Ezra 2:55 MEANING

(55) The children of Solomon's servants.--These are mentioned in 1 Kings 9 as a servile class, formed of the residue of the Canaanites. They were probably inferior to the Nethinims, but are generally classed with them, as in the general enumeration here. Both these classes retained during their captivity their attachment to the service into which they had been received; and, the Levites being so few, their value in the reconstitution of the Temple gave them the special importance they assume in these books.

Verse 55. - Solomon's servants. Solomon formed the remnant of the Canaanitish population which survived at his day into a separate servile class, which he employed in forced labours (1 Kings 9:20, 21). It would seem that the descendants of these persons, having been carried into captivity by the Chaldaeans, continued to form a distinct class, and had become attached to the sacerdotal order, as a body of hieroduli inferior even to the Nethinims. We may account for their special mention at this time by the importance of their services, when such a work as that of rebuilding the temple was about to be taken in hand.

2:36-63 Those who undervalue their relation to the Lord in times of reproach, persecution, or distress, will have no benefit from it when it becomes honourable or profitable. Those who have no evidence that they are, by the new birth, spiritual priests unto God, through Jesus Christ, have no right to the comforts and privileges of Christians.The Nethinims,.... Supposed by Aben Ezra and Jarchi to be the Gibeonites, who were "given" by Joshua, as the word Nethinims signifies, to the congregation, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; but rather were those that were given by David to assist the Levites; of these is an account from hence to the end of Ezra 2:58, together with those who descended from Solomon's servants, who seem to be the remains of the Canaanites in the land, whom Solomon made bondservants of, 1 Kings 9:20, who, and their posterity, became proselytes; or those sprung from men that were domestic servants of Solomon's, and valued themselves on that account; the number of the Nethinims and these together were three hundred ninety and two.