Good News Translation marks the beginning of the letter with a new paragraph and with opening quotation marks, and also slightly indents the left margin of the whole letter. The original text of the letter is in Aramaic, which Nouvelle Bible Segond indicates by presenting it in italics. The letter itself begins with the name of the sender, Artaxerxes, along with the official title used by the Persian kings, king of kings (see also Ezek 26.7). The expression king of kings was used by Babylonian and Persian kings. This type of grammatical construction was also used in Hebrew texts to express the superlative; for example, “the song of songs” means “the most beautiful of songs.” Here the phrase may be translated as “the greatest of all kings” (Parole de Vie), “the king over all kings” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), or “the supreme ruler.”

This is followed by the name of the addressee, Ezra, with both his religious function and his official title. He is addressed as the priest and the scribe of the law of the God of heaven. The title scribe indicates that he has a position of official authority that he can exercise in Jerusalem. The word used here for law is a Persian loanword for customary law (dat in Aramaic) that has developed a wider meaning than its Persian use. Here it refers to the Torah, the Law revealed by God to Moses.

For the God of heaven, see the comments on Ezra 1.2.

At this point the Aramaic text has a word meaning “finished,” “complete,” or “perfect,” which has been left untranslated in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation. There are several theories about what this word means. Among them are the following:
1) “So be it,” which indicates that the decree has been given and is unalterable. This is the interpretation in the Septuagint with “The matter and the answer is finished” (so Revised English Bible “This is my decision”).
2) “The total contents are as follows,” which introduces the text of the authorization (so Fensham).
3) “Etc.,” which abbreviates a greeting or formula of address (so Chouraqui). Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives this interpretation a B rating and glosses it “and so forth” (also New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).

Some versions simply replace it with a word of greetings (New Revised Standard Version “Peace”; New International Version “Greetings”; also Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). The word of greetings is from 1 Esdras 8.9 and the Syriac version and may have been omitted in the Aramaic text. Osty-Trinquet combines the literal meaning of the word with a greeting, so it has “perfect [peace].” This Handbook recommends that it be translated as either “greetings” or “peace” (see the comments at Ezra 4.17).

And now: The Aramaic word that is translated by this expression is the usual word in official documents to introduce the content of the authorization (see the comments at Ezra 4.10, 11). Although it occurs in MT as the final word in verse 12, it actually introduces the letter itself and therefore New International Version brings it forward to the beginning of the next verse and renders it “Now.”

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 .