{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"EZR","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Ezra","commonName":"Ezra","introduction":"The Book of Ezra\n\nIntroduction\n\n1. Name and Contents, Object and Plan of the Book of Ezra\n\nThe book of Ezra derives its name of עזרא in the Hebrew Bible, of Ἔσδρας in the Septuagint, and of Liber Esdrae in the Vulgate, from Ezra, עזרא, the priest and scribe who, in Ezra 7-10, narrates his return from captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem, and the particulars of his ministry in the latter city. For the sake of making the number of the books contained in their canon of Scripture correspond with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the Jews had from of old reckoned the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as one; whilst an apocryphal book of Ezra, composed of passages from the second book of Chronicles, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and certain popular legends, had long been current among the Hellenistic Jews together with the canonical book of Ezra. Hence our book of Ezra is called, in the catalogues of the Old Testament writings handed down to us by the Fathers (see the statements of Origen, of the Council of Laodicea, Can. 60, of Cyril, Jerome, and others, in the Lehrbuch der Einleitung, 216, Not. 11, 13), Ἔσδρας πρῶτος (α), and the book of Nehemiah Ἔσδρας δεύτερος (β), and consequently separated as I. Ezra from the book of Nehemiah as II. Ezra; while the Greek book of Ezra is called III. Ezra, to which was subsequently added the falsely so-called book of Ezra as IV. Ezra. In the Septuagint, the Vet. Itala, and the Syriac, on the contrary (comp. Libri V. T. apocryphi syriace e recogn. de Lagarde), we find the Greek book of Ezra placed as Ἔσδρας πρῶτον before the canonical book, and the latter designated Ἔσδρας δεύτερον.\n\nThe book of Ezra consists of two parts. The first part, comprising a period anterior to Ezra, begins with the edict of Coresh (Cyrus), king of Persia, permitting the return to their native land of such Jews as were exiles in Babylon, and prescribing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem (Ezr 1:1-4); and relates that when the heads of the nation, the priests and Levites, and many of the people, made preparations for returning, Cyrus had the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem brought forth and delivered to Sheshbazzar (Zerubbabel), prince of Judah (Ezr 1:5-11). Next follows a list of the names of those who returned from captivity (Ezra 2), and the account of the building of the altar of burnt-offerings, the restoration of divine worship, and the laying of the foundation of the temple (Ezr 3:1-13). Then the manner in which the rebuilding of the temple was hindered by the Samaritans is narrated; and mention made of the written accusation sent by the adversaries of the Jews to the kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta (Ezr 4:1-7): the letter sent to the latter monarch, and his answer thereto, in consequence of which the rebuilding of the temple ceased till the second year of Darius, being inserted in the Chaldee original (Ezr 4:24). It is then related (also in Chaldee) that Zerubbabel and Joshua, undertaking, in consequence of the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, the rebuilding of the temple, were immediately interrogated by Tatnai the Persian governor and his companions as to who had commanded such rebuilding; that the reply of the Jewish rulers was reported in writing to the king, whereupon the latter caused search to be made for the edict of Cyrus, and gave command for the continuance and furtherance of the building in compliance therewith (Ezra 5:1-6:13); that hence the Jews were enabled to complete the work, solemnly to dedicate their now finished temple (Ezr 6:14-18), and (as further related, Ezr 6:19-22, in the Hebrew tongue) to celebrate their passover with rejoicing. In the second part (Ezra 7-10), the return of Ezra the priest and scribe, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, from Babylon to Jerusalem, with a number of priests, Levites, and Israelites, is related; and (Ezr 7:1-10) a copy of the royal decree, in virtue of which Ezra was entrusted with the ordering of divine worship, and of the administration of justice as prescribed in the law, given in the Chaldee original (7:11-26), with a postscript by Ezra (Ezr 7:27.). Then follows a list of those who went up with Ezra (Ezr 8:1-14); and particulars given by Ezra himself concerning his journey, his arrival at Jerusalem (8:14-36), and the energetic proceedings by which he effected the separation of the heathen women from the congregation (9:1-10:17); the book concluding with a list of those who were forced to put away their heathen wives (10:18-44).\n\nThe first year of the rule of Cyrus king of Persia corresponding with the year 536 b.c., and the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Longimanus) with 458 b.c., it follows that this book comprises a period of at least eighty years. An interval of fifty-six years, extending from the seventh year of Darius Hystaspis, in which the passover was celebrated after the dedication of the new temple (Ezr 6:19-22), to the seventh of Artaxerxes, in which Ezra went up from Babylon (Ezr 7:6), separates the events of the first part from those of the second. The narrative of the return of Ezra from Babylon in Ezr 7:1 is nevertheless connected with the celebration of the passover under Darius by the usual formula of transition, \"Now after these things,\" without further comment, because nothing had occurred in the intervening period which the author of the book felt it necessary, in conformity with the plan of his work, to communicate.\n\nEven this cursory notice of its contents shows that the object of Ezra was not to give a history of the re-settlement in Judah and Jerusalem of the Jews liberated by Cyrus from the Babylonian captivity, nor to relate all the memorable events which took place from the departure and the arrival in Judah of those who returned with Zerubbabel and Joshua, until his own return and his ministry in Jerusalem. For he tells us nothing at all of the journey of the first band of returning exiles, and so little concerning their arrival in Jerusalem and Judah, that this has merely a passing notice in the superscription of the list of their names; while at the close of this list he only mentions the voluntary gifts which they brought with them for the temple service, and then just remarks that they-the priests, Levites, people, etc. - dwelt in their cities (Ezr 2:70). The following chapters (Ezra 3-6), moreover, treat exclusively of the building of the altar of burnt-offering and the temple, the hindrances by which this building was delayed for years, and of the final removal of these hindrances, the continuation and completion of the building, and the dedication of the new temple, by means of which the tribe of Judah was enabled to carry on the worship of God according to the law, and to celebrate the festivals in the house of the Lord. In the second part, indeed, after giving the decree he had obtained from Artaxerxes, he speaks in a comparatively circumstantial manner of the preparations he made for his journey, of the journey itself, and of his arrival at Jerusalem; while he relates but a single incident of his proceedings there-an incident, indeed, of the utmost importance with respect to the preservation of the returned community as a covenant people, viz., the dissolution of the marriages with Canaanites and other Gentile women, forbidden by the law, but contracted in the period immediately following his arrival at Jerusalem. Of his subsequent proceedings there we learn nothing further from his own writings, although the king had given him authority, \"after the wisdom of his God, to set magistrates and judges\" (Ezr 7:25); while the book of Nehemiah testifies that he continued his ministry there for some years in conjunction with Nehemiah, who did not arrive till thirteen years later: comp. Neh 8-10 and Neh 12:36, Neh 12:38.\n\nSuch being the nature of the contents of this book, it is evident that the object and plan of its author must have been to collect only such facts and documents as might show the manner in which the Lord God, after the lapse of the seventy years of exile, fulfilled His promise announced by the prophets, by the deliverance of His people from Babylon, the building of the temple at Jerusalem, and the restoration of the temple worship according to the law, and preserved the re-assembled community from fresh relapses into heathen customs and idolatrous worship by the dissolution of the marriages with Gentile women. Moreover, the restoration of the temple and of the legal temple worship, and the separation of the heathen from the newly settled community, were necessary and indispensable conditions for the gathering out of the people of God from among the heathen, and for the maintenance and continued existence of the nation of Israel, to which and through which God might at His own time fulfil and realize His promises made to their forefathers, to make their seed a blessing to all the families of the earth, in a manner consistent both with His dealings with this people hitherto, and with the further development of His promises made through the prophets. The significance of the book of Ezra in sacred history lies in the fact that it enables us to perceive how the Lord, on the one hand, so disposed the hearts of the kings of Persia, the then rulers of the world, that in spite of all the machinations of the enemies of God's people, they promoted the building of His temple in Jerusalem, and the maintenance of His worship therein; and on the other, raised up for His people, when delivered from Babylon, men like Zerubbabel their governor, Joshua the high priest, and Ezra the scribe, who, supported by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, undertook the work to which they were called, with hearty resolution, and carried it out with a powerful hand.