Ezra 4:1-5

TEXT AND VERSE-BY-VERSE COMMENT

B. The work is interrupted by Israel's enemies.
1. Opposition develops.

TEXT, Ezra 4:1-5

1

Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the LORD God of Israel,

2

they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers-' households, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.

3

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers-' households of Israel said to them, You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the LORD God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.

4

Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and frightened them from building,

5

and hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

COMMENT

In chapter four we see opposition finally appearing and becoming clearly identifiable. It can be anticipated that when God's people get busy, Satan will raise opposition.

It is not just history we are reading, for these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Corinthians 10:11). If the O.T. teaches us valuable lesson's about the nature and works of the Eternal, All-powerful, All-loving God, it also has something valuable to say about the nature of our enemy, and of the methods which he still uses.

Ezra 4:1 mentions the enemies; they are more fully described in Ezra 4:2; Ezra 4:9-10. We recognize them primarily as the Samaritans, known to us from the N.T. From this and other passages of the O.T. we can understand why the Samaritans were so bitterly resented by the Judeans in the N. T.

Ezra 4:2 shows that the strongest opposition for God's people is from the half-godly.[22] The Samaritans claimed first that they worshiped the same God as Israel. While they called Him by the same name, they understood His nature in a much different way and their worship followed very different patterns. Their second claim will explain this: they asserted that they had been sacrificing to Israel's God since the days of Esar-haddon, 150 years earlier. When Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians in 722 or 721 B.C., the Assyrians had taken many of the people, especially the well-to-do, with them into captivity; then they imported other conquered peoples into their land, as a means of discouraging revolt. By shuffling populations around, they sought to put all of them into strange environments thus making revolt more difficult and unlikely. 2 Kings 17 gives the full story of the beginning of these policies; note especially 2 Kings 17:24 ff., and 2 Kings 17:33. This was followed by 1) marriages between the Israelites remaining in the land and the heathen immigrants, which God had forbidden; and 2) natural calamities in the land. The Assyrians sought to minimize these calamities by returning priests of the God of Israel to the land to teach proper forms of worship on the premise that there are many gods, each possessing different territories, and each god must be worshiped on the soil identified with him (compare 2 Kings 5:17) or he would become angry and vent his rage on the land.

[22] For N.T. parallels, see Revelation 3:9; Revelation 3:15 ff.

Sargon had been king of Assyria when Israel's capital, Samaria, fell. His policy of deportations was continued by the next two kings, Sennacherib and Esar-haddon. The persons speaking in verse two identify themselves as among the later groups of people imported into Israel's former territory, possibly after the fall of Tyre to Assyria in 671 B.C. These peoples and their successors continued to use only the books of Moses in their religious practices, even to modern times. The Samaritan woman whom Jesus meets furnishes an illustration of some of their likenesses and differences compared to Judea (John 4:20; John 4:25).

The Samaritans may have had a political motive for their actions as described here. By joining the new Jewish group in their venture the Samaritans may have sought identification with them and thus a salvaging of something of their political position.[23][23] Interpreter's Bible, Vol. III, p. 596.

In Ezra 4:3, the response of Israel's leaders has been criticized as unnecessarily severe and uncharitable.[24] However, some things may be said in their defense. 1) It was this same intermarriage with the people of the land, the Canaanites, and intermingling of Israel's religion with their heathen neighbors which had brought about their downfall (Judges 1:27 ff; Judges 2:11 ff.). Solomon's marriages to many foreign wives and his subsequent building of temples where they might worship their various gods (1 Kings 11:4-11) had sown the seeds that grew to the kingdom's division and eventual destruction. Note that Solomon built more than one temple. 2) The leaders of Judah and Benjamin had already shown a willingness to use the help of foreigners. They were not so ungracious as to refuse to employ foreigners for labor, or to refuse their contributions. The people of Tyre and Sidon had already given assistance (Ezra 3:8), and in an earlier era money had been received from Manasseh and Ephraim (2 Chronicles 34:9). This was not the issue. The real problem apparently was the character of the building, i.e., its control and leadership, and worship to which it would be put. 3) We might also question the sincerity of the Samaritans, who hadn-'t restored the Temple during the time when they were in total possession of the land.

[24] Ibid., p. 595. The writer conditions this on p. 599, questioning if, without these policies, Judaism and the law and the prophets alike, (would) have survived amid the rising flood of Hellenistic synchretism through the centuries between the O.T. and the N.T.

Ezra 4:4 marks the virtual halt of the project, because of 1) discouragement, and 2) fear. The account will continue to elaborate on the steps taken by their enemies, but the injury has already been done; the opposition has been effective.

In Ezra 4:5, the counselors have been compared to lobbyists in our times, hired to influence those who form government policies.[25] The era from Cyrus to Darius, mentioned here, would include also the reigns of Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes.

[25] G. Coleman Luck, Ezra and Nehemiah, p. 31.

WORD STUDIES

1.

ENEMY: Tsar: Ezra 4:4; the basic idea in the word is to exert pressure: hence, to press in on, or oppress. It is the word used in Psalms 23:5. Of course, most of the people who do this are our enemies; but even our friends or relatives, consciously or unconsciously, can add pressure to us. Many of Israel's most bitter enemies were peoples most closely related to her. God prepares a table (provides) for us in the midst of all these situations.

2.

DISCOURAGE: Meraph Yadim: Ezra 4:4; literally, as in KJV, weaken the hands. It means to make the hands hang down, to relax, let fall, or weaken: thus, to discourage, The word is in the repetitive participial form indicating continuity of action; they continuously again and again weakened the hands.

3.

TRIBUTE: Mindah: Ezra 4:13; has the basic idea of a gift, i.e., the kind of a gift measured out; it is always used of another nation, for example to avoid military attack.

4.

CUSTOM: Belo: Ezra 4:13; payment in kind; i.e., a portion of the crops. This tax would usually be paid by a nation's own citizens.

5.

TOLL: Halak: Ezra 4:13; privilege to walk; hence, payment for passage through a land.

6.

SALT: Melach: Ezra 4:14. Possibly it means to be rubbed small, or pulverized. Since salt is used to preserve, it was used as a symbol of an enduring, permanent agreement, forever sacred and inviolable. Salt must always accompany offerings (Leviticus 2:13), as a symbol of a perpetual bond of friendship and loyalty.