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Ezra 5: What the Passage Says

65 claims across 17 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Ezra 5 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The prophets Haggai and Zechariah urge the Jews on, and Zerubbabel and Jeshua restart work on the house of God in Jerusalem. Tattenai, the Persian governor of the region west of the Euphrates, and his officials come and demand to know who authorized the building, and they take down the names of the leaders. The builders answer that they serve the God of heaven and earth and that King Cyrus had ordered the rebuilding and returned the temple articles through Sheshbazzar. The officials write all this to King Darius and ask him to search the royal records in Babylon and send back his decision.

Claim by Claim

  1. 5:1
    • Haggai the prophet prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem.
    • Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem.
    • They prophesied in the name of the God of Israel.
    • The closing phrase is ambiguous: either the God of Israel was over those Jews, or the prophesying was directed upon them.
  2. 5:2
    • Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel rose up.
    • Jeshua son of Jozadak rose up.
    • They began to build the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
    • The prophets of God were with them, helping them.
  3. 5:3
    • At that same time Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, came to them.
    • Shethar-bozenai came with him.
    • Their associates came with them.
    • They said to them: Who issued you a decree to build this house?
    • They asked who issued them a decree to finish this structure.
    • The word rendered 'wall' denotes a structure or building-work whose exact sense is uncertain.
  4. 5:4
    • The writers said to them in this manner: What are the names of the men who are constructing this building?
  5. 5:5
    • The eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews.
    • The officials did not make them stop.
    • They did not stop them until the matter should go to Darius.
    • Then a written reply concerning this matter was returned.
  6. 5:6
    • This is the copy of a letter sent to Darius the king.
    • Tattenai, governor of the province Beyond the River, sent it.
    • Shethar-bozenai sent it.
    • His associates the Apharsachite officials, who were in the province Beyond the River, sent it.
  7. 5:7
    • They sent a report to Darius.
    • This is what was written in it.
    • The letter opened: To Darius the king, all peace.
  8. 5:8
    • The letter said: Let it be known to the king that we went to the province of Judah.
    • They went to the house of the great God.
    • That house is being built with great stones.
    • Timber is being laid in the walls.
    • That work is being done diligently.
    • The work is prospering in their hands.
  9. 5:9
    • The writers said: Then we asked those elders.
    • They said to them: Who issued you a decree to build this house?
    • They asked who issued them a decree to finish this structure.
  10. 5:10
    • They also asked the elders their names.
    • They asked the names in order to inform the king.
    • Their purpose was to write down the names of the men at the head of them.
  11. 5:11
    • The elders returned this answer.
    • They said: We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth.
    • They said: We are building the house that was built many years before this.
    • They said: A great king of Israel built it and completed it.
  12. 5:12
    • The elders said: our fathers provoked the God of heaven to wrath.
    • Because of that, God gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean.
    • Nebuchadnezzar destroyed this house.
    • Nebuchadnezzar carried the people away into exile to Babylon.
  13. 5:13
    • In the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king issued a decree.
    • The decree was to build this house of God.
  14. 5:14
    • There were gold and silver vessels belonging to the house of God.
    • Nebuchadnezzar had taken those vessels out of the temple in Jerusalem.
    • Nebuchadnezzar had brought them to the temple in Babylon.
    • Cyrus the king took those vessels out of the temple of Babylon.
    • The vessels were delivered to a man named Sheshbazzar.
    • Cyrus had appointed Sheshbazzar governor.
  15. 5:15
    • Cyrus said to him: Take these vessels.
    • Cyrus said: Go and deposit them in the temple that is in Jerusalem.
    • Cyrus said: Let the house of God be built on its site.
  16. 5:16
    • Then that Sheshbazzar came.
    • He laid the foundations of the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
    • From that time until now it has been under construction.
    • It is not finished.
  17. 5:17
    • The letter said: Now, if it seems good to the king, let a search be made.
    • The search is to be made in the king's treasure house there in Babylon.
    • The search is to determine whether a decree was issued by Cyrus the king to build this house of God in Jerusalem.
