church, that spiritual temple, is long in the building, but it will be finished at last, when the mystical body is completed. Every believer is a living temple, building up himself in his most holy faith: much opposition is given to this work by Satan and our own corruptions. We trifle, and proceed in it with many stops and pauses; but He that has begun the good work, will see it performed. Then spirits of just men will be made perfect. By getting their sins taken away, the Jews would free themselves from the sting of their late troubles. Their service was with joy. Let us welcome holy ordinances with joy, and serve the Lord with gladness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Some render, "And the priests were purified; and the Levites, as one man, were all of them pure." A contrast is drawn between the universal purity of the Levites and the merely general purity of the priests 2 Chronicles 29:34; 2 Chronicles 30:3, which made it fitting that the former should undertake the slaughter of all the Paschal lambs, even of those which the priests were to consume. In later times the ordinary practice was for each head of a family to kill for himself.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Ezr 6:19-22. And of the Passover.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure,.... They were all to a man pure, and all purified as one man; all were of one mind to purify themselves, and took care to do it, and did it with as much dispatch as if only one man was purified; so that they were more generally prepared for service now than in the times of Hezekiah, 2 Chronicles 29:34

and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests and for themselves; which seems to have been done by the Levites, for themselves and for the priests, and for all the people, who were not so pure as the priests and Levites; or otherwise they might have killed it themselves, Exodus 12:6, as Bochart (n) thinks.

(n) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 2. c. 50. col. 576.

Geneva Study Bible

For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. The explanatory ‘for’ means that this celebration of the Passover could take place, because the priests and Levites had duly prepared themselves for it by ceremonial purification.

the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure] R.V. the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together (Heb. as one); all of them were pure. ‘Had purified themselves’: the reflexive is the accurate rendering of the original.

together] Lit. ‘as one’: see Ezra 2:64, Ezra 3:9.

The rendering of the R.V. represents the ceremonial purification to have been jointly performed by priests and Levites, who were therefore all ‘pure’ and capable of sacrificial acts. The only difficulty arises from the following clause. How can it be said that ‘the priests and Levites killed the passover … for their brethren the priests, and for themselves?’ The words ‘for their brethren the priests’ shew that the subject of the last clause must be the Levites alone; and that the mention of the priests belongs to the two first clauses. Compare 2 Chronicles 29:34, ‘their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the priests had sanctified themselves: for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests’ (cf. 2 Chronicles 30:3). The small number of Levites who had returned were, we must suppose, more rigid followers of the ceremonial law than their brethren the priests, numerically a far larger body.

for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves] The triple division of the community: see Ezra 6:16.

The Levites are here represented as slaying the Paschal lamb. Three stages of custom as to the slaughter of the lamb are recorded in Scripture, (a) Originally, the lamb was slain by the head of each household (see Exodus 12:6): (b) in the days of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 30:17) the Levites ‘killed the passovers for every one that was not clean’: (c) in the days of Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:10-14) the Levites seem to have slain all the passover lambs, and roasted them both for the people, and for the priests, and for themselves.

The object of the alteration in the custom was twofold; (1) to secure the ceremonial purity of those entrusted with the duty of slaying the passover, (2) to relieve the priests, who at the season of the feast were busied in other offerings; see 2 Chronicles 35:14, “therefore the Levites prepared for themselves, and for the priests the sons of Aaron”.

The above is a useful illustration of the manner in which the absolute rule of the early law was modified in later times out of regard for considerations of a purely practical character (cf. Ezra 3:8, note on “twenty years old and upward”).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - The opening section of this verse is mistranslated. Ezra really makes a distinction between the priests and the Levites, the former of whom, he says, "purified themselves," while the latter "were all pure, as one man;" wherefore the latter killed the paschal lambs, not only for themselves and for the people, but also for their brethren the priests. It would seem that, as in Hezekiah's time, "the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests" (2 Chronicles 29:34). Ezra 6:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Celebration of the feast of the passover, and of the feast of unleavened bread, in the year following the dedication, as an historical testimony to the fact that the worship of God with its festivals was regularly carried on in the new temple.

Ezra 6:19-20

The feast of the passover, on the fourteenth day of the first month, took place only a few weeks after the dedication of the temple. The reason given in Ezra 6:20 - for the priests and Levites had purified themselves without exception (כּאחד, like Ezra 3:9); they were all clean, and they killed the passover for all the sons of the captivity (i.e., the laity who had returned from exile), and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves - has in this connection the meaning: Then the congregation celebrated the passover, and they were able to keep and to eat the passover, because the priests had purified themselves that they might be qualified for performing the office incumbent upon them of sprinkling the blood; and the Levites were also clean, that they might be able to kill the lambs for the whole congregation (comp. the remarks on 2 Chronicles 30:17, etc., and 2 Chronicles 35:11, 2 Chronicles 35:14). From the days of Josiah, it seems to have been customary for the Levites to take the place of the heads of families (Exodus 12:6, etc.) in slaughtering the passover lambs for the whole community, both priesthood and laity: for the laity, that no person who was unclean might kill the paschal lamb; for the priests, that their labours might be lightened, the sprinkling of blood and the offering of sacrifices occupying them far into the night (2 Chronicles 35:11, 2 Chronicles 35:14-15). And this custom was followed at this time also. The priests are called אחיהם, brethren of the Levites, as in 2 Chronicles 29:34; 2 Chronicles 35:15.