EZRA 5 COMMETARYEDITED BY GLE PEASE

1 ow Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.

BARES, "Haggai and Zechariah stirred up Zerubbabel and Joshua Ezr_5:2; Hag_1:14, and warned the people against neglecting the building of the temple, in order to give themselves to the beautifying of their own houses (see Hag_1:4, Hag_1:9). Zechariah was the son of Berechiah, and grandson of Iddo (see the marginal reference; Mat_23:35). Compare a similar application of “son” in the case of Jehu (see the 2Ki_9:20 note).

In the name of the God of Israel, even unto them - Rather, “in the name of the God of Israel, which was upon them.” The two prophets addressed the Jews, in respect of their being God’s people, or, in Hebrew phrase (see the Jer_15:16 margin), “having God’s name called upon them.”

CLARKE, "Haggai - and Zechariah - These are the same whose writings we have among the twelve minor prophets.

The son of Iddo - That is, the grandson of Iddo; for Zechariah was the son of Barachiah, the son of Iddo. See his prophecy, Zec_1:1 (note).

GILL, "Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo,.... The grandson of Iddo; for he was the son of Berechiah, Zec_1:1,

prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel; this they both did in the second year of Darius; the one began in the sixth month, and the other in the eighth month of the year, Hag_1:1, even "unto them"; or "against them", as De Dieu; reproving them for their sloth and neglect of building the temple, when they were careful enough to raise up goodly houses for themselves to dwell in; and for being intimidated by the command of the king of Persia, which only forbid the building of the city, that is, the walls of it, but not the temple any more than their own houses; and besides, there was now a new king, from whom they had not so much to fear.

HERY, "Some reckon that the building of the temple was suspended for only nine years; I am willing to believe that fifteen years were the utmost. During this time they had an altar and a tabernacle, which no doubt they made use of. When we cannot do what we would we must do what we can in the service of God, and be sorry we can do no better. But the counsellors that were hired to hinder the work (Ezr_4:5) told them, and perhaps with a pretence to inspiration, that the time had not come for the building of the temple (Hag_1:2), urging that it was long ere the time came for the building of Solomon's temple; and thus the people were made easy in their own ceiled houses, while God's house lay waste. Now here we are told how life was put into that good cause which seemed to lie dead.

I. They had two good ministers, who, in God's name, earnestly persuaded them to put the wheel of business in motion again. Observe,

1. Who these ministers were, namely, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who both began to prophesy in the second year of Darius, as appears, Hag_1:1; Zec_1:1. Note, (1.) The temple of God among men is to be built by prophecy, not by secular force (that often hinders it, but seldom furthers it), but by the word of God. As the weapons of our warfare, so the instruments of our building, are not carnal, but spiritual, and they are the ministers of the gospel that are the master-builders. (2.) It is the business of God's prophets to stir up God's people to that which is good, and to help them in it, to strengthen their hands, and, by suitable considerations fetched from the word of God, to quicken them to their duty and encourage them in it. (3.) It is a sign that God has mercy in store for a people when he raises up prophets among them to be their helpers in the way and work of God, their guides, overseers, and rulers.

2. To whom they were sent. They prophesied unto the Jews (for, as to them pertained the giving of the law, so also the gift of prophecy, and therefore they are called the children of the prophets, Act_3:25, because they were educated under their tuition and instruction), even unto them, upon them, even upon them (so it is in the original), as Ezekiel prophesied upon the dry bones, that they might live, Eze_37:4. They prophesied against them (so bishop Patrick), for they reproved them because they did not build the temple. The word of God, if it be not received now as a testimony to us, will be received now as a testimony to us, will be received another day as a testimony against us, and will judge us.

3. Who sent them. They prophesied in the name, or (as some read it) in the cause, or for the sake, of the God of Israel; they spoke by commission from him, and argued from his authority over them, his interest in them, and the concern of his glory among them.

JAMISO, "Ezr_5:1-17. Zerubbabel and Jeshua set forward the building of the Temple in the reign of Darius.

Then the prophets ... prophesied ... in the name of the God of Israel— From the recorded writings of Haggai and Zechariah, it appears that the difficulties experienced and the many obstacles thrown in the way had first cooled the zeal of the Jews in the building of the temple, and then led to an abandonment of the work, under a pretended belief that the time for rebuilding it had not yet come (Hag_1:2-11). For fifteen years the work was completely suspended. These two prophets upbraided them with severe reproaches for their sloth, negligence, and worldly selfishness (Hag_1:4), threatened them with severe judgments if they continued backward, and promised that they would be blessed with great national prosperity if they resumed and prosecuted the work with alacrity and vigor.

Zechariah the son of Iddo— that is, grandson (Zec_1:1).

K&D, " “The prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel upon

them.” חתנ�י without א, which this word occasionally loses in Hebrew also, comp. 1Sa_

10:6, 1Sa_10:13; Jer_26:9. The epithet נב�אה added to the name of Haggai serves to

distinguish him from others of the same name, and as well as ה�ביא, Hagg. Hag_1:1,

Hag_1:3, Hag_1:12, and elsewhere, is used instead of the name of his father; hence, after Zechariah is named, the prophets, as designating the position of both, can follow.

