239, a, note, Olshausen, Lehrb. d. hebr. Spr. p. 150, and Böttcher, ausf. Lehrb. der hebr. Spr. i. 1, p. 162, note, unanimously agree.
Verse 17
And they made an end with all, with respect to the men who had brought home strange wives. בּכּל (with the article) cannot be so connected with אנשׁים, from which it is separated by the accentuation of the latter, as to admit of the repetition, as by older expositors, of the preposition בּ before אנשׁים: with all, namely, with the men. Still less can בּכּל, as Bertheau thinks, be taken in the sense of “in every place,” and אנשׁים connected as an accusative with ויכלּוּ: they finished in every place the men (!); for כּלּה with an accusative of the person signifies to annihilate, to make an end of, while ב כּלּה means to finish, to make an end with, comp. Gen 44:12. If, as the accentuation requires, we take בּכּל independently, אנשׁים can only be an accusative of more exact definition: in respect of the men (אנשׁים being without the article, because words which define it follow). As this gives a suitable meaning, it seems unnecessary to alter the punctuation and read בּכל־אנשׁים, or with Ewald, §290, c, note 1, to regard אנשׁים בּכּל as a singular combination. - Till the first day of the first month (of the next year), therefore in three months, their sittings having begun, according to Ezr 10:13, on the first day of the tenth month. - The account of this transaction closes with -The list of the men who had taken strange wives, vv. 18-44; among whom were priests (Ezr 10:18-22), Levites (Ezr 10:23, Ezr 10:24), and Israelites, i.e., laymen (vv. 25-43).
Verses 18-22
Among the priests there stand first, four names of sons and brethren of the high priest Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, who returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel. אחיו, his (Jeshua's) brethren. Judging by Ezr 2:36, these were among the descendants of Jedaiah, a section of the house of the high-priestly family (see rem. on Ezr 2:36), and were therefore distant cousins of the high priest. They gave their hands, i.e., bound themselves by shaking hands, to put away their wives, i.e., to dismiss them, and to sever them from the congregation of Israel, ואשׁמים, “and guilty a ram for their trespass,” i.e., condemned to bring a ram as a trespass-offering. ואשׁמים