\n\n2. Unity and Composition of the Book of Ezra\n\nSeveral modern critics (Zunz, Ewald, Bertheau, and others) have raised objections both to the single authorship and to the independent character of this book, and declared it to be but a fragment of a larger work, comprising not only the book of Nehemiah, but that of Chronicles also. The section of this work which forms our canonical book of Ezra is said to have been composed and edited by some unknown author about 200 years after Ezra, partly from an older Chaldee history of the building of the temple and of the walls of Jerusalem, partly from a record drawn up by Ezra himself of his agency in Jerusalem, and from certain other public documents. The evidence in favour of this hypothesis is derived, first, from the fact that not only the official letters to the Persian kings, and their decrees (Ezr 4:8-22; Ezr 5:6-17; Ezr 6:6-12; Ezr 7:12-26), but also a still longer section on the building of the temple (Ezra 4:23-6:18), are written in the Chaldee, and the remaining portions in the Hebrew language; next, from the diversity of its style, its lack of internal unity, and its want of finish; and, finally, from the circumstance that the book of Ezra had from of old been combined with that of Nehemiah as one book. These reasons, however, upon closer consideration, prove too weak to confirm this view. For, to begin with the historical testimony, Ngelsback, in Herzog's Realencycl. iv. p. 166, justly finds it \"incomprehensible\" that Bertheau should appeal to the testimony of the Talmud, the Masora, the most ancient catalogues of Old Testament books in the Christian church, the Cod. Alexandr., the Cod. Friderico Aug., and the lxx, because the comprehension of the two books in one in these authorities is entirely owing to the Jewish mode of computing the books of the Old Testament. Even Josephus (c. Ap. i. 8) reckons twenty-two books, which he arranges, in a manner peculiar to himself, into five books of Moses, thirteen of the prophets, and four containing hymns to God and moral precepts for man; and Jerome says, in Prol. Gal., that the Hebrews reckon twenty-two canonical books, whose names he cites, after the number of the letters of their alphabet, but then adds that some reckoned Ruth and Lamentations separately, thus making twenty-four, because the Rabbis distinguished between שׁ and שׂ, and received a double Jod (יי) into the alphabet for the sate of including in it the name יהוה, which when abbreviated is written יי. The number twenty-four is also found in Baba bathr. fol. 14. Hence we also find these numbers and computations in the Fathers and in the resolutions of the councils, but with the express distinction of I. and II. Ezra. This distinction is not indeed mentioned in the Talmud; and Baba bathr., l.c., says: Esra scripsit librum suum et genealogias librorum Chr. usque ad sua tempora. But what authority can there be in such testimony, which also declares Moses to have been the author not only of the Pentateuch, but also of the book of Job, and Samuel the author of the books of Judges, Ruth, and Samuel? The authority, too, of Cod. Alex. and Cod. Frid. Aug. is opposed to that of Cod. Vatic. and of the lxx, in which the books Ezra and Nehemiah are separated, as they likewise are in the Masoretic text, although the Masoretes regarded and reckoned both as forming but one book.\n\n(Note: Though Zunz and Ewald appeal also to the Greek book of Ezra, in which portions of Chronicles and of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are comprised, it is not really to be understood how any critical importance can be attributed to this apocryphal compilation. Besides, even if it possessed such importance, the circumstance that only the two last chapters of Chronicles, and only Neh 7:73-8:13 of Nehemiah, are comprised in it, says more against than in favour of the assumed single authorship of the three canonical books.)\n\nThis mode of computation, however, affords no ground for the supposition that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah originally formed one work. For in this case we should be obliged to regard the books of the twelve minor prophets as the work of one author. If the number of books was to be reduced to twenty-two or twenty-four, it was necessary to combine smaller works of similar character. The single authorship of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is most decidedly negatived, not only by the superscription of the latter book, דּברי נחמיה בּן־חכליה, there being in the entire Old Testament no other instance of a single portion or section of a longer work being distinguished from its other portions by a similar superscription, with the name of the author; but also by the fact already brought forward in the introduction to Chronicles, Comm. on Chron. p. 384, that no reason or motive whatever can be perceived for a subsequent division of the historical work in question into three separate books, on account of its reception into the canon.\n\nThe contents, too, and the form of this book, present us with nothing incompatible either with its single authorship or independence. The use of the Chaldee tongue for the official documents of the Persian kings and their subordinates cannot surprise us, this being the official language in the provinces of the Persian empire west of the Euphrates, and as current with the returning Jews as their Hebrew mother tongue. It is true that the use of the Chaldee language is not in this book confined merely to official documents, but continued, Ezr 4:8-22, in the narrative of the building of the temple down to the dedication of the rebuilt temple, 4:23-6:18; and that the Hebrew is not employed again till from Ezr 6:19 to the conclusion of the book, with the exception of Ezr 7:12-26, where the commission given by Artaxerxes to Ezra is inserted in the Chaldee original. We also meet, however, with the two languages in the book of Daniel, Dan 2, where the Magi are introduced, Dan 2:4, as answering the king in Aramaic, and where not only their conversation with the monarch, but also the whole course of the event, is given in this dialect, which is again used Dan 3-7. Hence it has been attempted to account for the use of the Chaldee in the narrative portions of the book of Ezra, by the assertion that the historian, after quoting Chaldee documents, found it convenient to use this language in the narrative combined therewith, and especially because during its course he had to communicate other Chaldee documents (Ezr 5:6-17 and Ezr 6:3-12) in the original. But this explanation is not sufficient to solve the problem. Both here and in the book of Daniel, the use of the two languages has a really deeper reason; see Dan 2:14.. With respect to the book in question, this view is, moreover, insufficient; because, in the first place, the use of the Chaldee tongue does not begin with the communication of the Chaldee documents (Dan 4:11), but is used, Dan 2:8, in the paragraph which introduces them. And then, too, the narrator of the Chaldee historical section, Ezr 5:4, gives us to understand, by his use of the first person, \"Then said we unto them,\" that he was a participator in the work of rebuilding the temple under Darius; and this, Ezra, who returned to Jerusalem at a much later period, and who relates his return (Ezr 7:27) in the first person, could not himself have been. These two circumstances show that the Chaldee section, 4:8-6:18, was composed by an eye-witness of the occurrences it relates; that it came into the hands of Ezra when composing his own work, who, finding it adapted to his purpose as a record by one who was contemporary with the events he related, and a sharer in the building of the temple, included it in his own book with very slight alteration. The mention of Artachshasta, besides Coresh and Darjavesh, in Ezr 6:14, seems opposed to this view. But since neither Ezra, nor a later author of this book, contemporary with Darius Hystaspis, could cite the name of Artaxerxes as contributing towards the building of the temple, while the position of the name of Artaxerxes after that of Darius, as well as its very mention, contradicts the notion of a predecessor of King Darius, the insertion of this name in Ezr 6:14 may be a later addition made by Ezra, in grateful retrospect of the splendid gifts devoted by Artaxerxes to the temple, for the purpose of associating him with the two monarchs whose favour rendered the rebuilding of the temple possible (see on Ezr 6:14). In this case, the mention of Artaxerxes in the passage just cited, offers no argument against the above-mentioned view of the origin of the Chaldee section. Neither is any doubt cast upon the single authorship of the whole book by the notion that Ezra inserted in his book not only an authentic list of the returned families, Ezra 2, but also a narrative of the building of the temple, composed in the Chaldee tongue by an eye-witness.