Ezra 4:7-23

Note on Ezra 4:7-23

The names of the Persian kings which occur in this chapter occasion special difficulty. Upon their right identification necessarily depends our understanding of the whole passage.

(a) The Persian kings succeed one another in the following order: (1) Cyrus (died, 529); (2) Cambyses, 529 522; (3) Gomates or Pseudo-Smerdis, 522; (4) Darius Hystaspes, 522 485; (5) Xerxes, 485 465; (6) Artaxerxes I. Longimanus, 465 425; (7, 8) Xerxes II. and Sogdianus; (9) Darius II. Nothus, 424 395, &c.

(b) In chap. Ezra 4:5 we learn that the work of building the Temple was frustrated by the Samaritans "all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia." Again in Ezra 4:24 (the work) -ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia". The work therefore was frustrated more or less (Ezra 5:16) between the years 536 520.

(c) In Ezra 4:6 is mentioned a letter of opposition to the Jews written -in the reign of Ahasuerus"; in Ezra 4:7 a letter to the same purport -in the days of Artaxerxes"; in Ezra 4:7; Ezra 4:9 another letter to Artaxerxes with Artaxerxes" reply.

(d) The name Ahasuerus (Heb. Akhashvêrosh) is admitted to be the same as Xerxes (Khshyarsha). It appears throughout the book Esther as well as in this verse (Ezra 4:6). The name in Hebrew Arta-khshasta (Ezra 4:7-8; Ezra 6:14; Ezra 7:1; Ezra 7:11; Ezra 7:21; Nehemiah 2:1; Nehemiah 5:14; Nehemiah 13:6) is clearly the name Artaxerxes.

(e) The question then arises how the names Xerxes and Artaxerxes occur in this passage, on either side of which stands the mention of the work of the Temple being stopped until the reign of Darius king of Persia; for that this Darius is Darius Hystaspes (521 485) and not Darius Nothus (424) is shown by the whole context and by chap. Ezra 5:1-5.

Only two answers to this question need come under discussion here.

(i) According to one view, the chronological sequence of the chapter is maintained. Ezra 4:5 is considered to be a brief compendium of the Samaritan opposition, which is then described in greater detail (6 23). The names Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes are assigned to the two kings Cambyses and Pseudo-Smerdis, who reigned between Cyrus and Darius. The advantage of this theory is obvious. The narrative flows smoothly on. The events of Ezra 4:6-23 amplify the statement of Ezra 4:5, and belong to the short period 529 521.

The objections that are presented (a) by the interchange of the names, (b) by the mention, in the letter, of the building of the city walls (Ezra 4:12; Ezra 4:16), rather than of the Temple, on which the Jews were at work (Ezra 4:1; Ezra 4:4; Ezra 4:14), have been met in the following way. (a) It is said that the names Xerxes and Artaxerxes are appellatives, like Pharaoh and Cæsar, which could be applied to any Persian monarch, e.g. Cambyses is called Artaxerxes by Josephus (Ant.ix. 2. 1). Furthermore it is argued that the Pseudo-Smerdis appears in history under several different names. (b) It is supposed that the Samaritans would represent the Jewish undertaking in the most hostile light, as aggressive fortification rather than Temple building; and it must be remembered that the outer walls and outworks of the Temple were always the strongest fortifications in the city.

On the other hand it seems fatal to this view that even if Xerxes and Artaxerxes are dynastic titles and not strictly names, no well-attested evidence is forthcoming of their promiscuous application. Josephus" history of this period is notoriously imperfect and inaccurate, and he, it is to be noted, calls Cambyses, Artaxerxes, although the defenders of this view hold that Cambyses is called Xerxes and Pseudo-Smerdis Artaxerxes. It is surely rather unfortunate, to say the least, that supposing the names to be interchangeable, the interchange is not found elsewhere, and cannot even be proved from Josephus, whose evidence is chiefly relied upon. But the fact is that neither the testimony of Josephus nor, we may add, of Jewish tradition can be relied on for this period of history. The Jewish tradition appended to Nehemiah in the Masoretic note gives -the years from the 1st year of Cyrus king of the Persians to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes the king," (i.e. from 538 433) as fifty-one:while Hebrew commentary gives the Persian kings as Darius the Mede (1 year), Cyrus his son (2 years), Ahasuerus (14 years), Cyrus his son called Artaxerxes (32 years). Nor is it more satisfactory to see how the Pseudo-Smerdis is identified with Artaxerxes. Gomates or the Pseudo-Smerdis, it is said, appears under very different names, e.g. Mardus in Aeschylus (Pers.771), Smerdis in Herodotus, Speudadates in Ctesias, and hence, why not as Artaxerxes here? But the very fact that he is called by so many different names, and never once Artaxerxes, is not favourable to the identification. Again, the argument that Pseudo-Smerdis being a Magian would heartily oppose the building of the Temple is strangely at variance with the omission in the letters of any reference to the Temple. It is equally at variance with the other contention, that the Temple building is not referred to because the mention of fortified walls would be more likely to arouse the king's indignation than that of sacred buildings. If further proof were needed of the improbability that -Artaxerxes" is Pseudo-Smerdis, it would seem to be supplied by a recollection of the troubled time that followed upon the death of Cambyses. Pseudo-Smerdis" 7 months" reign was spent in the midst of suspicion, disquiet, and confusion. The hearing of petty complaints and the investigation of ancient chronicles is not what we should expect from a reign which had hardly ceased to be the work of usurpation when it had begun to close in ignominy. The Samaritans were not likely to imperil their cause by approaching, in a time of confusion, a sovereign of doubtful claims whose acts would inevitably be reversed by any successful rival.

But apart from the consideration of its details, the crowning condemnation of this view is to be found in its main hypothesis, that Xerxes and Artaxerxes do not here mean the kings generally known as Xerxes and Artaxerxes but two other kings, the mention of whose names would remove a difficulty from the passage.

(ii) The other view requires us to admit the presence of an interruption in the chronological sequence of the book. Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes are the Xerxes and Artaxerxes (Longimanus) familiar to us under those names. Ezra 4:6-23 do not expand the substance of Ezra 4:5, but they continue the historical treatment of its subject. That subject is the opposition of the Samaritans; and it is shown how their opposition displayed itself in the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes.

The introduction of the times of Xerxes and Artaxerxes into this chapter interrupts, we must admit, the thread of the narrative. The passage, Ezra 4:8, is inserted by the Compiler at this point because he imagined it related to the building of the Temple. The names of the kings did not suggest to him his error. Whether this should be charged to mere inadvertency, or to ignorance of the Persian history, we cannot say.

The tone of the letters fully bears out this supposition. There is no allusion to the Temple. The Temple had been erected many years ago. The complaint is made that the people are fortifying the city. Such a complaint, made to the Persian king after the war with Greece, with reference to a city only a day's march from the coast, had more significance than it could have had in the preceding century. It demanded serious consideration. The description in Nehemiah 1:3 of the condition of the city walls and gates seems to imply devastation more recent than that of the Babylonians 140 years previously. The violent measures of the Samaritans which -by force and power" compelled the Jews to desist from their work may well account for this description. The intercession of Nehemiah procured the favour of -the decree" which the king had declared to be necessary before any building was resumed (Ezra 4:21).

Such an explanation fairly accounts for the presence of the names Xerxes and Artaxerxes. The internal evidence of the passage corresponds with it happily. The insertion of these -anticipatory" fragments seems to us undoubtedly harsh. But it is very questionable whether in a work of such composite character it is not more natural to find occasionally an instance of harshness or inartistic arrangement due to compilation, than everywhere the smooth orderliness of th skilful modern historian.