Ezra 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Enemies of Judah and Benjamin offer to help build the temple, and Zerubbabel and the other leaders refuse them. Those neighbors then work to discourage the builders and hire officials against them, from the reign of Cyrus into the reign of Darius. The chapter then records letters of complaint sent to Persian kings, including a full letter from Rehum and Shimshai to Artaxerxes warning that a rebuilt Jerusalem will stop paying taxes and slip out of royal control. Artaxerxes orders the work halted, and construction on the house of God stops until the second year of Darius.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard a report.
   • The report was that the returned exiles were building a temple.
   • The temple was being built for the LORD, the God of Israel.
2. 4:2
   • The adversaries approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the fathers' houses.
   • They asked to build together with them.
   • They said they sought the God of Judah as the people of Judah did.
   • They said they had been sacrificing to him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria.
   • They said Esarhaddon king of Assyria had brought them up to that place.
3. 4:3
   • Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the fathers' houses of Israel answered them.
   • They said the adversaries had no part with them in building a house for their God.
   • They said they themselves alone would build for the LORD, the God of Israel.
   • They said Cyrus king of Persia had commanded them to build.
4. 4:4
   • The people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah.
   • The people of the land frightened them away from building.
5. 4:5
   • They hired counselors against the people of Judah.
   • The counselors were hired to frustrate the plan of the people of Judah.
   • This continued all the days of Cyrus king of Persia.
   • This continued until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
6. 4:6
   • In the reign of Ahasuerus, at the beginning of his reign, an accusation was written.
   • The accusation was written to him.
   • The accusation was against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.
7. 4:7
   • In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions wrote.
   • They wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia.
   • The writing of the letter was written in Aramaic.
   • The letter was translated into Aramaic.
8. 4:8
   • Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem.
   • The letter was written to Artaxerxes the king.
   • What follows is the wording of that letter.
9. 4:9
   • Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions wrote.
   • Their companions included the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites.
10. 4:10
    • The senders also included the rest of the peoples whom the great and noble Asnappar deported.
    • Asnappar settled those peoples in the city of Samaria.
    • The senders also included the rest of those in the region beyond the River.
11. 4:11
    • What follows is the copy of the letter they sent to Artaxerxes the king.
    • The senders called themselves the king's servants, the men beyond the River.
12. 4:12
    • The letter says the king should know that the Jews who came up from him have come to them at Jerusalem.
    • The letter says those Jews are rebuilding the rebellious and wicked city.
    • The letter says they have completed the walls.
    • The letter says they have repaired the foundations.
13. 4:13
    • The letter says the king should now know something further.
    • The letter says that if this city is rebuilt and its walls completed, the people will not pay tribute, duty, or toll.
    • The letter says that this would damage the revenue of kings.
14. 4:14
    • The senders say they eat the salt of the palace.
    • The senders say it is not fitting for them to look on the king's dishonor.
    • The senders say that for this reason they have sent and informed the king.
15. 4:15
    • The letter asks that a search be made in the book of records of the king's fathers.
    • The letter says the king will find in the book of records and learn that this city is a rebellious city.
    • The letter says the city is harmful to kings and provinces.
    • The letter says sedition has been stirred up within it from ancient days.
    • The letter says the city was destroyed for that reason.
16. 4:16
    • The senders inform the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls completed, the king will have no portion beyond the River.
17. 4:17
    • The king sent a reply.
    • The reply was sent to Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions who dwell in Samaria.
    • The reply was also sent to the rest of those beyond the River.
    • The reply greeted them with peace.
18. 4:18
    • The king says the letter they sent has been read before him, either plainly or in translation.
19. 4:19
    • The king says he issued a command.
    • The king says a search was made.
    • The king says it was found that this city has risen against kings from ancient days.
    • The king says rebellion and sedition have been made in it.
20. 4:20
    • The king says mighty kings have been over Jerusalem.
    • The king says those kings ruled over all the region beyond the River.
    • The king says tribute, duty, and toll were paid to them.
21. 4:21
    • The king commands them to issue an order to make these men cease.
    • The king commands that this city not be rebuilt until a command is given by him.
22. 4:22
    • The king warns them not to be negligent in doing this.
    • The king asks why damage should increase to the hurt of kings.
23. 4:23
    • The copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their companions.
    • They went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews.
    • They made the Jews cease by force and power.
24. 4:24
    • The work of the house of God at Jerusalem ceased.
    • It remained stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

Judah and Benjamin were the two tribes of the southern kingdom, whose leading families had been deported to Babylon about seventy years earlier. "The people who had returned from exile" are those who came back under Persian rule; throughout Ezra they are treated as a distinct group from those who had stayed in the land.

