The Letter of Artaxerxes
11 Now this is the copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, even the scribe of the words of Yahweh’s commandments, and of his statutes to Israel: 12 Artaxerxes, king of kings, To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the perfect God of heaven. Now 13 I make a decree that all those of the people of Israel and their priests and the Levites in my realm, who intend of their own free will to go to Jerusalem, go with you. 14 Because you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, according to the law of your God which is in your hand, 15 and to carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem, 16 and all the silver and gold that you will find in all the province of Babylon, with the free will offering of the people and of the priests, offering willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem. 17 Therefore you shall with all diligence buy with this money bulls, rams, and lambs with their meal offerings and their drink offerings, and shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. 18 Whatever seems good to you and to your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, do that according to the will of your God. 19 The vessels that are given to you for the service of the house of your God, deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20 Whatever more will be needed for the house of your God, which you may have occasion to give, give it out of the king’s treasure house.
A Persian king writes to a Jewish scribe about the God of heaven, and funds a mission he leaves Ezra to spend as he judges.
The fourth document quoted in the book opens with the grandest self-description in it: Artaxerxes, king of kings. And the address is equally deliberate — to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the perfect God of heaven.
What a Persian court believed is not the book's subject, but the wording is preserved: the God of Israel is called perfect, and Ezra's authority is described in terms of that God's law rather than of royal appointment.
The first provision is voluntary, as Cyrus's had been Ezra 1:3: all those who intend of their own free will to go to Jerusalem, go with you. Nobody is conscripted into a return.
The commission itself is stated in verse 14, and the phrase at its end is the one that matters: Ezra is sent to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, according to the law of your God which is in your hand.
That is a standard being handed authority. The empire is not asking Ezra to apply Persian law to a province; it is instructing him to assess the province by its own scriptures — and the phrase in your hand means he is carrying the text with him. The book's hand image, used of God's action throughout, is here used of a scroll.
The funding then arrives in layers. Silver and gold which the king and his counselors have freely offered; whatever more can be raised in all the province of Babylon; and the free will offerings of people and priests.
The instructions for spending it start specific — buy with this money bulls, rams, and lambs with their meal offerings and their drink offerings — and then stop being instructions at all.
Whatever seems good to you and to your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, do that according to the will of your God.
A king hands over an unaudited surplus and names someone else's God as the criterion for spending it. And verse 20 extends the line of credit: whatever more will be needed for the house of your God... give it out of the king's treasure house.
The man carrying that letter had every reason to be careful about money, and the next chapter shows him weighing it twice in front of witnesses Ezra 8:26.
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