Ezra 4:14

have maintenance fromthe king's palace R.V. eat the salt of the palace; which preserves the metaphor of the original. The LXX. omitted the clause: Vulg. -memores salis, quod in palatio comedimus": Esther 2:20, -forasmuch as the things pertaining to the Temple are now on hand", which substitutes a different sentence for one that was not intelligible. The old Jewish translation -because we aforetime destroyed the Temple", adopted by many former commentators (cf. Luther, -Nun wir alle dabei sind, die wir den Tempel zerstöret haben"), seems to have been based upon the old symbolical custom of -sowing with salt" the site of a town or place that had been destroyed, e.g. Judges 9:45, and upon the idea of unfruitfulness associated with salt (cf. -a salt land and not inhabited", Jeremiah 17:6; Deuteronomy 29:23; Zephaniah 2:9; cf. Heb. Job 39:6; Psalms 107:34). Others, with the same conception, -we have salted (Jerusalem) with the salt of the palace", i.e. assisted the Imperial armies in its destruction. -The palace" in the original is the same word (-heycâl") as that used for -the temple" in Ezra 3:6; Ezra 5:14. The ambiguity of this word and the use of a rare metaphor has given rise to the difficulty of translation. Literally, the words mean -because we have salted the palace's salt". The explanation then will be not, as has been suggested, -because we have been entertained (guest friends, i.e. are the king's friends), at the palace", but -because we are in the king's service". The writers as representatives of colonies and dependent districts were very probably officials, and therefore members of the great network of Persian government.

The English word -salary" from salarium or salt-money is generally compared with this phrase.

andit was not meet R.V. and it is not meet.

dishonour literally -nakedness". A strong metaphor, which the LXX. ἀσχημοσύνη reproduces. Cf. Leviticus 18:7, &c. The order is emphatic, -and the shame of the king it is not meet for us to see". The Vulg. -læsiones" gives the technical Latin word for -damage" in a general sense.