Nehemiah 8:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ezra the priest, &c.— This Ezra, without all controversy, was the same who came from Babylon in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. After the death of Zerubbabel, the whole administration devolved upon him; but as his commission lasted but twelve years, upon its expiration Nehemiah succeeded to the government; and we hear no more of Ezra, until he is here called upon to read and expound the law to the people. Whether, as some think, he returned to Babylon, to give the people an account of the affairs of the province of Judea, or whether in this intermediate time he employed himself in some retirement upon the great work of preparing a new and correct edition of the Holy Scriptures, which we are generally supposed to owe to his care, is not certain. The pulpit upon which he was raised, Nehemiah 8:4 must have been large, sufficient to contain fourteen people at once, and from this eminence they read and explained the law, Nehemiah 8:8. For the people, having for some time been accustomed to the Chaldee language, had partly lost the knowledge of the Hebrew; so that there was a necessity for having the law explained to them in the Chaldee tongue. And this was the origin of the institution of the Targums or Chaldee paraphrases, as it is also supposed to have been of the synagogue worship. See Univ. Hist. vol. 10: b. 2 p. 220.