Five-minute study · Day 287 · Ezra 3
Ezra 3:12
A word worth stopping on: wept בָּכָה bakah
'But many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy.' The word for 'wept' is bakah. To weep, to cry, to shed tears. The old men wept. They had been young when Solomon's Temple stood, when the gold overlay caught the morning sun and the Ark of the Covenant sat behind the veil. Now they were staring at a foundation that would hold something smaller, plainer, emptier. The young people who had never seen the original shouted for joy. The old people who remembered what was lost stood in the same crowd and wept. The sound could not be separated: shouting and weeping in the same air.
Word study: wept
- Hebrew
- בָּכָה
- Pronounced
- bakah
- Strong's
- H1058
- Definition
- To weep, to cry, to shed tears. Used for mourning, grief, distress, and emotional overflow. The word covers the full range of weeping from quiet tears to loud, public lamentation.
Bakah appears 114 times in the Hebrew Bible. BDB defines it as 'to weep, bewail' and traces its usage across mourning for the dead (Genesis 23:2, Abraham weeping for Sarah), grief over sin (Judges 2:4, the people at Bochim), distress in prayer (1 Samuel 1:7-8, Hannah weeping at Shiloh), and emotional reunion (Genesis 33:4, Jacob and Esau weeping on each other's necks). The word is not limited to grief. Joseph bakah when he revealed himself to his brothers (Genesis 45:14-15), tears of joy and relief pouring out after years of separation. Bakah can hold multiple emotions at once.
Williamson's commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah in the Word Biblical Commentary series places Ezra 3:12 in the context of the Second Temple's foundation ceremony, approximately 536 BCE. The returnees had been back from Babylon for about two years. They had rebuilt the altar, reinstituted sacrifices, and now laid the foundation for the new Temple. The ceremony followed liturgical form: priests in vestments with trumpets, Levites with cymbals, antiphonal singing of Psalm 136's refrain ('For his mercy endureth for ever'). Then the mixed response.
Williamson identifies the 'ancient men' as elderly Jews who had been alive before the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 586 BCE. The exile lasted roughly fifty years. An old man of seventy in 536 BCE would have been twenty when the Temple was destroyed. He would have remembered it. The first Temple, built by Solomon with the wealth of David's conquests, was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:21-22), housed the Ark of the Covenant, and stood for nearly four centuries. The Second Temple foundation represented something objectively inferior. Haggai 2:3 confirms this: 'Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?'
The sound described in Ezra 3:13 is remarkable: 'So that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.' Bakah and rinnah (shouting) mixed until observers could not tell them apart. Williamson observes that this is one of the most emotionally complex scenes in the Hebrew Bible. Grief and gratitude in the same crowd, in the same moment, producing a sound that traveled for miles. The old men bakah because they remembered what was lost. The young people shouted because they could see what was being built. Both responses were honest.
Historical context · The return from Babylonian exile under Cyrus's decree approximately 538 BCE; the foundation-laying of the Second Temple approximately 536 BCE under Zerubbabel and Jeshua; the prophetic response of Haggai and Zechariah approximately 520 BCE
The Foundation of the Second Temple and the Sound That Carried for Miles
Solomon's Temple stood in Jerusalem from approximately 960 to 586 BCE. The building project consumed seven years (1 Kings 6:38), employed forced labor and skilled Phoenician craftsmen from Tyre, and produced a structure overlaid with gold, furnished with gold lampstands, a gold altar of incense, and housing the Ark of the Covenant in the inner sanctum (1 Kings 6-7). When Nebuchadnezzar's forces destroyed it in 586 BCE, they stripped the gold, broke the bronze pillars, and burned the structure (2 Kings 25:8-17). The Ark of the Covenant disappears from the biblical record after this point.
The returnees under Zerubbabel (a descendant of David) and Jeshua (the high priest) faced the task of rebuilding with far fewer resources. Cyrus's decree (Ezra 1:2-4) authorized the rebuilding and ordered the return of the Temple vessels Nebuchadnezzar had looted. Ezra 1:9-11 lists the returned items: gold and silver basins, knives, bowls, and other articles, totaling 5,400 pieces. The human resources were also limited: Ezra 2 lists approximately 42,360 returnees plus 7,337 servants, a fraction of the pre-exile population.
Williamson notes that the foundation ceremony in Ezra 3:10-13 followed the liturgical pattern established by David for Temple worship (1 Chronicles 25). The antiphonal singing, the priestly trumpets, the Levitical cymbals: all repeated the forms of Solomonic worship. The forms were preserved. The substance was diminished. The old men who bakah could see the gap between the form and the memory.
Haggai's prophecy, delivered approximately 520 BCE when the building had stalled, addresses the grief directly. 'The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace' (Haggai 2:9). The promise does not minimize the loss. It acknowledges the inferiority of the current building and points to a future glory that would surpass even Solomon's gold. Christians have historically read this as fulfilled in Jesus, who taught in the Second Temple courts. The weeping old men at the foundation ceremony could not see that far ahead. They could only see the gap between what was and what used to be.
For reflection
Bakah. The old men wept. They remembered gold on the walls and the Ark behind the curtain. The foundation in front of them would hold something smaller. The young people shouted because they had never seen Solomon's Temple and could only see forward. Ezra 3:13 says the sound of weeping and the sound of joy mixed until no one could separate them. Both sounds were honest. Both were appropriate. If you are standing at a new foundation that feels like a downgrade from what you lost, the bakah is legitimate. Grief for what was does not disqualify gratitude for what is being built. And Haggai 2:9 holds the answer the old men could not yet hear: 'The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.' The foundation is not the finished building. The weeping and the shouting belong in the same air.
Bakah: to weep, cry, shed tears. BDB traces it across mourning, grief, joy, and emotional overflow. Williamson notes the old men had seen Solomon's Temple and could measure the loss. Haggai 2:9 provides the prophetic answer: the latter glory will surpass the former.
Sources: BDB; Williamson, 'Ezra, Nehemiah' (WBC)