\n\nAll the other arguments brought forward against the unity of this book are quite unimportant. The variations and discrepancies which Schrader, in his treatise on the duration of the second temple, in the Theol. Studien u. Kritiken, 1867, p. 460f., and in De Wette's Einleitung, 8th edit. 235, supposes he has discovered in the Chaldee section, first between Ezra 4:8-23 and Ezr 5:1-6, Ezr 5:14, Ezr 5:15, on the one hand, and Ezr 4:24 on the other, and then between these passages and the remaining chapters of the first part, Ezr 1:1-11, Ezr 3:1-13, Ezr 4:1; Ezr 7:24, and Ezr 6:14, Ezr 6:16-18, Ezr 6:19-22, can have no force of argument except for a criticism which confines its operations to the words and letters of the text of Scripture, because incapable of entering into its spiritual meaning. If the two public documents 4:8-23 differ from what precedes and follows them, by the fact that they speak not of the building of the temple but of the building of the walls of Jerusalem, the reason may be either that the adversaries of the Jews brought a false accusation before King Artachshashta, and for the sake of more surely gaining their own ends, represented the building of the temple as a building of the fortifications, or that the complaint of their enemies and the royal decree really relate to the building of the walls, and that section 4:8-23 is erroneously referred by expositors to the building of the temple. In either case there is no such discrepancy between these public documents and what precedes and follows them as to annul the single authorship of this Chaldee section; see the explanation of the passage. Still less does the circumstance that the narrative of the continuation and completion of the temple-building, Ezra 5:1-6:15, is in a simply historical style, and not interspersed with reflections or devotional remarks, offer any proof that the notice, Ezr 4:24, \"Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem, so it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia,\" and the information, Ezr 6:16-18, that the Jews brought offerings at the dedication of the temple, and appointed priests and Levites in their courses for the service of God, cannot proceed from the same historian, who at the building of the temple says nothing of the offerings and ministrations of the priests and Levites. Still weaker, if possible, is the argument for different authorship derived from characteristic expressions, viz., that in Ezr 4:8, Ezr 4:11, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:5-7, Ezr 5:13-14, Ezr 5:17, and Ezr 6:1, Ezr 6:3, Ezr 6:12-13, the Persian kings are simply called \"the king,\" and not \"king of Persia,\" as they are designated by the historian in Ezr 4:7, Ezr 4:24, and elsewhere. For a thoughtful reader will scarcely need to be reminded that, in a letter to the king, the designation king of Persia would be not only superfluous, but inappropriate, while the king in his answer would have still less occasion to call himself king of Persia, and that even the historian has in several places - e.g., Ezr 5:5-6; Ezr 6:1 and Ezr 6:13 - omitted the addition \"of Persia\" when naming the king. Nor is there any force in the remark that in Ezr 5:13 Coresh is called king of Babylon. This epithet, דּי־בבל, would only be objected to by critics who either do not know or do not consider that Coresh was king of Persia twenty years before he became king of Babylon, or obtained dominion over the Babylonian empire. The title king of Persia would here be misleading, and the mere designation king inexact, - Cyrus having issued the decree for the rebuilding of the temple not in the first year of his reign or rule over Persia, but in the first year of his sway over Babylon.\n\nIn Part II. (Ezra 7-10), which is connected with Part I. by the formula of transition האלּה הדּברים אחר, it is not indeed found \"striking\" that the historian should commence his narrative concerning Ezra by simply relating his doings (Ezr 7:1-10), his object being first to make the reader acquainted with the person of Ezra. It is also said to be easy to understand, that when the subsequent royal epistles are given, Ezra should be spoken of in the third person; that the transition to the first person should not be made until the thanksgiving to God (Ezr 7:27); and that Ezra should then narrate his journey to and arrival at Jerusalem, and his energetic proceedings against the unlawful marriages, in his own words (Ezra 8 and Ezr 9:1-15). But it is said to be \"striking,\" that in the account of this circumstance Ezra is, from Ezr 10:1 onwards, again spoken of in the third person. This change of the person speaking is said to show that the second part of the book was not composed by Ezra himself, but that some other historian merely made use of a record by Ezra, giving it verbally in Ezra 8 and Ezr 9:1-15, and in Ezra 7 and 10 relating Ezra's return from Babylon, and the conclusion of the transaction concerning the unlawful marriages, in his own words, but with careful employment of the said record. This view, however, does not satisfactorily explain the transition from the first to the third person in the narrative. For what could have induced the historian, after giving Ezra's record verbally in Ezra 8 and Ezr 9:1-15, to break off in the midst of Ezra's account of his proceedings against the unlawful marriages, and, instead of continuing the record, to relate the end of the transaction in his own words? Bertheau's solution of this question, that the author did this for the sake of brevity, is of no force; for Ezra 10 shows no trace of brevity, but, on the contrary, the progress and conclusion of the affair are related with the same circumstantiality and attention to details exhibited in its commencement in 8 and 9. To this must be added, that in other historical portions of the Old Testament, in which the view of different authorship is impossible, the narrator, as a person participating in the transaction, frequently makes the transition from the first to the third person, and vice versa. Compare, e.g., Isa 7:1. (\"Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth,\" etc.) with Isa 8:1 (\"Moreover, the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll,\" etc.); Jer 20:1-6, where Jeremiah relates of himself in the third person, that he had been smitten by Pashur, and had prophesied against him, with Jer 20:7., where, without further explanation, he thus continues: \"O Lord, Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded;\" or Jer 28:1 (\"Hananiah ... spake unto me ... the Lord said to me\") with Jer 28:5 (\"Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah\"), and also Jer 28:6; while in Jer 28:7 immediately following, Jeremiah writes, \"Hear thou now this word which I speak in thine ears.\" As Jeremiah, when here narrating circumstances of his own ministry, suddenly passes from the third to the first person, and then immediately returns to the third; so, too, might Ezra, after speaking (Ezr 7:1-10) of his return to Jerusalem in the third person, proceed with a subsequent more circumstantial description of his journey to and arrival at Jerusalem, and narrate his acts and proceedings there in the first person (Ezra 8 and Ezr 9:1-15), and then, after giving his prayer concerning the iniquity of his people (Ezr 9:1-15), take up the objective form of speech in his account of what took place in consequence of this prayer; and instead of writing, \"Now when I had prayed,\" etc., continue, \"Now when Ezra had prayed,\" and maintain this objective form of statement to the end of Ezra 10. Thus a change of author cannot be proved by a transition in the narrative from the first to the third person. As little can this be inferred from the remark (Ezr 7:6) that \"Ezra was a ready scribe in the law of Moses,\" by which his vocation, and the import of his return to Jerusalem, are alluded to immediately after the statement of his genealogy.\n\nThe reasons, then, just discussed are not of such a nature as to cast any real doubt upon the single authorship of this book; and modern criticism has been unable to adduce any others. Neither is its independence impeached by the circumstance that it breaks off \"unexpectedly\" at Ezra 10, without relating Ezra's subsequent proceedings at Jerusalem, although at Ezr 7:10 it is said not only that \"Ezra had prepared his heart ... to teach in Israel statutes and judgments,\" but also that Artaxerxes in his edict (Ezr 7:12-26) commissioned him to uphold the authority of the law of God as the rule of action; nor by the fact that in Neh 8-10 we find Ezra still a teacher of the law, and that these very chapters form the necessary complement of the notices concerning Ezra in the book of Ezra (Bertheau). For though the narrative in Neh 8-10 actually does complete the history of Ezra's ministry, it by no means follows that the book of Ezra is incomplete, and no independent work at all, but only a portion of a larger book, because it does not contain this narrative. For what justifies the assumption that \"Ezra purposed to give an account of all that he effected at Jerusalem?