Ezra 5:4

Then said we unto them, &c. R.V. Then spake we unto them after this manner, What, &c. Margin, -Or, Then spake we unto them after this manner. What, said they, are the names", &c. -Or, according to some ancient versions, Then spake they unto them, &c. See Ezra 5:10."

(a) The reading followed in the A.V. and R.V. is practically unintelligible. -Then spake we" would naturally introduce the Jews " reply (the first person being remarkable, but quite intelligible): but the question, -What are the names of the men that make this building?" is as obviously the question of the governor. It is equally impossible to apply -we" to the governor and his companions, and to see in -Then spake we unto them", &c. a continuance of -came Tattenai", &c. The only possible rendering is, -Then spake we unto them after this manner (with reference to the question), What are", &c. But the ellipse is so harsh as to make this, even if it were grammatically possible, inadmissible.

(b) On the other hand, the alternative reading, given as the second alternative in the Margin of the R.V., supplies the sense needed by the context, i.e. -They said". This is supported by the LXX. (τότε ταῦτα εἴποσαν αὐτοῖς) and the Peshitto Syriac. It is also supported by internal evidence. In Ezra 5:3, Tattenai and his friends ask the first question relating to official permission; in Ezra 5:4 (according to the emended reading) they ask a further question, as to the names of the Jewish leaders. To neither question is the answer of the Jews directly recorded, since the substance of their answers is reported in the letter to Darius (2 16). That letter mentions also the interrogatories. The first interrogation is repeated verbatim (Ezra 5:9). The second is described (Ezra 5:10), - Weasked themtheir names also", in a manner exactly corresponding to the present verse, Then spake theyunto themafter this manner, What are the names?

The emendation, it must be admitted, is the easier reading, and is therefore perhaps to be suspected as a correction. But it is impossible to accept the A.V. text as representing the original. It is best to receive the reading of the LXX. -They said", and to regard the reading -we said", as a very early error of a scribe who by a natural mistake began to write the 4th verse as the answer in a dialogue.

What are the names, &c. Cf. Ezra 5:10, -the names of the men that were at the head of them".

This enquiry would hardly have been made if the correspondence recorded in Ezra 4:7-23 had taken place in the seven months" reign of Pseudo-Smerdis, and had brought official investigation so recently to bear upon the affairs of Jerusalem.