Ezra 4:6,7

Ezra 4:6 f. These are two stray verses which have been left in the text here by mistake. This offers a good example of the way in which fragments of sources are jumbled together in our book. Ezra 4:6 refers to a letter (the writer is not mentioned) written to Xerxes, who is not mentioned elsewhere in the book, containing an accusation, not specified, against the Jews. Ezra 4:7 refers to another letter written in Aramaic by Mithredath (mentioned in Ezra 1:8 as the treasurer of Cyrus) and others to Artaxerxes; but it does not say what the letter was about. In Ezra 4:5 we are in the reign of Cyrus, 536, and Darius, 521; in Ezra 4:6 at the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, 485; in Ezra 4:7 in the days of Artaxerxes, 464- 424; in Ezra 4:8 ff. again in the days of Artaxerxes, but a different letter from that referred to in Ezra 4:7 is dealt with. This shows the inextricable tangle in which these verses are as they now stand. Scholars have suggested a number of solutions, but they differ from each other considerably.