Ezra 6:15

The date here given is the 3rd of Adar (the 12th month) in the 6th year of Darius (516 515). The month Adar is about equivalent to our March. The name seems to be derived from an Assyrian god -Adar", which appears in such names as Adrammelech. Haggai (Haggai 1:15) mentions that the work had been recommenced on the 24th day of the 6th month (Elul = September) in the 2nd year of Darius. It had therefore been going on for nearly 4½ years. But the foundations had been laid twenty years previously, b.c. 536 (see Ezra 3:8).

Another date, the 23rd of Adar, is given in Esther 7:5. To account for this variation, it has been suggested that the last 8 days of the year would to a scribe seem best suited for the celebration of such a festival as that of the dedication (compare the 8 days in 2 Chronicles 29:17). In order that the regular services of the Temple might seem to have been resumed with the new year, he represented this festival as commencing on the 23rd of the 12th month. This is almost too ingenious. Either the figure -twenty" has accidentally been omitted in the text of our verse, or, as seems equally probable (since the LXX. supports the Hebrew text here), the composer of 1 Esdras has mistaken some letter for the symbol or contraction which represented the number.