And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.
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Bede
AD 735
And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden step that he had made to speak upon, and so on until it is said, And Ezra opened the book before all the people, for he was standing out above all the people.7 The book of Chronicles appears to mention this place where it is said that Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord, facing all the multitude of Israel, and he stretched forth his hands. For Solomon had made a bronze platform and had set it in the midst of the basilica, and it was five cubits long and five cubits broad and three cubits high. And he stood upon it.1 For 'in the midst of the basilica' means in the midst of the courtyard of the priests, which surrounded the greater basilica of the exterior courts on every side of the temple, about which it is written earlier in the same book, he made the courtyard of the priests, and a great basilica.2 But Solomon, being a king, made a bronze platform, whereas Ezra, as a man of lesser power, built a wooden step to speak upon, /1125/ just as So...
Together, to the number of 180,000, according to the Jews; who say that they were terrified at the excommunication pronounced by 300 priests against them, while 300 young men sounded trumpets; and they fled, leaving Nehemias at liberty to continue the work. It is a pity that we have no foundation for this in Scripture. (Calmet) See 1 Esdras iv. 3. (Haydock)
The Samaritans durst not openly attack the Jews, who were under the protection of the Persian monarch. But they endeavoured clandestinely to injure them, (Tirinus) and to prepare ambushes. (Haydock)
