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Ezra 1:9–11

The temple vessels: 2,499 or 5,400?

Ezra lists six kinds of vessels adding up to 2,499, then gives the total as 5,400. Every library text of Ezra agrees on both. 1 Esdras gives different items that add up to its own total, 5,469.

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
  • Related (shared ancestry)
Hebrew / Aramaic
  1. Original Ezra–NehemiahComposed c. 5th–4th century BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah
Greek
  1. 1 Esdras (Esdras A), library's Greek (Giguet's French)Composed c. 2nd century BC (debated)Related witness to the Ezra tradition
  2. Septuagint, Esdras B (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd–1st century BCTranslated from a Hebrew–Aramaic text of Ezra
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgate (1 Esdras = Ezra)c. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. 1 Esdras in the King James Apocrypha (1611)1611Translated from printed Greek of 1 Esdras
  2. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Sums

Ezra 1:9–10 items
30 + 1,000 + 29 + 30 + 410 + 1,000 = 2,499
Ezra 1:11 total
5,400
1 Esdras 2:13–14 (KJV)
Items 5,469; total 5,469

Every witness, in order

  1. Composed c. 5th–4th century BC (debated)

    Original Ezra–Nehemiah

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. Composed c. 2nd century BC (debated)

    1 Esdras (Esdras A), library's Greek (Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageRelated witness to the Ezra tradition

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    deux mille quatre cents urnes d'argent, trente tasses d'argent, trente fioles d'or, deux mille quatre cents d'argent, et mille autres vases… cinq mille huit cent soixante

    1 Esdras 2:13–14. Items and total differ again. One Greek text via Giguet's French; not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.

  3. Translated c. 2nd–1st century BC

    Septuagint, Esdras B (library text: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew–Aramaic text of Ezra

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    trente coupes d'or, mille d'argent, vingt-neuf de divers genres, trente coupes d'or, quatre cent dix doubles coupes d'argent, et mille autres vases… en tout cinq mille quatre cents

    One Greek text via Giguet's French; not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.

  4. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate (1 Esdras = Ezra)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    phialae aureae triginta, phialae argenteae mille, cultri viginti novem, scyphi aurei triginta, scyphi argentei secundi quadringenti decem, vasa alia mille… quinque millia quadringenta

  5. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    כָּל־כֵּלִים לַזָּהָב וְלַכֶּסֶף חֲמֵשֶׁת אֲלָפִים וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת

    all the vessels of gold and silver: five thousand and four hundred

  6. 1611

    1 Esdras in the King James Apocrypha (1611)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Greek of 1 Esdras

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    A thousand golden cups, and a thousand of silver, censers of silver twenty nine, vials of gold thirty, and of silver two thousand four hundred and ten, and a thousand other vessels… five thousand four hundred threescore and nine

    1 Esdras 2:13–14. 1,000 + 1,000 + 29 + 30 + 2,410 + 1,000 = 5,469: the items add up.

  7. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred.

    The items in 1:9–10 total 2,499.

What changed, and why

Either the itemization is partial (only the main categories named), numbers were miscopied (Hebrew number words and numerals were easily confused), or the total and the itemization come from different records. 1 Esdras' list adds up, which could be an older reading or an ancient correction. Several Hebrew terms (agartal, mahalaf, kefor) are rare, and their meanings are partly guessed from context.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe items in Ezra 1:9–10 do not add up to 5,400.
  • Plausible, not confirmed1 Esdras preserves the original list.

Sources

  • E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (2012)
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16, 1985)

Related lessons

  • Cyrus, the Proclamation and the Vessels →In the first year of Cyrus, "that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled," the Persian king proclaims that the house of the God of heaven be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Families rise to go; neighbors give silver, gold and animals; and Cyrus hands the temple vessels Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Sheshbazzar, "the prince of Judah." Ezra opens under a foreign emperor, not a restored king of David's line.