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Journey of a Passage

Ezra 8:15–20

Ahava and "the place Casiphia"

Ezra gathers at the river Ahava and sends to Iddo "at the place Casiphia" for Levites. The Hebrew names Casiphia twice; the library's Greek has no place name but "the silver of the region," reading kesef (silver) in the name. Neither place has been located.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

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
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. Septuagint, Esdras B (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd–1st century BCTranslated from a Hebrew–Aramaic text of Ezra
Latin
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew
    2. 1 Esdras 8:41–46 in the King James Apocrypha1611Translated from printed Greek of 1 Esdras

    Every witness, in order

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

      Original Ezra–Nehemiah

      – No copy survives

      No original survives.

    2. 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.

      je les envoyai aux chefs, avec l'argent recueilli dans la contrée… afin qu'ils nous amenassent des chantres

      No "Casiphia" and "singers" for "ministers." One Greek text via Giguet's French; not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.

    3. 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.

      אֶל־אִדּוֹ הָרֹאשׁ בְּכָסִפְיָא הַמָּקוֹם

      to Iddo the chief, at Casiphia the place

    4. 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).

      unto Iddo the chief at the place Casiphia

    5. 1611

      1 Esdras 8:41–46 in the King James Apocrypha

      ✓ 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).

      the river called Theras… unto Saddeus the captain, who was in the place of the treasury

      1 Esdras renames the river and also reads a word for treasure in Casiphia.

    What changed, and why

    "The place" (hammaqom) can mean a holy place, so some suggest Casiphia had a Jewish sanctuary or a school of Levites in Babylonia. That is a hypothesis. Ahava is a river or canal (8:15, 21, 31) and also a place. The atlas lists both as unlocated and pins neither.

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedCasiphia and Ahava have not been located.
    • Plausible, not confirmedCasiphia was a Jewish sanctuary.

    Sources

    • J. Blenkinsopp, Ezra–Nehemiah (Old Testament Library, 1988)
    • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16, 1985)

    Related lessons

    • The Caravan from Ahava →Ezra lists the family heads who went with him: two priests, a descendant of David, and twelve lay families, 1,496 men. At the river Ahava he finds no Levites and sends to Iddo at "the place Casiphia"; 38 Levites and 220 temple servants come. Ezra proclaims a fast rather than ask the king for soldiers. He weighs out the silver, gold and vessels to twelve priests, travels safely, and four months after leaving Babylon has everything weighed again and recorded in the temple.