\" The whole book may be sought through in vain for a single peg on which to hang such a theory. To impute such an intention to Ezra, and to infer that, because his ministry is spoken of in the book of Nehemiah also, the book of Ezra is but a fragment, we should need far more weighty arguments in proof of the single authorship of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah than the defenders of this hypothesis are able to bring forward. In respect of diction, nothing further has been adduced than that the expression עלי אלחי כּיד, so frequently recurring in Ezra (Ezr 7:28; compare Ezr 7:6, Ezr 7:9; Ezr 8:18, Ezr 8:22, Ezr 8:31), is also once found in Nehemiah (Neh 2:8). But the single occurrence of this one expression, common to himself and Ezra, in the midst of the very peculiar diction and style of Nehemiah, is not the slightest proof of the original combination of the two books; and Neh 2:8 simply shows that Nehemiah appropriated words which, in his intercourse with Ezra, he had heard from his lips. - With respect to other instances in which the diction and matter are common to the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, we have already shown, in the introduction to Chronicles, that they are too trifling to establish an identity of authorship in the case of these three books; and at the same time remarked that the agreement between the closing verses of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra does but render it probable that Ezra may have been the author of the former book also.\n\n3. Composition and Historical Character of the Book of Ezra\n\nIf this book is a single one, i.e., the work of one author, there can be no reasonable doubt that that author was Ezra, the priest and scribe, who in Ezra 7-10 narrates his return from Babylon to Jerusalem, and the circumstances of his ministry there, neither its language nor contents exhibiting any traces of a later date. Its historical character, too, was universally admitted until Schrader, in his beforenamed treatise, p. 399, undertook to dispute it with respect to the first part of this book. The proofs he adduced were, first, that the statement made by the author, who lived 200 years after the building of the temple, in this book, i.e., in the chronicle of the foundation of the temple in the second year after the return from Babylon, concerning the cessation of the building till the second year of Darius, and its resumption in that year, is unhistorical, and rests only upon the insufficiently confirmed assumption that the exiles, penetrated as they were with ardent love for their hereditary religion, full of joy that their deliverance from Babylon was at last effected, and of heartfelt gratitude to God, should have suffered fifteen years to elapse before they set to work to raise the national sanctuary from its ruins; secondly, that the accounts both of the rearing of the altar, Ezr 3:2 and Ezr 3:3, and of the proceedings at laying the foundations of the temple, together with the names, dates, and other seemingly special details found in Ezr 3:1-13, Ezr 4:1-5, Ezr 4:24; Ezr 6:14, are not derived from ancient historical narratives, but are manifestly due to the imagination of the chronicler drawing upon the documents given in the book of Ezra, upon other books of the Old Testament, and upon his own combinations thereof. This whole argument, however, rests upon the assertion, that neither in Ezr 5:2 and Ezr 5:16, in Hag 1:2, Hag 1:4, Hag 1:8, Hag 1:14; Hag 2:12, nor in Zac 1:16; Zac 4:9; Zac 6:12-13; Zac 8:9, is the resumption of the temple building in the second year of the reign of Darius spoken of, but that, on the contrary, the laying of its foundations in the said year of Darius is in some of these passages assumed, in others distinctly stated. Such a conclusion can, however, only be arrived at by a misconception of the passages in question. When it is said, Ezr 5:2, \"Then (i.e., when the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied) rose up Zerubbabel and Jeshua ... and began to build the house of God\" (שׁריו למבנא), there is no need to insist that בּנא often signifies to rebuild, but the word may be understood strictly of beginning to build. And this accords with the fact, that while in Ezr 3:1-13 and 4 nothing is related concerning the building of the temple, whose foundations were laid in the second year of the return, it is said that immediately after the foundations were laid the Samaritans came and desired to take part in the building of the temple, and that when their request was refused, they weakened the hands of the people, and deterred them from building (Ezr 4:1-5). Schrader can only establish a discrepancy between Ezr 5:2 and Ezr 3:1-13 and 4 by confounding building with foundation-laying, two terms which neither in Hebrew nor German have the same signification.\n\nStill less can it be inferred from the statement of the Jewish elders (Ezr 5:16), when questioned by Tatnai and his companions as to who had commanded them to build the temple, \"Then came the same","order":15,"numberOfChapters":10,"sha256":"54354d49215785fcbfe003e81c3278835b4e43615dadcf0baba054c047353e21","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZR/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZR","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":10,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZR/10.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZR","chapter":10},"totalNumberOfVerses":56},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Zerubbabel and the other chiefs of Israel answer, \"It is not for you and for us to build a house to our God;\" i.e., You and we cannot together build a house to the God who is our God; \"but we alone will build it to Jahve the God of Israel, as King Cyrus commanded us.\" יחד אנחנוּ, we together, i.e., we alone (without your assistance). By the emphasis placed upon \"our God\" and \"Jahve the God of Israel,\" the assertion of the adversaries, \"We seek your God as ye do,\" is indirectly refuted. If Jahve is the God of Israel, He is not the God of those whom Esarhaddon brought into the land. The appeal to the decree of Cyrus (Ezr 1:3, comp. Ezr 3:6, etc.) forms a strong argument for the sole agency of Jews in building the temple, inasmuch as Cyrus had invited those only who were of His (Jahve's) people (Ezr 1:3). Hence the leaders of the new community were legally justified in rejecting the proposal of the colonists brought in by Esarhaddon. For the latter were neither members of the people of Jahve, nor Israelites, nor genuine worshippers of Jahve. They were non-Israelites, and designated themselves as those whom the king of Assyria had brought into the land. According to Kg2 17:24, the king of Assyria brought colonists from Babylon, Cuthah, and other places, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. Now we cannot suppose that every Israelite, to the very last man, was carried away by the Assyrians; such a deportation of a conquered people being unusual, and indeed impossible. Apart, then, from the passage, Ch2 30:6, etc., which many expositors refer to the time of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, we find that in the time of King Josiah (Ch2 34:9), when the foreign colonists had been for a considerable period in the country, there were still remnants of Manasseh, of Ephraim, and of all Israel, who gave contributions for the house of God at Jerusalem; and also that in Kg2 23:15-20 and Ch2 34:6, a remnant of the Israelite inhabitants still existed in the former territory of the ten tribes. The eighty men, too, who (Jer 41:5, etc.) came, after the destruction of the temple, from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria, mourning, and bringing offerings and incense to Jerusalem, to the place of the house of God, which was still a holy place to them, were certainly Israelites of the ten tribes still left in the land, and who had probably from the days of Josiah adhered to the temple worship. These remnants, however, of the Israelites inhabitants in the territories of the former kingdom of the ten tribes, are not taken into account in the present discussion concerning the erection of the temple; because, however considerable their numbers might be, they formed no community independent of the colonists, but were dispersed among them, and without political influence. It is not indeed impossible \"that the colonists were induced through the influence exercised upon them by the Israelites living in their midst to prefer to the Jews the request, 'Let us build with you;' still those who made the proposal were not Israelites, but the foreign colonists\" (Bertheau). These were neither members of the chosen people nor worshippers of the God of Israel. At their first settlement (Kg2 17:24, etc.) they evidently feared not the Lord, nor did they learn to do so till the king of Assyria, at their request, sent them one of the priests who had been carried away to teach them the manner of worshipping the God of the land. This priest, being a priest of the Israelitish calf-worship, took up his abode at Bethel, and taught them to worship Jahve under the image of a golden calf. Hence arose a worship which is thus described, Kg2 17:29-33 : Every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans, i.e., the former inhabitants of the kingdom of the ten tribes, had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. And besides their idols Nergal, Asima, Nibhaz, Tartak, they feared Jahve; they sacrificed to all these gods as well as to Him. A mixed worship which the prophet-historian (Kg2 17:34) thus condemns: \"They fear not the Lord, and do after their statutes and ordinances, not after the law and commandment which the Lord commanded to the sons of Jacob.