For I was ashamed: As indicated by the connector For, the writer now explains the reasons for his actions. Ezra says he was ashamed, but since he did not actually make a request to the king for official protection, Good News Translation translates this with an implied conditional clause: “I would have been ashamed” (also Bible en français courant, New Jerusalem Bible). The verb “to be ashamed” is used twice in the book of Ezra (here and in 9.6), but it represents an important concept in Old Testament thought. Its meaning extends from shame to confusion and being confounded (compare Psa 22.5 [Revised Standard Version “disappointed”]; 25.2, 3, 20). The sense here is more than embarrassment because the issue is one of trust in God as opposed to fear of an enemy. It may be translated “I would have been humiliated” or “I would have been disgraced.” An idiomatic expression may be appropriate here; for example, “shame would have seized me,” “shame would have fallen on my head,” or “I would have become hot with shame.”
A band of soldiers and horsemen: Hebrew narrative style frequently uses pairs of near synonyms to emphasize a particular idea. Here the first expression a band of soldiers is a singular noun in Hebrew, meaning “power” or “force.” It is used here with the collective meaning of “a military force” or “an army.” The second word is the plural noun horsemen. Many translations mention both “soldiers” and “cavalry,” similarly to Revised Standard Version (so New International Version, Chouraqui). Other translations, however, consider the two nouns to refer to a single entity, as Good News Translation has done with “a troop of cavalry” (so New Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). This expression includes both soldiers and horses.
To protect us against the enemy: An armed escort would be able to keep other people from attacking them and from causing harm to them.
The Hebrew word for enemy is a participle from the verb “to be an enemy, to treat someone as an enemy.” The concept of enmity in the receptor language may be expressed by words that include a variety of components. For example, there may be personal enemies, political enemies, adversaries in war, people that one hates, powerful people who oppress the weak, and people who steal and rob from others. In this context enmity is not necessarily with reference to political enemies or to people whom the Jews also hated. Instead, it refers to people along the road they were going to travel who would rob them and cause them harm. Translators must take care to select the appropriate term in this context.
On our way: The Hebrew says “on the road”, that is, along the way that they were going to travel. Good News Translation restates this to refer to their “journey.”
We had told the king: Previous action is reported in English and in some other languages by the pluperfect tense. Ezra is here reporting in the form of direct quotation what he had previously said to the king. The Hebrew verb for told is a first person plural form, and most translations retain the collective we without indicating who is included with Ezra. If a distinction must be made in the receptor language, this is the first person plural exclusive pronoun.
The hand of our God is for good: This is virtually a literal translation of the Hebrew expression here (see verse 18 above). Good News Translation interprets God’s hand … for good as blessing and restructures the sentence accordingly. As in the earlier reference above, our has the meaning here of an inclusive pronoun form.
All who seek him: The verb seek means “to look for,” but here it is in a religious sense (see the comments on “worship” at Ezra 4.2). Good News Translation therefore says “everyone who trusts him,” while New International Version translates “everyone who looks to him.”
The power of his wrath is literally “his power and his wrath” (so New Revised Standard Version) Power and wrath are two words that occur together here in combination to express one meaning. The two words are sometimes translated separately with two essentially distinct meanings, as in Good News Translation “he is displeased with and punishes,” but often they are translated in a single grammatical construction. The first word may then be taken to modify the second as in Revised Standard Version. Some translations use an adjectival modifier for power in this expression, for example, “his mighty retribution” (New Jerusalem Bible) and “great is his anger” (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). This may also be expressed as “His intense anger falls upon” (Kalata ko Sɔ̃) or “he becomes greatly angry against.” For wrath see Ezra 7.23; 10.14.
All who forsake him: The opposite of seek him is forsake him. Those who do not “look to him,” “abandon him” (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible).
Ezra’s statement takes the form of a couplet in antithetical parallelism. This is a common pattern in Hebrew poetry in which two clauses occur one after the other, both expressing essentially the same idea. In this case the first clause makes a positive statement and the second clause makes a parallel statement from a different perspective. Ezra’s statement occurs in the form of direct speech (see the comment at Ezra 4.2). Good News Translation uses indirect quotation instead of direct quotation (also Contemporary English Version, Bible en français courant, New Revised Standard Version). Ezra quotes the words that he had told to the king before the events of this verse and the preceding verse took place. The translator must therefore be careful to indicate the chronology of the events in the verse through appropriate verb forms and discourse markers.
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 .