Passage

Ezra 2.70

Book: Ezra · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

68. And some of the heads of fathers' houses, when they came to the house of Jehovah which is in Jerusalem, offered willingly for the house of God to set it up in its place: 69. they gave after their ability into the treasury of the work threescore and one thousand darics of gold, and five thousand pounds of silver, and one hundred priests' garments.

70. So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethinim, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. (Ezra 2:68-70, ASV)

WEB

68. Some of the heads of fathers’ households, when they came to Yahweh’s house which is in Jerusalem, offered willingly for God’s house to set it up in its place. 69. They gave according to their ability into the treasury of the work sixty-one thousand darics of gold, and five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priests’ garments.

70. So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, the singers, the porters, and the temple servants, lived in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. (Ezra 2:68-70, WEB)

KJV

68. And some of the chief of the fathers, when they came to the house of the LORD which is at Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place: 69. They gave after their ability unto the treasure of the work threescore and one thousand drams of gold, and five thousand pound of silver, and one hundred priests' garments.

70. So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethinims, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities. (Ezra 2:68-70, KJV)

YLT

68. And some of the heads of the fathers in their coming in to the house of Jehovah that [is] in Jerusalem, have offered willingly for the house of God, to establish it on its base; 69. according to their power they have given to the treasure of the work; of gold, drams six myriads and a thousand, and of silver, pounds five thousand, and of priests' coats, a hundred.

70. And the priests dwell, and the Levites, and of the people, and the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the Nethinim, in their cities; even all Israel in their cities. (Ezra 2:68-70, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the narrator, closing the register of those who returned
Audience: the readers
Location: Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, "every one unto his city" (Ezra 2:1)
Time period: the first return under Zerubbabel and Jeshua, from c. 538 BC

Theological reading

The register ends with the people settled: "the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethinim, dwelt in their cities, and all Israel in their cities." The KJV's "priests" is kohen (Strong's H3548), named first here as they head the temple orders in the register (Ezra 2:36).

The returning heads of fathers' houses were "of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites" (Ezra 1:5), yet the verse calls them "all Israel." The returned community understood itself as the continuation of the whole people, as when it later offered "twelve he-goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel" (Ezra 6:17).

The next verse moves to worship: "when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem" (Ezra 3:1). Nehemiah 7:73 repeats this closing almost exactly before the reading of the law.

Key words

H3548 - kohen, kohen (Strong's H3548). Also appears in: Genesis 14.18-20, Exodus 3, Leviticus 1.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.