Also: This adverb, which represents the Hebrew connective conjunction, indicates that the list continues from the preceding verses, and at the same time it sets it off because the legitimacy of the priests was even more important than the legitimacy of the ordinary people that were listed before. It was considered that if a person was not of true priestly descent, his participation in the Temple ceremonies would make the Temple ritually unclean and would contaminate the community.
Three names are cited for the sons of the priests but no total number is recorded. Habaiah is unknown apart from this reference. Hakkoz was a priest during the reign of King David (1 Chr 24.10). His line was apparently reinstated since one of his descendants, Meremoth, served as a priest in Jerusalem (Ezra 8.33; Neh 3.4, 21). Barzillai had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite, a nobleman from Gilead who lived at the time of King David (2 Sam 19.31-39). There is no other example in the Old Testament of a man who is called by the name of his wife’s family. A priest would become disqualified by receiving an inheritance from his wife’s family because priests were forbidden to have a share of the land (Num 18.20). Good News Translation expands the information about Barzillai into a full sentence to explain the origin of the name Barzillai. This is a cultural detail that can be made explicit as follows: “Barzillai was not his original name. He had taken the name of his [father-]in-law who was from Gilead.” Both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation set off this information about Barzillai in parentheses to indicate that it is a type of editorial comment. New Jerusalem Bible uses a dash to mark off this information.
These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there: Whether the meaning of the Hebrew is that they searched unsuccessfully for their own names in documents of recorded family ancestries as Revised Standard Version interprets it (also New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Bible en français courant), or that they searched for their own family documents and were unable to find them as New International Version translates it (also New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible de Jérusalem, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Nouvelle version Segond révisée), the meaning is essentially the same. Official evidence of their ancestry could not be found and therefore they “could not prove that they were priests” (Contemporary English Version).
Genealogies were kept by families in documents with the listing of family ancestors. Those who could not prove their lineage were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. They were not permitted to perform any priestly duties because they were considered to be ritually impure and would pollute whatever they touched. This was not being dirty in a physical sense but in a religious or spiritual sense. In some cultures the expression “not being clean” may be used but with an indication that it has a religious meaning; for example, “the way of themselves was not clean.”
They were excluded is a general statement of principle. It does not indicate who enforced the rule, but in the following verse the governor does so. If the receptor language does not use passive verbal constructions, an indefinite third person plural as subject may be used, for example, “people excluded them,” or another linguistic device may be used to avoid identifying a definite subject.
Good News Translation restructures verses 61-62 into shorter and more natural sentences in English. It also separates verse 62 from verse 63 as distinct sentences, so that they are easier to read and understand. Translators should do similarly in their languages to simplify reading and understanding.
Quoted with permission from Noss, Philip A. and Thomas, Kenneth J. A Handbook on Ezra. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2005. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .