Ezra 8:24 MEANING

(24) Sherebiah.--Rather, to Sherebiah--that is, these two Levites, alone mentioned, with ten others, were associated with an equal number of priests in the charge of the Temple treasure.

Verse 24. - Then I separated twelve of the chief of the priests, Sherebiah, Hashabiah, etc. Our translators, following the Vulgate, have omitted to render the preposition לְ, which occurs in the Hebrew text before the name of Sherebiah, and have thus represented Sherebiah and Hashabiah as priests, whereas they were not priests, but Levites, as appears from vers. 18, 19. The true sense is given by the LXX. - "Then I assigned twelve of the chief priests to Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren; i.e. "then I appointed twelve chief priests to act with twelve chief Levites, of whom Sherebiah and Hashabiah were two, in the matter of the royal offering." Ezra seems to have considered, that as the gift of Artaxerxes was an offering to the house of God, it ought to be handed over at once to the custody of the ministers of religion, and not remain in secular hands (compare ver. 28).

8:24-30 Do we expect that God should, by his providence, keep that which belongs to us, let us, by his grace, keep that which belongs to him. Let God's honour and interest be our care; and then we may expect that our lives and comforts will be his.Then I separated twelve of the chief of the priests,.... That were in company with him; so that it seems there were more than the two mentioned, Ezra 8:2, very probably their families, or some of their brethren, were with them:

Sherebiah, Hashabiah, and ten of their brethren with them; these men named were Levites, and not priests, Ezra 8:18 and therefore the copulative "and" must be supplied:

and Sherebiah, &c. or with the twelve priests, Sherebiah, &c. and ten Levites more with them; so that the number of priests and Levites were equal, and in all twenty four.