However, the sons of the exile made the Passover, etc. What was the point of recounting the celebration of the Passover after the house of the Lord was built in the historical narrative? When it had long been promised that from the first day of their arrival in Jerusalem, they would offer the legitimate sacrifices and holocausts in all the festivals of the Lord. Unless perhaps he wished to recount the Passover being celebrated particularly to remind the reader that the sons of the exile completed the building of the temple with the same devotion of spirit with which they had begun. For it was already predicted there that the people gathered as one man in Jerusalem, and Joshua the son of Jozadak rose up, and his brothers, the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brothers, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it. And now, with the temple dedicated, already in the forty-sixth year, the same piety of religion is remembered to be in the hearts of all, when it is said that the priests and Levites were purified as one, all clean to sacrifice the Passover. For what greater perfection can there be in this life than the unity of a clean multitude? For there were many priests, many thousands of Levites, who were all purified and clean to sacrifice the Passover. Nor with differing intentions of souls, but, as Luke writes about the early Church of the New Testament, with one heart and one soul, which is found true in faith and love of God, nor is there a differing unity of love and chastity in the people. When it is said to sacrifice the Passover to all the sons of the exile and their brothers, the priests, and to themselves, it is immediately added:
[AD 735] Bede on Ezra 6:19