\" And so, it is finally said (Kg2 17:41), do also their children and children's children unto this day, i.e., about the middle of the Babylonian captivity; nor was it will a subsequent period that the Samaritans renounced gross idolatry. The rulers and heads of Judah could not acknowledge that Jahve whom the colonists worshipped as a local god, together with other gods, in the houses of the high places at Bethel and elsewhere, to be the God of Israel, to whom they were building a temple at Jerusalem. For the question was not whether they would permit Israelites who earnestly sought Jahve to participate in His worship at Jerusalem-a permission which they certainly would have refused to none who sincerely desired to turn to the Lord God-but whether they would acknowledge a mixed population of Gentiles and Israelites, whose worship was more heathen than Israelite, and who nevertheless claimed on its account to belong to the people of God.\n(Note: The opinion of Knobel, that those who preferred the request were not the heathen colonists placed in the cities of Samaria by the Assyrian king (Kg2 17:24), but the priests sent by the Assyrian king to Samaria (Kg2 17:27), has been rejected as utterly unfounded by Bertheau, who at the same time demonstrates, against Fritzsche on 1 Esdr. 5:65, the identity of the unnamed king of Assyria (Kg2 17:24) with Esarhaddon.)\nTo such, the rulers of Judah could not, without unfaithfulness to the Lord their God, permit a participation in the building of the Lord's house. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["In consequence of this refusal, the adversaries of Judah sought to weaken the hands of the people, and to deter them from building. הארץ עם, the people of the land, i.e., the inhabitants of the country, the colonists dwelling in the land, the same who in Ezr 4:1 are called the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. ויהי followed by the participle expresses the continuance of the inimical attempts. To weaken the hands of any one, means to deprive him of strength and courage for action; comp. Jer 38:4. יהוּדה עם are the inhabitants of the realm of Judah, who, including the Benjamites, had returned from captivity, Judah being now used to designate the whole territory of the new community, as before the captivity the entire southern kingdom; comp. Ezr 4:6. Instead of the Chethiv מבלּהים, the Keri offer מבהלים, from בהל, Piel, to terrify, to alarm, Ch2 32:18; Job 21:6, because the verb בלה nowhere else occurs; but the noun בּלּהה, fear, being not uncommon, and presupposing the existence of a verb בּלהּ, the correctness of the Chethiv cannot be impugned. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["And they hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose (of building the temple). וסכרים still depends on the ויהי of Ezr 4:4. סכר is a later orthography of שׂכר, to hire, to bribe. Whether by the hiring of יועציט we are to understand the corruption of royal counsellors or ministers, or the appointment of legal agents to act against the Jewish community at the Persian court, and to endeavour to obtain an inhibition against the erection of the temple, does not appear. Thus much only is evident from the text, that the adversaries succeeded in frustrating the continuance of the building \"all the days of Koresh,\" i.e., the yet remaining five years of Cyrus, who was for the space of seven years sole ruler of Babylon; while the machinations against the building, begun immediately after the laying of its foundations in the second year of the return, had the effect, in the beginning of the third year of Cyrus (judging from Dan 10:2), of putting a stop to the work until the reign of Darius, - in all, fourteen years, viz., five years of Cyrus, seven and a half of Cambyses, seven months of the Pseudo-Smerdis, and one year of Darius (till the second year of his reign). \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Complaints against the Jews to Kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta. - The right understanding of this section depends upon the question, What kings of Persia are meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta? while the answer to this question is, in part at least, determined by the contents of the letter, Ezr 4:8-16, sent by the enemies of the Jews to the latter monarch.\nEzr 4:6-7\nAnd in the reign of Ahashverosh, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. שׂטנה, not to mention the name of the well, Gen 26:21, occurs here only, and means, according to its derivation from שׂטן, to bear enmity, the enmity; hence here, the accusation. ישׁבי על belongs to שׂטנה, not to כּתבוּ; the letter was sent, not to the inhabitants of Judah, but to the king against the Jews. The contents of this letter are not given, but may be inferred from the designation שׂטנה. The letter to Artachshasta then follows, Ezr 4:7-16. In his days, i.e., during his reign, wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions. כּנותו, for which the Keri offers the ordinary form כּנותיו mrof yra, occurs only here in the Hebrew sections, but more frequently in the Chaldee (comp. Ezr 4:9, Ezr 4:17, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:3, and elsewhere), in the sense of companions or fellow-citizens; according to Gesenius, it means those who bear the same surname (Kunje) together with another, though Ewald is of a different opinion; see 117, b, note. The singular would be written כּנת (Ewald, 187, d). And the writing of the letter was written in Aramaean (i.e., with Aramaean characters), and interpreted in (i.e., translated into) Aramaean. נשׁתּון is of Aryan origin, and connected with the modern Persian nuwishten, to write together; it signifies in Hebrew and Chaldee a letter: comp. Ezr 4:18, where נשׁתּונא is used for אגּרתּא of Ezr 4:11. Bertheau translates הנּשׁתּון כּתב, copy of the letter, and regards it as quite identical with the Chaldee אגּרתּא פּרשׁגן, Ezr 4:11; he can hardly, however, be in the right. כּתב does not mean a transcript or copy, but only a writing (comp. Est 4:8). This, too, does away with the inference \"that the writer of this statement had before him only an Aramaean translation of the letter contained in the state-papers or chronicles which he made use of.\" It is not כּתב, the copy or writing, but הנּשׁתּון, the letter, that is the subject of ארמית מתרגּם, interpreted in Aramaean. This was translated into the Aramaean or Syrian tongue. The passage is not to be understood as stating that the letter was drawn up in the Hebrew or Samaritan tongue, and then translated into Aramaean, but simply that the letter was not composed in the native language of the writers, but in Aramaean. Thus Gesenius rightly asserts, in his Thes. p. 1264, et lingua aramaea scripta erat; in saying which תרגם does not receive the meaning concepit, expressit, but retains its own signification, to interpret, to translate into another language. The writers of the letter were Samaritans, who, having sprung from the intermingling of the Babylonian settlers brought in by Esarhaddon and the remnants of the Israelitish population, spoke a language more nearly akin to Hebrew than to Aramaean, which was spoken at the Babylonian court, and was the official language of the Persian kings and the Persian authorities in Western Asia. This Aramaean tongue had also its own characters, differing from those of the Hebrew and Samaritan. This is stated by the words ארמית כּתוּב, whence Bertheau erroneously infers that this Aramaean writing was written in other than the ordinary Aramaean, and perhaps in Hebrew characters.\nThis letter, too, of Bishlam and his companions seems to be omitted. There follows, indeed, in Ezr 4:8, etc., a letter to King Artachshasta, of which a copy is given in Ezr 4:11-16; but the names of the writers are different from those mentioned in Ezr 4:7. The three names, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel (Ezr 4:7), cannot be identified with the two names Rehum and Shimshai (Ezr 4:8). When we consider, however, that the writers named in Ezr 4:8 were high officials of the Persian king, sending to the monarch a written accusation against the Jews in their own and their associates' names, it requires but little stretch of the imagination to suppose that these personages were acting at the instance of the adversaries named in Ezr 4:7, the Samaritans Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and merely inditing the complaints raised by these opponents against the Jews. This view, which is not opposed by the כּתב of Ezr 4:7, - this word not necessarily implying an autograph, - commends itself to our acceptance, first, because the notion that the contents of this letter are not given finds no analogy in Ezr 4:6, where the contents of the letter to Ahashverosh are sufficiently hinted at by the word שׂטנה; while, with regard to the letter of Ezr 4:7, we should have not a notion of its purport in case it were not the same which is given in Ezr 4:8, etc.\n(Note: The weight of this argument is indirectly admitted by Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 119) and Bertheau, inasmuch as both suppose that there is a long gap in the narrative, and regard the Aramaean letter mentioned in Ezr 4:7 to have been a petition, on the part of persons of consideration in the community at Jerusalem, to the new king, - two notions which immediately betray themselves to be the expedients of perplexity. The supposed \"long gaps, which the chronicler might well leave even in transcribing from his documents\" (Ew.), do not explain the abrupt commencement of Ezr 4:8. If a petition from the Jewish community to the king were spoken of in Ezr 4:7, the accusation against the Jews in Ezr 4:8 would certainly have been alluded to by at least a ו adversative, or some other adversative particle.)