4:2

Assyria's kings regularly broke up conquered nations by deporting them and resettling them far from home, so that no population could easily rebel. Esarhaddon ruled Assyria roughly 681–669 BC. The speakers are descendants of peoples moved into the territory of the old northern kingdom of Israel after Assyria destroyed it, and their claim is that they have worshiped Israel's God since being settled there.

4:3

Zerubbabel was the Persian-appointed governor of Judah and a descendant of its former kings; Jeshua was the high priest. Cyrus, who conquered Babylon in 539 BC, had issued a decree allowing the exiles to return and rebuild the temple, the order referred to here.

4:4

"The people already living in the land" translates a fixed phrase, "the people of the land," which in Ezra means the mixed population that had remained in or been settled in the region during the exile, as opposed to the returning exiles.

4:5

Paying advisers means retaining officials at the Persian court to argue against the project, bribery of well-placed insiders, not hiring consultants. Cyrus died in 530 BC; Darius I came to the throne in 522 BC.

4:6

Ahasuerus is the Hebrew form of the name of the Persian king known in Greek sources as Xerxes I, who reigned 486–465 BC. He is the same king who appears in the book of Esther.

4:7

Artaxerxes I reigned 465–424 BC. Aramaic was the everyday administrative language of the Persian Empire, so official correspondence was written in it. From the next verse to chapter 6 the book of Ezra itself switches out of Hebrew and into Aramaic, apparently quoting official documents in the language they were filed in.

4:8

"Chancellor" and "scribe" are Persian administrative ranks, not church offices. A scribe at this level was a senior government secretary who drafted and archived official correspondence, a position of real power, not a copyist.

4:9

This list of peoples is obscure even to specialists: several of the names are found nowhere else, and translators disagree about whether some of them are ethnic groups, place names, or titles of Persian officials. They are the resettled populations of the province, listed as co-signers of the letter.

4:10

Asnappar is generally taken to be the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 669–627 BC). Samaria was the capital of the former northern kingdom and by this time the name of the surrounding Persian district. "The land west of the Euphrates" (literally "Beyond the River") was the official name of the Persian province covering Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, the view is from the imperial capital in the east. "And now" is a standard formula in Aramaic letters marking the end of the address and the start of the message.

4:11

Persian letters followed a fixed form: the king's name, then the senders describing themselves as "thy servants", then the business. Calling yourself the king's servant was standard politeness, not a statement about your job.

4:12

City walls were the point at issue: an unwalled town could not hold out against imperial troops, so permission to fortify a city was a political decision, not a building matter.

4:13

Tribute, duty and toll are three distinct Persian taxes, roughly a fixed levy on the province, a tax on produce or property, and charges on goods in transit.

4:14

The Aramaic idiom is "we eat the salt of the palace." Sharing salt stood for a binding obligation between a master and his dependants, so the phrase means both that they are on the royal payroll and that they owe the king loyalty.

4:15

Persian kings kept extensive written archives of decrees and reports, and appeals to "search the records" occur elsewhere in the book. The destruction referred to is the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

4:16

"Thou shalt have no portion on this side the river" is a threat about the whole province of Syria and Palestine, not just Jerusalem: let this one city fortify itself, the officials argue, and the king loses the region.

4:17

"Greetings" renders the standard opening of an Aramaic official letter, literally "peace," followed by the same "and now" formula that introduces the body of the message.

4:18

The Aramaic word can mean either that the letter was read aloud clearly or that it was translated as it was read; both senses are possible here, and ancient documents were normally read aloud in any case.

4:20

A reference to the reigns of David and Solomon, when kings in Jerusalem controlled territory stretching well to the north and east, the same region the Persians now administered as the province Beyond the River.

4:21

The wording matters: the king suspends the work rather than banning it forever, leaving himself room to reopen the case later. Nehemiah, serving the same king, eventually gets that second order.

4:23

The letter and reply in verses 6–23 concern the rebuilding of the city and its walls under later kings, decades after the events of verses 1–5. The chapter groups its material by subject, opposition to rebuilding, rather than in strict order of date.

4:24

Verse 24 picks up the thread from verse 5. The second year of Darius I is about 520 BC, roughly sixteen years after the returned exiles first laid the temple foundation.