Now on the fourth day were the silver and the gold and the articles weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah the priest; and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas; and with them was Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui, Levites;
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Bede
AD 735
Appropriately, it is added that when those who came up from Babylon arrived at Jerusalem, they remained there for a period of three days and only then offered and weighed out in the Lord’s house the silver and the gold and the vessels that they had brought. For the three days of tarrying in Jerusalem are the excellent virtues of faith, hope and love that all the faithful should possess. Teachers, therefore, must first of all manifest these in themselves and only then offer those whom they have taught and educated in these same virtues to the Fathers who have preceded them in Christ for their approval. For when the holy church finds that those whom we are catechizing are sound in faith and action, it is as if, on weighing the vessels that we offer in the temple through the hands of the priests, [the church] discovers them to be both of pure metal and of perfect weight. This is not only done in this church by the elect every day in examining the life of believers, but, as we said above, is also completed more perfectly in the heavenly Jerusalem in those who have deserved to enter it. For in this life, holy teachers, as though after remaining for three days in the silver and the gold that they brought as an offering when they reveal that they themselves are strong in faith, sublime in hope and fervent in love and show that their hearers shine forth like tested silver through the confession of true faith, gleam in the manner of the best gold through the purity of inviolate understanding and stand out as though they were vessels consecrated to God through the reception of spiritual gifts in themselves. In the heavenly homeland too, these same teachers, when they receive a reward first of all for their own faith, hope and love and then for those whom they have taught, it is as though after the joy of a threeday stay in Jerusalem they are honored more handsomely for the gifts and precious vessels worthy of God they have brought.