\nBesides, the statement concerning the Aramaean composition of this letter would have been utterly purposeless if the Aramaean letter following in Ezr 4:8 had been an entirely different one. The information concerning the language in which the letter was written has obviously no other motive than to introduce its transcription in the original Aramaean. This conjecture becomes a certainty through the fact that the Aramaean letter follows in Ezr 4:8 without a copula of any kind. If any other had been intended, the ו copulative would not more have been omitted here than in Ezr 4:7. The letter itself, indeed, does not begin till Ezr 4:9, while Ezr 4:8 contains yet another announcement of it. This circumstance, however, is explained by the fact that the writers of the letters are other individuals than those named in Ezr 4:7, but chiefly by the consideration that the letter, together with the king's answer, being derived from an Aramaean account of the building of the temple, the introduction to the letter found therein was also transcribed.\nEzr 4:8\nThe writers of the letter are designated by titles which show them to have been among the higher functionaries of Artachshasta. Rehum is called טעם בּעל, dominus consilii v. decreti, by others consiliarius, royal counsellor, probably the title of the Persian civil governor (erroneously taken for a proper name in lxx, Syr., Arab.); Shimshai, ספרא, the Hebrew סופר, scribe, secretary. כּנמא is interpreted by Rashi and Aben Ezra by כּאשׁר נאמר, as we shall say; נמא is in the Talmud frequently an abbreviation of נאמר or נימר, of like signification with לאמר: as follows.\nEzr 4:9-11\nAfter this introduction we naturally look for the letter itself in Ezr 4:9, instead of which we have (Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10) a full statement of who were the senders; and then, after a parenthetical interpolation, \"This is the copy of the letter,\" etc., the letter itself in Ezr 4:11. The statement is rather a clumsy one, the construction especially exhibiting a want of sequence. The verb to אדין is wanting; this follows in Ezr 4:11, but as an anacoluthon, after an enumeration of the names in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 with שׁלחוּ. The sentence ought properly to run thus: \"Then (i.e., in the days of Artachshasta) Rehum, etc., sent a letter to King Artachshasta, of which the following is a copy: Thy servants, the men on this side the river,\" etc. The names enumerated in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 were undoubtedly all inserted in the superscription or preamble of the letter, to give weight to the accusation brought against the Jews. The author of the Chaldee section of the narrative, however, has placed them first, and made the copy of the letter itself begin only with the words, \"Thy servants,\" etc. First come the names of the superior officials, Rehum and Shimshai, and the rest of their companions. The latter are then separately enumerated: The Dinaites, lxx Δειναῖοι, - so named, according to the conjecture of Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 676), from the Median city long afterwards called Deinaver (Abulf. Gegr. ed. Paris. p. 414); the Apharsathchites, probably the Pharathiakites of Strabo (15:3. 12) (Παρητακηνοί, Herod. i. 101), on the borders of Persia and Media, described as being, together with the Elymaites, a predatory people relying on their mountain fastnesses; the Tarpelites, whom Junius already connects with the Τάπουροι dwelling east of Elymais (Ptol. vi. 2. 6); the Apharsites, probably the Persians (פרסיא with א prosthetic); the Archevites, probably so called from the city ארך, Gen 10:10, upon inscriptions Uruk, the modern Warka; the בּבליא, Babylonians, inhabitants of Babylon; the Shushanchites, i.e., the Susanites, inhabitants of the city of Susa; דּהוא, in the Keri דּהיא, the Dehavites, the Grecians (Δάοι, Herod. i. 125); and lastly, the Elamites, the people of Elam or Elymais. Full as this enumeration may seem, yet the motive being to name as many races as possible, the addition, \"and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper brought over and set in the city of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river,\" etc., is made for the sake of enhancing the statement. Prominence being given both here and Ezr 4:17 to the city of Samaria as the city in which Osnapper had settled the colonists here named, the \"nations brought in by Osnapper\" must be identical with those who, according to Ezr 4:2, and Kg2 17:24, had been placed in the cities of Samaria by King Esarhaddon. Hence Osnapper would seem to be merely another name for Esarhaddon. But the names Osnapper (lxx Ἀσσεναφάρ) and Asarhaddon (lxx Ἀσαραδάν) being too different to be identified, and the notion that Osnapper was a second name of Asarhaddon having but little probability, together with the circumstance that Osnapper is not called king, as Asarhaddon is Ezr 4:2, but only \"the great and noble,\" it is more likely that he was some high functionary of Asarhaddon, who presided over the settlement of eastern races in Samaria and the lands west of the Euphrates. \"In the cities,\" or at least the preposition ב, must be supplied from the preceding בּקריה before נהרה עבר שׁאר: and in the rest of the territory, or in the cities of the rest of the territory, on this side of Euphrates. עבר, trans, is to be understood of the countries west of Euphrates; matters being regarded from the point of view of the settlers, who had been transported from the territories east, to those west of Euphrates. וּכענת means \"and so forth,\" and hints that the statement is not complete.\nOn comparing the names of the nations here mentioned with the names of the cities from which, according to Kg2 17:24, colonists were brought to Samaria, we find the inhabitants of most of the cities there named - Babylon, Cuthah, and Ava - here comprised under the name of the country as בּבליא, Babylonians; while the people of Hamath and Sepharvaim may fitly be included among \"the rest of the nations,\" since certainly but few colonists would have been transported from the Syrian Hamath to Samaria. The main divergence between the two passages arises from the mention in our present verse, not only of the nations planted in the cities of Samaria, but of all the nations in the great region on this side of Euphrates (נהרה עבר). All these tribes had similar interests to defend in opposing the Jewish community, and they desired by united action to give greater force to their representation to the Persian monarch, and thus to hinder the people of Jerusalem from becoming powerful. And certainly they had some grounds for uneasiness lest the remnant of the Israelites in Palestine, and in other regions on this side the Euphrates, should combine with the Jerusalem community, and the thus united Israelites should become sufficiently powerful to oppose an effectual resistance to their heathen adversaries. On the anacoluthistic connection of Ezr 4:11. פּרשׁגן, Ezr 4:11, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:6; Ezr 7:11, and frequently in the Targums and the Syriac, written פּתשׁגן Est 3:14 and Est 4:8, is derived from the Zendish paiti (Sanscr. prati) and enghana (in Old-Persian thanhana), and signifies properly a counterword, i.e., counterpart, copy. The form with ר is either a corruption, or formed from a compound with fra; comp. Gildemeister in the Zeitschr. fr die Kunde des Morgenl. iv. p. 210, and Haug in Ewald's bibl. Jahrb. v. p. 163, etc. - The copy of the letter begins with עבדּיך, thy servants, the men, etc. The Chethib עבדיך is the original form, shortened in the Keri into עבדּך. Both forms occur elsewhere; comp. Dan 2:29; Dan 3:12, and other passages. The וכענת, etc., here stands for the full enumeration of the writers already given in Ezr 4:9, and also for the customary form of salutation.\nEzr 4:12-16\nThe letter. Ezr 4:12 \"Be it known unto the king.\" On the form להוא for יהוא, peculiar to biblical Chaldee, see remarks on Dan 2:20. \"Which are come up from thee,\" i.e., from the territory where thou art tarrying; in other words, from the country beyond Euphrates. This by no means leads to the inference, as Schrader supposes, that these Jews had been transported from Babylon to Jerusalem by King Artachshasta. מלק answers to the Hebrew עלה, and is used like this of the journey to Jerusalem. \"Are come to us, to Jerusalem,\" עלינא, to us, that is, into the parts where we dwell, is more precisely defined by the words \"to Jerusalem.\" \"They are building the rebellious and bad city, and are setting up its walls and digging its foundations.\" Instead of מרדתּא (with Kamets and Metheg under )ר the edition of J. H. Mich. has מרדתּא, answering to the stat. abs. מרדא, Ezr 4:15; on the other hand, the edition of Norzi and several codices read מרדתּא, the feminine of מרוד. For בּאוּשׁתּא Norzi has באישׁתּא, from בּישׁ, a contraction of בּאישׁ. For אשׁכללוּ must be read, according to the Keri, שׁכללוּ שׁוּריּא. The Shaphel שׁכלל from כּלל, means to complete, to finish. אשּׁין, bases, foundations. יחיטוּ may be the imperf. Aphel of חוּט, formed after the example of יקּים for יקים, omitting the reduplication, יחיט. חוּט means to sew, to sew together, and may, like רפא, be understood of repairing walls or foundations. But it is more likely to be the imperf. Aphel of חטט, in Syriac hat, and in the Talmud, to dig, to dig out, fodit, excavavit - to dig out the foundations for the purpose of erecting new buildings.