Ezra 10:6

The chamber of Johanan. As to the Temple chambers, see on chapter 8:29. On Johanan, see Additional Note on chapter 7. This Johanan seems to have been the grandson of Eliashib (Neh. 12:22, 23), high priest in Nehemiah’s time (Neh. 13:4, 5). The Elephantine papyri attest that Johanan was high priest in 410 B.C. He already had a “chamber” in the Temple, and must therefore have been more than 20 years old at the time (see on Ezra 3:8). The objection of some commentators to identifying Johanan of this text with the one mentioned by Nehemiah and in the Elephantine papyri is not well founded.

He did eat no bread. Strict fasts of this kind were twice observed by Moses (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:18), and similarly by the inhabitants of Nineveh (Jonah 3:7), but they were not common. It was usually considered sufficient to abstain from eating (1 Samuel 1:7; 2 Samuel 3:35). Sometimes the person who fasted merely abstained from “pleasant bread,” “flesh,” and “wine” (Daniel 10:3). Ezra’s great earnestness appears in the severity of his fast. Ezra’s mourning in the office of Johanan, following the response of the people, clearly reveals that his previous emotional acts were the spontaneous expression of genuine horror, and not a well-planned theatrical performance, as some commentators have suggested.