He came: In verse 8 MT has the singular form “he came,” but there is strong support in other Hebrew manuscripts and the Greek and Syriac versions for the plural “they came.” Good News Translation has followed this tradition (also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Since the subject of the passage is “Ezra” and the next verse refers to Ezra with a singular form of the same verb, it is advisable to keep the singular form in translation.

The repetition of seventh year in verses 7 and 8 is to indicate that the people arrived in Jerusalem in the same year that they departed from Babylonia.

Verse 9 gives the exact times of their departure and arrival. The first day of the first month was the first of the Babylonian month called Nisan. This day is the vernal equinox or first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The first day of the fifth month was the first of the month called Ab, which is in the middle of summer (see “Translating Ezra and Nehemiah,” pages 25-26). From Babylon to Jerusalem was a journey of about 1,300 kilometers (about 800 miles), so they traveled 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) a day on the average.

He began to go up from Babylonia: The Hebrew text says literally “that was the foundation of the going up from Babylon.” This is very awkward and has led to the assumption that the text has been corrupted. By changing the vowels in one word, it reads “he determined the going up from Babylon” (Septuagint), which New English Bible renders as “Ezra fixed the day for departure from Babylon.” The pronoun “he” in the Septuagint should be understood as referring to Ezra. New Revised Standard Version has “the journey up from Babylon was begun” (similarly New International Version; compare Good News Translation “They left Babylonia”). A problem with this translation is that the actual day of departure was the “twelfth day of the first month” (Ezra 8.31), a delay caused by the need to find more Levites to take the journey. Accordingly, it is better to say the time of the departure was “determined,” “fixed” or “set” to begin on the first day of the first month. The actual date of departure was two days before Passover and marked a new “exodus” from exile.

The good hand of his God was upon him: See the discussion on verses 6-7 above for the meaning of this expression, but here the text is more explicit. The writer has added the adjective good, which New Revised Standard Version translates as “gracious.” Bible en français courant restructures this idiom to refer to “the gracious protection that his God granted to him,” and Revised English Bible has “the favour of God was with him.” It may be translated with a similar natural expression in the receptor language, for example, “the hand of doing good of God was with him.”

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 .