\nEzr 4:13\n\"Now be it known unto the king, that if this city be built up and ... they will not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and it (the city) will at last bring damage to the king.\" The three words מנדּה בלו והלך occur again, Ezr 4:20 and Ezr 7:24, in this combination as designating the different kinds of imposts. מנדּה, with resolved Dagesh forte, for מדּה (Ezr 4:20), signifies measure, then tax or custom measured to every one. בּלו, probably a duty on consumption, excise; הלך, a toll paid upon roads by travellers and their goods. The word אפּהם, which occurs only here, and has not been expressed by old translators, depends upon the Pehlevi word אודום: it is connected with the Sanscrit apa, in the superl. apama, and signifies at last, or in the future; comp. Haug, p. 156. מלכים, a Hebraized form for מלכין, Ezr 4:15, is perhaps only an error of transcription.\nEzr 4:14\n\"Now, because we eat the salt of the palace, and it does not become us to see the damage of the king, we send (this letter) and make known to the king.\" מלח מלח, to salt salt = to eat salt. To eat the salt of the palace is a figurative expression for: to be in the king's pay. See this interpretation vindicated from the Syriac and Persian in Gesen. thes. p. 790.\n(Note: Luther, in translating \"all we who destroyed the temple,\" follows the Rabbis, who, from the custom of scattering salt upon destroyed places, Jdg 9:45, understood these words as an expression figurative of destruction, and היכלא as the temple.)\nערוה, deprivation, emptying, here injury to the royal power or revenue. אריך, participle of ארך, answering to the Hebrew ערך, means fitting, becoming.\nEzr 4:15\n\"That search may be made in the book of the chronicles of thy fathers, so shalt thou find in the book of the Chronicles that this city has been a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and countries, and that they have from of old stirred up sedition within it, on which account this city was (also) destroyed.\" יבקּר is used impersonally: let one seek, let search be made. דּכרניּא ספר, book of records, is the public royal chronicle in which the chief events of the history of the realm were recorded, called Est 6:1 the book of the records of daily events. Thy fathers are the predecessors of the king, i.e., his predecessors in government; therefore not merely the Median and Persian, but the Chaldean and Assyrian kings, to whose dominions the Persian monarchs had succeeded. אשׁתּדּוּר, a verbal noun from the Ithpeal of שׁדר, rebellion. עלמא יומת מן, from the days of eternity, i.e., from time immemorial. יומת is in the constructive state, plural, formed from the singular יומא. This form occurs only here and Ezr 4:19, but is analogous with the Hebrew poetical form ימות for ימים.\nEzr 4:16\nAfter thus casting suspicion upon the Jews as a seditious people, their adversaries bring the accusation, already raised at the beginning of the letter, to a climax, by saying that if Jerusalem is rebuilt and fortified, the king will lose his supremacy over the lands on this side the river. דּנה לקבל, on this account, for this reason, that the present inhabitants of the fortified city Jerusalem are like its former inhabitants, thou wilt have no portion west of Euphrates, i.e., thou wilt have nothing more to do with the countries on this side the river-wilt forfeit thy sway over these districts.\nEzr 4:17-22\nThe royal answer to this letter. פּתגּמא - a word which has also passed into the Hebrew, Ecc 8:11; Est 1:20 - is the Zend. patigama, properly that which is to take place, the decree, the sentence; see on Dan 3:16. עבר וּשׁאר still depends upon בּ: those dwelling in Samaria and the other towns on this side the river. The royal letter begins with וּכעת שׁלם, \"Peace,\" and so forth. כּעת is abbreviated from כּענת.\nEzr 4:18\n\"The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me.\" מפרשׁ part. pass. Peal, corresponds with the Hebrew part. Piel מפרשׁ, made plain, adverbially, plainly, and does not signify \"translated into Persian.\"\nEzr 4:19\n\"And by me a command has been given, and search has been made; and it has been found that this city from of old hath lifted itself (risen) up against kings,\" etc. מתנשּׁא, lifted itself up rebelliously, as (in Hebrew) in Kg1 1:5.\nEzr 4:20\n\"There have been powerful kings in Jerusalem, and (rulers) exercising dominion over the whole region beyond the river\" (westward of Euphrates). This applies in its full extent only to David and Solomon, and in a less degree to subsequent kings of Israel and Judah. On Ezr 4:20, comp. Ezr 4:13.\nEzr 4:21\n\"Give ye now commandment to hinder these people (to keep them from the work), that this city be not built until command (sc. to build) be given from me.\" יתּשׂם, Ithpeal of שׂוּם.\nEzr 4:22\n\"And be warned from committing an oversight in this respect,\" i.e., take heed to overlook nothing in this matter (זהיר, instructed, warned). \"Why should the damage become great (i.e., grow), to bring injury to kings?\"\nEzr 4:23\nThe result of this royal command. As soon as the copy of the letter was read before Rehum and his associates, they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and hindered them by violence and force. אדרע with א prosthetic only here, elsewhere דּרע (= זרוע), arm, violence. Bertheau translates, \"with forces and a host;\" but the rendering of אדרע or זרוע by \"force\" can neither be shown to be correct from Eze 17:9 and Dan 11:15, Dan 11:31, nor justified by the translation of the lxx, ἐν ἵπποις καὶ δυνάμει. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["\"Then ceased the work of the house of God at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of Darius king of Persia.\" With this statement the narrator returns to the notice in Ezr 4:5, that the adversaries of Judah succeeded in delaying the building of the temple till the reign of King Darius, which he takes up, and now adds the more precise information that it ceased till the second year of King Darius. The intervening section, Ezr 4:6, gives a more detailed account of those accusations against the Jews made by their adversaries to kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta. If we read Ezr 4:23 and Ezr 4:24 as successive, we get an impression that the discontinuation to build mentioned in Ezr 4:24 was the effect and consequence of the prohibition obtained from King Artachshasta, through the complaints brought against the Jews by his officials on this side the river; the בּאדין of Ezr 4:24 seeming to refer to the אדין of Ezr 4:23. Under this impression, older expositors have without hesitation referred the contents of Ezr 4:6 to the interruption to the building of the temple during the period from Cyrus to Darius, and understood the two names Ahashverosh and Artachshasta as belonging to Cambyses and (Pseudo) Smerdis, the monarchs who reigned between Cyrus and Darius. Grave objections to this view have, however, been raised by Kleinert (in the Beitrgen der Dorpater Prof. d. Theol. 8132, vol. i) and J. W. Schultz (Cyrus der Grosse, in Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 624, etc.), who have sought to prove that none but the Persian kings Xerxes and Artaxerxes can be meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta, and that the section Ezr 4:6 relates not to the building of the temple, but to the building of the walls of Jerusalem, and forms an interpolation or episode, in which the historian makes the efforts of the adversaries of Judah to prevent the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem under Xerxes and Artaxerxes follow immediately after his statement of their attempt to hinder the building of the temple, for the sake of presenting at one glance a view of all their machinations against the Jews. This view has been advocated not only by Vaihinger, \"On the Elucidation of the History of Israel after the Captivity,\" in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1857, p. 87, etc., and Bertheau in his Commentary on this passage, but also by Hengstenberg, Christol. iii. p. 143, Auberlen, and others, and opposed by Ewald in the 2nd edition of his Gesch. Israels, iv. p. 118, where he embraces the older explanation of these verses, and A. Koehler on Haggai, p. 20. On reviewing the arguments advanced in favour of the more modern view, we can lay no weight at all upon the circumstance that in Ezr 4:6 the building of the temple is not spoken of. The contents of the letter sent to Ahashverosh (Ezr 4:6) are not stated; in that to Artachshasta (Ezr 4:11) the writers certainly accuse the Jews of building the rebellious and bad city (Jerusalem), of setting up its walls and digging out its foundations (Ezr 4:12); but the whole document is so evidently the result of ardent hatred and malevolent suspicion, that well-founded objections to the truthfulness of these accusations may reasonably be entertained. Such adversaries might, for the sake of more surely attaining their end of obstructing the work of the Jews, easily represent the act of laying the foundations and building the walls of the temple as a rebuilding of the town walls. The answer of the king, too (Ezr 4:17), would naturally treat only of such matters as the accusers had mentioned.