Ezra 5:10

We asked their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:3-17 While employed in God's work, we are under his special protection; his eye is upon us for good. This should keep us to our duty, and encourage us therein, when difficulties are ever so discouraging. The elders of the Jews gave the Samaritans an account of their proceedings. Let us learn hence, with meekness and fear, to give a reason of the hope that is in us; let us rightly understand, and then readily declare, what we do in God's service, and why we do it. And while in this world, we always shall have to confess, that our sins have provoked the wrath of God. All our sufferings spring from thence, and all our comforts from his unmerited mercy. However the work may seem to be hindered, yet the Lord Jesus Christ is carrying it on, his people are growing unto a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Great stones - literally, as in the margin; i. e., stones so large that they were rolled along, not carried. Others translate "polished stones."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones—literally, "stones of rolling"; that is, stones of such extraordinary size that they could not be carried—they had to be rolled or dragged along the ground.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

We asked their names also,.... The names of the elders, those that set men about this work:

to certify that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them; take the names of them in writing, that they might with certainty acquaint the king who they were, and that if it was necessary they might be called to an account for what they were doing.

Geneva Study Bible

We asked their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. We asked their names] R.V. we asked them their names. So the Aramaic. For the names of the Elders, cf. Ezra 2:2.

the chief of them] R.V. at the head of them. Literally ‘at or in the heads of them’. The R.V. renders as if the word was in the singular; cf. 2 Chronicles 20:27, ‘Then they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusalem, and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them’, (lit. at their head). But the rendering ‘that were their heads’ would be equally correct, and would account for the use of the plural.

Ezra 5:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Hereupon the royal officials asked the elders of the Jews who had commanded them to build, and inquired concerning their names, that they might write to the king the names of the leading men (see the remark on 3 and 41). בראשׁהם דּי does not mean, who are at the head of them: but, who act in the capacity of heads.