King Cyrus also brought out the articles belonging to the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the temple of his gods. Cyrus king of Persia had them brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. This was the inventory: 30 gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes, 29 silver utensils, 30 gold bowls, 410 matching silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles. In all, there were 5,400 gold and silver articles. Sheshbazzar brought all these along when the exiles went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.
As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD.
Significance
Second Kings 24:13 records that Nebuchadnezzar "cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD" and "carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD" (כְּלֵי בֵּית יְהוָה). Ezra 1:7-11 reverses this event: Cyrus "brought out the articles belonging to the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem." The detailed inventory of 5,400 articles in Ezra demonstrates that what was lost in judgment has been restored in mercy. The narrative arc from 2 Kings' account of temple despoliation to Ezra's account of temple vessel restoration traces YHWH's faithfulness through the exile and back. Ezra's inventory even breaks the total down by type—30 gold dishes, 1,000 silver dishes, 29 knives, 30 gold bowls, 410 matching silver bowls, and 1,000 other articles—underscoring the meticulous, item-by-item nature of this restoration.