\nThe argument derived from the names of the kings is of far more importance. The name אחשׁורושׁ (in Ezr 4:6) occurs also in the book of Esther, where, as is now universally acknowledged, the Persian king Xerxes is meant; and in Dan 9:1, as the name of the Median king Kyaxares. In the cuneiform inscriptions the name is in Old-Persian Ksayarsa, in Assyrian Hisiarsi, in which it is easy to recognise both the Hebrew form Ahashverosh, and the Greek forms Ξέρξης and Κυαξάρης. On the other hand, the name Cambyses (Old-Persian Kambudshja) offers no single point of identity; the words are radically different, whilst nothing is known of Cambyses having ever borne a second name or surname similar in sound to the Hebrew Ahashverosh. The name Artachshasta, moreover, both in Est 7:1-10 and 8, and in the book of Nehemiah, undoubtedly denotes the monarch known as Artaxerxes (Longimanus). It is, indeed, in both these books written ארתּחשׁסתּא with ס, and in the present section, and in Ezr 6:14, ארתּחששׁתּא; but this slight difference of orthography is no argument for difference of person, ארתחשׁשׁתא seeming to be a mode of spelling the word peculiar to the author of the Chaldee section, Ezra 4-6. Two other names, indeed, of Smerdis, the successor of Cambyses, have been handed down to us. According to Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 7, and Ktesias, Pers. fr. 8-13, he is said to have been called Tanyoxares, and according to Justini hist. i. 9, Oropastes; and Ewald is of opinion that the latter name is properly Ortosastes, which might answer to Artachshasta. It is also not improbable that Smerdis may, as king, have assumed the name of Artachshasta, Ἀρταξέρξης, which Herodotus (vi. 98) explains by μέγας ἀρήΐος. But neither this possibility, nor the opinion of Ewald, that Ortosastes is the correct reading for Oropastes in Just. hist. i. 9, can lay any claim to probability, unless other grounds also exist for the identification of Artachshasta with Smerdis. Such grounds, however, are wanting; while, on the other hand, it is priori improbable that Ps. Smerdis, who reigned but about seven months, should in this short period have pronounced such a decision concerning the matter of building the temple of Jerusalem, as we read in the letter of Artachshasta, Ezr 4:17, even if the adversaries of the Jews should, though residing in Palestine, have laid their complaints before him, immediately after his accession to the throne. When we consider also the great improbability of Ahashverosh being a surname of Cambyses, we feel constrained to embrace the view that the section Ezr 4:6 is an episode inserted by the historian, on the occasion of narrating the interruption to the building of the temple, brought about by the enemies of the Jews, and for the sake of giving a short and comprehensive view of all the hostile acts against the Jewish community on the part of the Samaritans and surrounding nations.\nThe contents and position of Ezr 4:24 may easily be reconciled with this view, which also refutes as unfounded the assertion of Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, i. p. 303, and Schrader, p. 469, that the author of the book of Ezra himself erroneously refers the document given, Ezr 4:6, to the erection of the temple, instead of to the subsequent building of the walls of Jerusalem. For, to say nothing of the contents of Ezr 4:6, although it may seem natural to refer the בּאדין of Ezr 4:24 to Ezr 4:23, it cannot be affirmed that this reference is either necessary or the only one allowable. The assertion that בּאדין is \"always connected with that which immediately precedes,\" cannot be strengthened by an appeal to Ezr 5:2; Ezr 6:1; Dan 2:14, Dan 2:46; Dan 3:3, and other passages. בּאדין, then (= at that time), in contradistinction to אדין, thereupon, only refers a narrative, in a general manner, to the time spoken of in that which precedes it. When, then, it is said, then, or at that time, the work of the house of God ceased (Ezr 4:24), the then can only refer to what was before related concerning the building of the house of God, i.e., to the narrative Ezr 4:1. This reference of Ezr 4:24 to Ezr 4:1 is raised above all doubt, by the fact that the contents of Ezr 4:24 are but a recapitulation of Ezr 4:5; it being said in both, that the cessation from building the temple lasted till the reign, or, as it is more precisely stated in Ezr 4:24, till the second year of the reign, of Darius king of Persia. With this recapitulation of the contents of Ezr 4:5, the narrative, Ezr 4:24, returns to the point which it had reached at Ezr 4:5. What lies between is thereby characterized as an illustrative episode, the relation of which to that which precedes and follows it, is to be perceived and determined solely by its contents. If, then, in this episode, we find not only that the building of the temple is not spoken of, but that letters are given addressed to the Kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta, who, as all Ezra's contemporaries would know, reigned not before but after Darius, the very introduction of the first letter with the words, \"And in the reign of Ahashverosh\" (Ezr 4:6), after the preceding statement, \"until the reign of Darius king of Persia\" (Ezr 4:5), would be sufficient to obviate the misconception that letters addressed to Ahashverosh and Artachshasta related to matters which happened in the period between Cyrus and Darius Hystaspis. Concerning another objection to this view of Ezr 4:6, viz., that it would be strange that King Artaxerxes, who is described to us in Ezra 7 and in Nehemiah as very favourable to the Jews, should have been for a time so prejudiced against them as to forbid the building of the town and walls of Jerusalem, we shall have an opportunity of speaking in our explanations of Neh 1:1-11. - Ezr 4:24, so far, then, as its matter is concerned, belongs to the following chapter, to which it forms an introduction. \n"]}],"introduction":"The adversaries of the Jews prevent the building of the temple till the reign of Darius (Ezr 4:1, Ezr 4:2). When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the community which had returned from captivity were beginning to rebuild the temple, they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chiefs of the people, and desired to take part in this work, because they also sacrificed to the God of Israel. These adversaries were, according to Ezr 4:2, the people whom Esarhaddon king of Assyria had settled in the neighbourhood of Benjamin and Judah. If we compare with this verse the information (Kg2 17:24) that the kings of Assyria brought men from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, and that they took possession of the depopulated kingdom of the ten tribes, and dwelt therein; then these adversaries of Judah and Benjamin are the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Israel, who were called Samaritans after the central-point of their settlement. הגּולה בּני, sons of the captivity (Ezr 6:19, etc., Ezr 8:35; Ezr 10:7, Ezr 10:16), also shortly into הגּולה, e.g., Ezr 1:11, are the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity, who composed the new community in Judah and Jerusalem. Those who returned with Zerubbabel, and took possession of the dwelling-places of their ancestors, being, exclusive of priests and Levites, chiefly members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, are called, especially when named in distinction from the other inhabitants of the land, Judah and Benjamin. The adversaries give the reason of their request to share in the building of the temple in the words: \"For we seek your God as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, which brought us up hither.\" The words זבחים אנחנוּ ולא are variously explained. Older expositors take the Chethiv ולא as a negative, and make זבחים to mean the offering of sacrifices to idols, both because לא is a negative, and also because the assertion that they had sacrificed to Jahve would not have pleased the Jews, quia deficiente templo non debuerint sacrificare; and sacrifices not offered in Jerusalem were regarded as equivalent to sacrifices to idols. They might, moreover, fitly strengthen their case by the remark: \"Since the days of Esarhaddon we offer no sacrifices to idols.\" On the other hand, however, it is arbitrary to understand זבח, without any further definition, of sacrificing to idols; and the statement, \"We already sacrifice to the God of Israel,\" contains undoubtedly a far stronger reason for granting their request than the circumstance that they do not sacrifice to idols. Hence we incline, with older translators (lxx, Syr., Vulg., 1 Esdras), to regard לא as an unusual form of לו, occurring in several places (see on Exo 21:8), the latter being also substituted in the present instance as Keri. The position also of לא before אנחנוּ points the same way, for the negative would certainly have stood with the verb. On Esarhaddon, see remarks on Kg2 19:37 and Isa 37:38. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZR/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZR","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZR/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZR","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/EZR/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"EZR","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":5}