A further instruction is given to the treasurers: We also notify you. This is a plural masculine participle of the verb “to cause to know.” The king implicitly refers to himself in the plural, as Revised Standard Version renders it. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates “In addition, we inform you” This can also be expressed in the formal language of court orders: “You are further informed.”

It shall not be lawful to impose tribute: The sense here is that the treasurers are not authorized to collect taxes from certain categories of people. They “have no authority to impose taxes” (New International Version) on people who are associated with religious service. This may be stated “you have no power to collect taxes” or “the way is not open to you to impose taxes.”

The meaning of the verb impose is “to require, to exact, to take.” In this context it means “to collect taxes” (so Good News Translation) or “to require the people to pay taxes.”

Tribute, custom or toll: See the comments at Ezra 4.13, 20. In accordance with the practice of the Persian kings elsewhere, all temple personnel were to be exempt from taxes. Ironically, what Rehum and Shimshai predicted in their letter in chapter 4, now comes to take place through the decree of the king himself.

Any one of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God: See verse 7 above. This is the only time that doorkeepers is used in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. It translates the Aramaic word for “gatekeepers” (see the comments on Ezra 2.42), so many versions translate it as “gatekeepers” (New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible), or they use a general term that applies to gates or doors (so Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). The other servants probably refers to the “sons of Solomon’s servants” in Ezra 2.55.

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 .