(23) The king's commandment.--It seems that Artaxerxes had gone beyond the exemption of Ezra 7:24, and given them a daily allowance, which it was the business of Uzzi to see to.

Verse 23. - For it was the king's commandment concerning them. Artaxerxes, it appears, had assigned a certain stipend from the royal revenue for the support of such Levites as were singers, and this stipend had to be paid to them day by day. It is suggested as the grounds for this special favour -

1. That the Levites engaged in the choral service were regarded as those especially who prayed "for the life of the king and of his sons" (Ezra 6:10); and,

2. That the singing Levites who returned from Babylon, being so few in number (128), had to be constantly on duty in the temple, and so needed a regular daily stipend. The nexus of this verse with the preceding one imp!ice that the payment in question was an important part of the internal business of the house committed to Uzzi.

11:1-36 The distribution of the people. - In all ages, men have preferred their own ease and advantage to the public good. Even the professors of religion too commonly seek their own, and not the things of Christ. Few have had such attachment to holy things and holy places, as to renounce pleasure for their sake. Yet surely, our souls should delight to dwell where holy persons and opportunities of spiritual improvement most abound. If we have not this love to the city of our God, and to every thing that assists our communion with the Saviour, how shall we be willing to depart hence; to be absent from the body, that we may be present with the Lord? To the carnal-minded, the perfect holiness of the New Jerusalem would be still harder to bear than the holiness of God's church on earth. Let us seek first the favour of God, and his glory; let us study to be patient, contented, and useful in our several stations, and wait, with cheerful hope, for admission into the holy city of God.For it was the king's commandment concerning them,.... Either of King David as some, see Nehemiah 12:24 or rather of the king of Persia:

that a certain portion should be for the singers, due for every day; he settled a daily salary for them, to be paid out of his treasury; having perhaps a peculiar respect for such sort of men, being a lover of music, by means of which they had a settled habitation in Jerusalem.