seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Ezra 4:6 At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes,(b) they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
7 And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. The letter was written in Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language.[c][d]
8 Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows:
9 Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary, together with the rest of their associates—the judges, officials and administrators over the people from Persia, Uruk and Babylon, the Elamites of Susa, 10 and the other people whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the city of Samaria and elsewhere in Trans-Euphrates.
11 (This is a copy of the letter they sent him.)
To King Artaxerxes,
From your servants in Trans-Euphrates:
12 The king should know that the people who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem and are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They are restoring the walls and repairing the foundations.
13 Furthermore, the king should know that if this city is built and its walls are restored, no more taxes, tribute or duty will be paid, and eventually the royal revenues will suffer.[e] 14 Now since we are under obligation to the palace and it is not proper for us to see the king dishonored, we are sending this message to inform the king, 15 so that a search may be made in the archives of your predecessors. In these records you will find that this city is a rebellious city, troublesome to kings and provinces, a place with a long history of sedition. That is why this city was destroyed. 16 We inform the king that if this city is built and its walls are restored, you will be left with nothing in Trans-Euphrates.
17 The king sent this reply:
To Rehum the commanding officer, Shimshai the secretary and the rest of their associates living in Samaria and elsewhere in Trans-Euphrates:
Greetings.
18 The letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence. 19 I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition. 20 Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them. 21 Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order.22 Be careful not to neglect this matter. Why let this threat grow, to the detriment of the royal interests?
23 As soon as the copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them by force to stop.
24 Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
b. Ezra 4:6 Hebrew Ahasuerus
c. Ezra 4:7 Or written in Aramaic and translated
d. Ezra 4:7 The text of 4:8–6:18 is in Aramaic.
Sounds like politics today. Grease my palm or I'll take away your grease.
Now these were modern day Samaritans. This isn't the first time the Samaritans had gotten in Israel's way. The first time was back when the descendants of Jacob [whom God renamed Israel] left Egypt on the way to Canaan. The Samaritans stopped them at the border and made them go around. The Samaritans were afraid of them then.... because there were over 2 million people in the caravan. Now the Samaritans are in Israel.... well, Judah, but the Samaritans are bullying them.
All the commentaries were great this morning.... but the easy English site is easy.
Even after the Jews had built the temple, their enemies still opposed them. In the rest of this chapter, Ezra records what happened many years later. The Jews started to build their capital city called Jerusalem again. And again their enemies tried to stop them. The enemies of the Jews wrote letters to the kings who ruled after Darius. They wrote to King Xerxes. Later they wrote letters to King Artaxerxes.
Ezra recorded what these people wrote in one of their letters to King Artaxerxes.
They told the king how loyal they were. They pretended that they only cared about the king’s benefit. They said that the Jews were not loyal to foreign kings. They said that the people in Jerusalem would build their city again. Then the people in Jerusalem would stop paying taxes. They asked the king to search in the records. They told the king what he would find in the records. He would find that Jerusalem was not a loyal city.
Many of the ancient records from this time still exist. The officials wrote them on clay. (Clay is a type of earth. It becomes hard if someone bakes it.) People have found some 120 000 such records. The British Museum has a large collection of them.
The king read the letter and his officials searched the records. What was in the first letter was true. Many years before, the Jews had opposed foreign kings. We can read in the Bible about some of these events (2 Kings 18:7; 2 Kings 24:1). But those events happened very many years earlier. The Jews who lived during the rule of Artaxerxes were not a strong nation. Only a small number of people had returned to Judah from exile. They did not have an army so they were not really a danger to the king. And they had no desire to oppose King Artaxerxes’s rule. They were loyal to him.
Also, the Jews who went into exile were very loyal to their rulers. In fact, Jews often became important officials of the foreign kings who ruled them. And those kings trusted them greatly. We can read about that in the Books of Esther, Nehemiah and Daniel.
However, the king ordered the work to stop. But he did say that he could give the order for the work to start again. About 12 years later, Artaxerxes did allow Nehemiah to lead more Jews back to Jerusalem to build the city again. We can read about that in the Book of Nehemiah.
When the enemies of the Jews received the reply from the king, they told the Jews about it. They forced the Jews to stop work.
In this verse, Ezra returns to his earlier story (which he left at verse 5). He continues his account of the work to build the temple. The work stopped because the Jews were afraid of their enemies. The work did not start again until the rule of King Darius. That was about 16 years later.
I hate it when the wrong party gets the nod. In this case the labor union won. The Assyrians were jealous over the work they were not contracted to provide for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. So they had the project shut down. A Stop Work Order was tacked to the entry gate. Jerusalem will have to wait another 16 years until King Darius came to the throne. The Jews are only a remnant of what they once were. It appears to me... Israel was no longer acting like the big bad Theocracy anymore. They are supposed to be a Theocratic Nation... God is the real head of State and their king.... is a figurehead.... supposedly doing the bidding of God as relayed through the priests. That doesn't appear to be the same Israel that was thrown into Babylonian slavery. Israel, like Daniel, had been castrated.
