Now this is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the LORD, and of his statutes to Israel.
This is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave. The measure which this document authorized, and the remarkable interest in the Jews displayed in it, was most probably owing to the influence of Esther, the king's mother, who had imbued her son with favourable dispositions toward the Jews.