With three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the king's house:
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Bede
AD 735
“And so that they lay foundations that may support a height of cubits and a breadth of cubits, three rows of unfinished stones and in the same way rows of new timber”: we need not comment on it because neither in the building of the first temple nor of the subsequent one are any of these measurements or works of this sort found. It can thus be inferred that Cyrus proposed this from his own ideas and that he noted the measurements and arrangement of the work as seemed appropriate to him. Indeed, as Chronicles relates, in the first measurement (that is, inside the inner walls) the temple was cubits long and cubits wide, but the height, as the history of Kings explains, was cubits to the upper room; from there to the high chamber an additional cubits, which was the level reached by the top of the porticos, as Josephus attests; and from there another to the top of the roof, which is to say, cubits all together, as Chronicles explains. Yet how does it say that three rows of unfinish...
And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and the rest that were in their council wrote to Artaxerxes king of the Persians, and so on. Josephus believes that this Artaxerxes, who upon receiving the letter of accusation from the Samaritans forbade that Jerusalem and the temple be rebuilt, is Cyrus's son Cambyses, who after the thirty-year reign of his father himself ruled for eight years. After him, the Magi ruled for one year and they were succeeded by Darius son of Hystaspes, during whose second year, in which he authorized the rebuilding of the temple, the angel interceding on behalf of the people said through the prophet Zechariah: Oh Lord of hosts, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and from the cities of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years? Perhaps the reason that no mention is made of w...
Unpolished, to correspond with the polished stones and cedar employed by Solomon, 3 Kings vi. 36. (Menochius)
Protestants, "great stones. "See chap. v. 8.
Charges. It appears that the Jews furnished money and meat to pay for the wood, chap. i. 4., and iii. 7. Some annual sum might be assigned by Cyrus, either for the building, or for the daily holocausts. (Calmet)
