And the Most High gave understanding to the five men: In this context the Latin word for understanding has the sense of “skill.” Ezra’s inspiration consisted in being able to recite the words of Scripture; the scribes’ inspiration was in being able to write them down. Nothing is said about how much they understood of the content, although from the next verse it appears that they were enabled somehow to remember the next day what Ezra had dictated during the night. In Hebrew thought technical skills such as being able to write were thought of as a kind of wisdom. This clause may be rendered “God Most High also made the five men very skillful.”

And by turns they wrote what was dictated: For the verb dictated, see the introductory comments on this subsection.

In characters which they did not know: There are two problems in the Latin text of this verse. One problem is that it reads “nights” instead of characters. The difference between the Latin words for “nights” (noctis) and characters (notis) is small, and the correction made in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible is surely correct. Another problem is that the Latin phrase translated by turns (ex succesione) is in a strange place if it refers to the men writing by turns. We can take it with characters; for example, Myers (page 320) translates “in a series of characters which they did not understand.” He notes that his translation is supported by the Syriac, while the Armenian supports Revised Standard Version‘s approach. The Latin text is remarkably unclear here, but our best judgment is that the grammatically awkward phrase ex succesione notis means simply “an alphabet,” that is, a series of letters. According to this interpretation, there is nothing said about the five men taking turns to write (so Revised Standard Version, Good News Bible). This reference to a new alphabet probably refers to a historical event. Sometime about the time of Ezra, the Hebrew language came to be written in the alphabet familiar to us today. Earlier another form was used.

They sat forty days, and wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night: For forty days the five men wrote during the day and ate during the night. Here the Latin word for bread refers to food in general, not just to bread.

Here is an alternative model for this verse:

• God Most High gave skill to the five men with me. They wrote what I dictated, using an alphabet that they did not know.* For forty days they did this, writing during the day and eating at night.
* They wrote … did not know: This sentence is unclear in Latin.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on 1-2 Esdras. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2019. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.