    • The writers ask the king to send them his decision concerning this matter.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1
Haggai and Zechariah are the two prophets whose short books survive in the Old Testament; their dated oracles place this around 520 BC, roughly eighteen years after the first exiles returned from Babylon. The KJV's trailing "even unto them" is a stiff rendering of an Aramaic phrase that most now read as "who was over them": that is, the God whose name they invoked was the God who had authority over these Jews.
5:2
Zerubbabel was the Persian-appointed governor of the district of Judah and a descendant of the kings of Judah; Jeshua was the high priest. "The house of God" throughout this chapter means the Jerusalem temple, destroyed by the Babylonians and now being rebuilt on its old site.
5:3
"On this side the river" translates the Aramaic name of a Persian administrative super-province, Beyond-the-River (everything west of the Euphrates, including Syria, Phoenicia and Judah. The name is fixed from the viewpoint of the Persian court in the east, so "this side" and "beyond" both mean the western side. Tattenai was its governor, senior to the local governor of Judah. "To make up this wall" renders an Aramaic word of uncertain meaning) perhaps panelling, woodwork, or a structural framework. The officials are asking about some specific part of the building, not the city wall.
5:4
The KJV "then said we" is startling because the narrative has been in the third person. The Aramaic text does read "we," and some ancient versions read "they" instead. Either the writer has slipped into quoting the officials' own report ahead of time, or an original "they said" was miscopied. Translations differ; the ambiguity is in the manuscripts.
5:5
"The eye of their God was upon them" is a Hebrew and Aramaic idiom for watchful protection, not for surveillance or judgment. Darius is Darius I, king of Persia from 522 to 486 BC.
5:6
"Apharsachites" is the KJV's transliteration of an Aramaic word that is probably not an ethnic name at all but an official title, inspectors or envoys of some kind. Its precise sense is unknown.
5:7
"All peace" is the standard opening courtesy of an Aramaic official letter, roughly "greetings" or "we wish you complete wellbeing." From Ezra 4:8 to 6:18 the book is written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, Aramaic was the working language of Persian imperial administration, and this section is built around copies of official correspondence.
5:8
"Province" here means a Persian administrative district; Judah was a small unit within the larger province of Beyond-the-River. The description of large dressed stones with timber beams laid into the courses is a recognized building technique of the period, used for monumental work; the officials are noting that this is substantial, permanent construction, not a repair.
5:10
The names would go into the report as the men accountable for the project. If Darius ruled against them, the list is who would face the consequences.
5:11
"A great king of Israel" is Solomon, who built the first temple roughly four centuries earlier.
5:12
"Chaldean" was the name of the tribal group from southern Mesopotamia that supplied Babylon's ruling dynasty; by this period it functions as a near-synonym for Babylonian. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple and deported much of the population in 587/586 BC.
5:13
Cyrus was king of Persia, but he is called "king of Babylon" because he captured Babylon in 539 BC and took over its royal titles; Persian kings held the Babylonian kingship alongside their own. His "first year" therefore means his first year as ruler of Babylon, 538 BC.
5:14
The "vessels" are the gold and silver utensils used in temple worship. Conquerors routinely deposited captured sacred objects in the temple of their own god as a display of victory, so returning them was a deliberate reversal of that act. Sheshbazzar is called governor here and credited with laying the foundation; elsewhere Zerubbabel is credited with the same work. Whether Sheshbazzar is an earlier, separate official, or another name for Zerubbabel, is disputed and the text does not settle it.
5:15
"In his place" means on the temple's original site, rebuilding on the same ground mattered, since the location of an altar or sanctuary was not treated as interchangeable.
5:16
This answer compresses about eighteen years into one sentence. The foundation was laid soon after the return in 538 BC, work stalled almost immediately, and it only restarted in 520 BC when Haggai and Zechariah began speaking. Saying it has been "in building" ever since presents a long shutdown as continuous work.
5:17
The "treasure house" is the royal archive, where treasure and documents were stored together. Babylon was one of the Persian kings' administrative capitals, so the decree of Cyrus would plausibly be filed there. "Send his pleasure" simply means send his decision, "pleasure" in 1611 English meant what one wills or determines, not enjoyment.

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