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Ezra and Esdras Kristin De Troyer “Sounding Trumpets with Loud Shouts” Emotional Responses to Temple Building: Ezra and Esdras In Ezra 6:16 it is stated that “The people of Israel, the priests and Levites and the rest of the returned exiles, made the dedication of this house of God with joy.” In common Bible translations, the verb is nicely adapted to “celebrated”, indi- cating that the dedication of the house of God was celebrated with joy. The In Ezra 6:22, after the Temple is .חֶדְ וָ ה noun used to indicate “joy” is the hapax dedicated, it is said that “they celebrated the festival of unleavened bread with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful.” This double mentioning of the “glad- ness” at the dedication of the Temple and the offering, and at the Passover and the celebration of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, stands in contrast to the response of the people to the erection of the altar on its foundation when they displayed different emotions. In Ezra 3:10–13, we read a double response, one positive and one negative: When the builders laid the foundation of the Temple of the Lord, the priests in their vest- ments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites … with cymbals and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord …. And all the people re- sponded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But, many of the priests and Levites and head of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away. These positive and negative emotions are expressed alongside different ways of praying and praising and are associated with the building phases of the new Temple. What does this mean in the context of the book of Ezra and its reworked deuterocanonical book of 1 Esdras? In this paper, I intend to review all the emo- tions that are depicted in the Hebrew-Aramaic stories about the dedication of the Temple, together with the accompanying sounding of the trumpets, and to explain how the variety of emotions has been interpreted in the deutero-canoni- cal 1 Esdras in comparison with its source text. DOI 10.1515/9783110369083-003, © 2018 Kristin De Troyer, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. 42 | Kristin De Troyer 1 MT Ezra 1.1 Structure Before reviewing the emotions, let me review the structure of the book of Ezra and clarify the different stages of the “rebuilding” project. In the Hebrew/Aramaic book of Ezra, chap. 1 reports that permission has been granted to return to Jerusalem, chap. 2 lists all the people taking part in return, and chap. 3 describes how the altar is installed by the returning exiles and the continual offering is again re-established in Jerusalem. In chap. 4 a beginning is made with the building of the actual Temple. As soon as the re- turned exiles start building, they are met with local opposition and the Temple building project is halted. Letters are sent back and forth to the king, archives are searched and a temple permission decree is found, on which basis the exiles are permitted to continue with the building of the Temple. By the end of chap. 6, the temple building has reached completion and the Temple is dedicated. The rest of the book of Ezra, chap. 7–10, introduces Ezra and records his activities. 1.2 The different stages of the building project In the Hebrew-Aramaic book of Ezra-Nehemiah, one may clearly distinguish between three different stages in the building activities of the returned exiles: the establishment of the altar on its foundations (Ezra 3:1–3), the laying of the foundation of the House of God1 (Ezra 3:10–13), and the actual building of the House of God (Ezra 4–6). The three different stages are connected to the one goal, which is the establishment of the Temple. Already in the section about the setting up of the altar a reference is made to the next stage in the building pro- ject, namely, the laying of the foundation of the House of God. In Ezra 3:6b it reads: “But the foundation of the Temple of the Lord was not yet laid.” Also, the report on the laying of the foundation of the Temple is preceded by a narrative report about who was appointed to do the project and to oversee the work on the House of God (Ezra 3:1–9), making clear that the goal of the laying of the foundation of the house of God was indeed the building of the house of God itself. || 1 I will not go into detail about the difference in the text between the House of God and the Temple of God. “Sounding Trumpets with Loud Shouts” | 43 1.3 Which emotions? 1.3.1 No emotions at the re-establishment of the altar A first emotion is encountered at the beginning of the report on the setting up of the altar on its foundation. The reason for setting up the altar is: “because they, that are the returned exiles, were in dread of the neighbouring people” (Ezra 3:3aα). Since this is not a response to the establishment of an altar or a Temple, but a reason why a building project was undertaken, I am not taking this emo- tion into consideration. 1.3.2 Raising a shout with a great shout and weeping with a loud voice According to some scholars, Ezra 3:10–11 follows a liturgical protocol for festive celebrations. Joseph Blenkinsopp, for instance, notes: “Following liturgical orthopraxy (cf. 1 Chr 15:19; 16:5–6; 25:1, 6; 2 Chr 5:12–13), priests blew trumpets, and Asaphite Levites (see 2 Chr 29:25–26 …) clashed cymbals, no doubt to keep time and mark pauses in the antiphonal chant. … The shout (…), also associated with warfare, was probably understood as acclaiming YHVH as king of Israel (cf. the psalms of divine kingship, Pss 93; 95–99).”2 In Ezra 3:11, the emotional response to the establishment of the altar is ְוָכ ָ ל־הָעם ֵהִריעוּ :recorded: all the people are raising a shout with a great shout . ְת ָ רוּעה גְ ָ דוֹלה Those who are shouting with a loud shout are “all the people.” The second response to the establishment of the altar comes from those who had, with their own eyes, seen the first house: they are listed as the priests, Levites and heads of families, further defined as old people who had seen the first בִֹּכים ְבּקוֹל :house. They also are loud, but they are weeping with a loud voice But then the latter group seems to be divided too, since there are .(3:12) גָּ דוֹל . ְבִשְׂמָחה ְלָהִרים קוֹל also many that shouted aloud for joy:3 The latter phrase is clearly connected to the first response of shouting with it also serves as , ִשְׂמָחה ,a loud voice. But through the use of the concept of joy a hinge that links it with the further emotional responses to the subsequent building activities (which will emerge later in the story). || 2 Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah, 101. 3 See also Davies, Ezra, 36. 44 | Kristin De Troyer When used with the preposition . ִשְׂמָחה Now a few comments on the noun the context is often one in which the ark functions (1 Sam 18:6) or it is being , ְבּ brought to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:12; similarly, 1 Chr 15:25) and offerings are being brought to the Temple (1 Chr 29:17, 22; 2 Chr 23:18), or the Festival of Unleav- ened Bread is being celebrated (2 Chr 30:21). This element of celebration involv- ing God is also found in the Psalter (21:7; 68:4; 100:2). The positive connotation of the word, in association with the ark, the offerings or festivals, in the books of Samuel and Chronicles, may have influenced the meaning of the word in Ezra, and may point to a positive experience in relation to the ark, the Temple and the offerings to God. The noun without the preposition also connotes a positive emotion, such as the rejoicing over a king, as in the case of Solomon (1 Kgs 1:40), or simply the fact that there is joy in Jerusalem (2 Chr 30:26). The joy in Jerusalem was once taken away (see esp. the Book of Jeremiah, 7:34; 16:9; 25:10; 48:33 and also Isa 16:10; 24:11; Joel 1:16), but now the joy is restored and one can sing for joy (Jer 31:7; 33:11, but also Isa 29:19). In the book of Nehemiah, the joy is part of the celebratory events when all circumstances are favourable: people rejoice, eat, drink and send portions (Neh 8:12 and 8:17, but also Esth 8:17 and 9:19). Given the positive connotation of the word especially in the later books (Chronicles, Nehemiah, Esther, but also Isa 55:12 and Eccl 2:1 and 9:7), the sense of the word in Ezra 3:12 must surely indicate a joyful event and a positive emotion.
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