C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Ezra 3:5-6

Ezr 3:5-6

And afterward, i.e., after the feast of tabernacles, they offered the continual, i.e., the daily, burnt-offering, and (the offerings) for the new moon, and all the festivals of the Lord (the annual feasts). עלות must be inserted from the context before לחדשׁים to complete the sense. “And for every one that willingly offered a free-will offering to the Lord.” נדבה is a burnt-offering which was offered from free inclination. Such offerings might be brought on any day, but were chiefly presented at the annual festivals after the sacrifices prescribed by the law; comp. Num 29:39. - In Ezr 3:6 follows the supplementary remark, that the sacrificial worship began from the first day of the seventh month, but that the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. This forms a transition to what follows.Bertheau, comparing Ezr 3:6 with Ezr 3:5, incorrectly interprets it as meaning: “From the first day of the seventh month the offering of thank-offerings began (comp. Ezr 3:2); then, from the fifteenth day of the second month, during the feast of tabernacles, the burnt-offerings prescribed by the law (Ezr 3:4); but the daily burnt-offerings were not recommenced till after the feast of tabernacles, etc. Hence it was not from the first day of the seventh month, but subsequently to the feast of tabernacles, that the worship of God, so far as this consisted in burnt-offerings, was fully restored.” The words of the cursive manuscript, however, do not stand in the text, but their opposite. In Ezr 3:2, not thank-offerings (זבהים or שׁלמים), but burnt-offerings (עלות), are spoken of, and indeed those prescribed in the law, among which the daily morning and evening burnt-offering, expressly named in Ezr 3:3, held the first place. With this, Ezr 3:5, “After the feast of tabernacles they offered the continual burnt-offering, and the burnt-offerings for the new moon,” etc., fully harmonizes. The offering of the continual, i.e., of the daily, burnt-offerings, besides the new moon, the feast-days, and the free-will offerings, is named again merely for the sake of completeness. The right order is, on the contrary, as follows: The altar service, with the daily morning and evening sacrifice, began on the first day of the seventh month; this daily sacrifice was regularly offered, according to the law, from then till the fifteenth day of the second month, i.e., till the beginning of the feast of tabernacles; all the offerings commanded in the law for the separate days of this feast were then offered according to the numbers prescribed; and after this festival the sacrifices ordered at the new moon and the other holy days of the year were offered, as well as the daily burnt-offerings, - none but these, neither the sacrifice on the new moon (the first day of the seventh month) nor the sin-offering on the tenth day of the same month, i.e., the day of atonement, having been offered before this feast of tabernacles.