Then the returned exiles did so: For the returned exiles, see the comments on Ezra 4.1. In spite of the opposition to the plan, those who had returned from exile did so, that is, they acted on the proposal. “The returned exiles duly put this into effect,” as Revised English Bible renders it. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible says they “did as had been said.”

Ezra the priest selected men, heads of fathers’ houses, according to their fathers’ houses: The Hebrew text is literally “there were selected Ezra the priest, men, heads of the fathers, according to the house of their fathers.” But the lack of a conjunction “and” after “men,” together with the witness of 1 Esdras 9.16, one Septuagint manuscript and the Syriac version, shows that Ezra the priest selected men. This is supported by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project with a C rating and should be followed by translators. Ezra as priest (see verse 10 above) chose lay people to carry out their own decision. These were heads of fathers’ houses, according to their fathers’ houses (see Ezra 1.5). New Revised Standard Version says “heads of families, according to their families”; that is, the men who were selected were leaders among the people and they were chosen according to family or clan (see Revised English Bible). Good News Translation translates that they were chosen “from among the heads of the clans.” In the New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh rendering, they were “chiefs of the ancestral clans.”

Each of them designated by name: Those chosen were designated by name, but their names are not listed here. This may be restated in the active form: “Ezra designated each one by name.”

The work began On the first day of the tenth month, ten days after the assembly. This was the month of Tebeth. Blenkinsopp (1988) identifies this as 29 December 458 B.C.

They sat down to examine the matter: The meaning is not literally that they were seated, but that “they began to hold their deliberations” (compare Good News Translation, New English Bible) or they “began their sittings … to look into the matter” (New Jerusalem Bible).

Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .