In this verse there occur three pairs that offer a set of interesting contrasts:

• King Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar,

• the house of the LORD and the house of the gods of Nebuchadnezzar, and

• the action of carrying away from and the action of placing in.

First, there is a focus on two rulers. In the text King Cyrus is being contrasted with Nebuchadnezzar. Second, there is a contrast between two buildings, the house that belongs to the LORD and the house that belongs to the gods of Nebuchadnezzar. By identifying the two houses with the deities to whom they belong, a contrast is also being drawn between the God of Israel and the gods of Babylonia. Third, two actions are being contrasted. Two occurrences of the same Hebrew verb in this verse focus the reader’s attention on this contrast. The verb may be translated literally “to cause to be taken out.” It is translated in Revised Standard Version as brought out and carried away according to the context. In this wordplay the vessels of the house of the LORD which Nebuchadnezzar had “captured” and placed in the temple of his gods are now “taken out” and thus are freed by Cyrus.

Here Cyrus is identified only as the king in contrast to the full title “Cyrus king of Persia,” which is used several times in this chapter.

The vessels of the house of the LORD, as is evident in the following verses, included various bowls and serving utensils that had been used for ceremonial meals in the Temple. No exact descriptions of these dishes exist. The translator should use a very general term like “articles” (New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible), “objects,” or even “things.”

Nebuchadnezzar was the Babylonian king who reigned 605-562 B.C. He was the one who besieged Jerusalem in 597 B.C., destroyed the Temple in 586 B.C., took many people into exile from Judah in 597, 586 and 582 B.C., and plundered the valuables of the Temple in 597 and 586 B.C. to be used in the worship of the gods of Babylonia (see, for example, Dan 5.1-4). He took them to the house of his gods, which was the temple of the chief god of Babylon, Merodach who was also known as Marduk or Bel. This was originally a storm deity whose name meant “son of the storm.” He was the absolute king of the gods according to Enuma elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, and was considered to be a universal god. The Babylonians worshiped a number of gods, including Nebo, the son of Marduk and Ishtar, a fertility goddess. There were a number of temples in Babylon dedicated to these gods. The vessels were put in the house of Nebuchadnezzar’s gods along with the images of other conquered peoples to symbolize the victory of his gods over those of other peoples.

Had carried away … and placed: In English these verbs are in the pluperfect verb tense, since in the Hebrew narrative the action of Cyrus took place in the past, but the action of Nebuchadnezzar took place before the action of Cyrus. Nebuchadnezzar’s act is more distant in the past than Cyrus’s act. Translators must be careful to indicate the time relationship of the one event to the other event. Although the structure of the verse is relatively simple, the focus on King Cyrus and the contrast between his deed and that of Nebuchadnezzar must be made clear in the translation.

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 .