Ezra 8:24 - Exposition

Then I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sherebiah, Hashabiah, etc. Our translators, following the Vulgate, have omitted to render the preposition לְ , which occurs in the Hebrew text before the name of Sherebiah, and have thus represented Sherebiah and Hashabiah as priests, whereas they were not priests, but Levites, as appears from Ezra 8:18 , Ezra 8:19 . The true sense is given by the LXX .—"Then I assigned twelve of the chief priests to Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren; i.e. "then I appointed twelve chief priests to act with twelve chief Levites, of whom Sherebiah and Hashabiah were two, in the matter of the royal offering." Ezra seems to have considered, that as the gift of Artaxerxes was an offering to the house of God, it ought to be handed over at once to the custody of the ministers of religion, and not remain in secular hands (compare verse 28).