;Eze_37:9 ,אל = ,as in Eze_37:4 על ;they prophesied to (not against) the Jews ,על־יהודיא

Eze_36:1. The Jews in Judah and Jerusalem, in contradistinction to Jews dwelling

elsewhere, especially to those who had remained in Babylon. עליהון belongs to אל� in ,�שם

the name of God, who was upon them, who was come upon them, had manifested Himself to them. Comp. Jer_15:16.

COFFMA, "Verse 1AFTER A 15-YEAR DELAY; WORK O THE TEMPLE RESUMED;

THE GOVEROR REPORTS TO DARIUS I;

THE HISTORICAL SITUATIO

The opposition of the people of the land had succeeded in weakening the purpose of Israel to rebuild the temple. As we learn from Haggai and others of the Minor Prophets, the lack of zeal and devotion on the part of God's people themselves had also contributed to this long delay (Haggai 1:2-11). Under the urgent admonitions of Haggai, both Zerubbabel and Jeshua rose up and vigorously began work on the temple. The foundation had been laid much earlier, but that foundation was probably little more than a ground-breaking that projected the size of the structure but did little else.

Also a new governor, operating from his headquarters in Damascus, under the authority of the Persian ruler who, at this time was Darius Hystaspes, was in charge of the satrapy that included Palestine. The governor was Tattenai, a far more noble person than the evil Rehum, a governor who came much later, and whose sympathies were totally in favor of the Samaritans and who was bitterly opposed to Israel.

We may be sure that when work was resumed on the temple that the Samaritans went immediately to Damascus to enlist the aid of the new governor in stopping it. Tattenai, however, refused to take any action against the temple work until he had consulted his overlord Darius I.

This chapter provides the sacred record of these developments.

WORK O THE TEMPLE RESUMED

"ow the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem; in the name of the God of Israel, prophesied they unto them. Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and with them were the prophets of God helping them."

"ow the prophets" (Ezra 5:1). The record here does not mention what the prophets prophesied; but it is clear that they demanded that the Jews resume work on their temple. (See Vol. 3 of our Commentaries on the Minor Prophets (Haggai), pp. 187-197, for a discussion of just how urgent the message of the prophets was.) At any rate, Israel heeded it, and began to build the temple.

"Haggai ... and Zechariah" (Ezra 5:1). "The work on the temple was renewed only three weeks after Haggai began preaching, which was Sept. 20,520 B.C."[1] "Zerubbabel is highly honored in Haggai and in Zechariah 4; Jeshua is honored in Zechariah 3 and Zechariah 6."[2]

"And began to build the house of God" (Ezra 5:2). This supports our view that the first laying of the foundation was a very elementary thing. Haggai complained that the house of God "lay in waste" (Haggai 1:4); and that is the same terminology that was used after ebuchadnezzar destroyed it. Furthermore, as Hamrick pointed out, "Haggai 1:12-15 does not mention any previous attempt to build the temple; and this probably means that Sheshbazzar's beginnings had been so meager that the project had to be started anew."[3]

"Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel" (Ezra 5:2).

COKE, "Ver. 1. Haggai—and Zechariah— Concerning these prophets, see the books which bear their names. They are both thought to have been born at Babylon during the captivity, and both with united zeal encouraged the people to go on with the work of the temple. Upon the accession of Darius to the throne, Haggai in particular, by reproaching the people with their indolence and insensibility; by telling them, that they were careful enough to lodge themselves very commodiously, while the house of the Lord lay buried in its ruins; and by putting them in mind, that the calamities of drought and famine, wherewith God had afflicted them since their return, were owing to their neglect in building the temple, prevailed with them to set about the work in good earnest; so that, by virtue of these reproofs, as well as some encouragements which God occasionally authorized him to give them, they brought the whole to a conclusion in a short time.

ELLICOTT, "(1-2) ow occurs the intervention of the two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, whose testimonies and predictions should at this point be read. They reveal a state of apathy which Ezra does not allude to; such a state of things, in fact, as would have thwarted the whole design of Providence had it not been changed. Hence the abrupt return of the spirit of prophecy, some of the last utterances of

which provoked or “stirred up “—as Cyrus had been stirred up—the spirit of the two leaders and of the heads of the families.

BESO, "Ezra 5:1. Haggai and Zechariah — Concerning these prophets, see the books which bear their names. They are both thought to have been born at Babylon during the captivity, and both with united zeal encouraged the people to go on with the work of the temple. Upon the accession of Darius to the throne, Haggai, in particular, by reproaching the people with their indolence and insensibility; by telling them that they were careful enough to lodge themselves very commodiously, while the house of the Lord lay buried in its ruins; and by putting them in mind that the calamities of drought and famine, wherewith God had afflicted them since their return, were owing to their neglect in repairing the temple, prevailed with them to set about the work in good earnest; so that, by virtue of these reproofs, as well as some encouragements which God occasionally authorized him to give them, they brought the whole to a conclusion in a short time. The son of Iddo — That is, the grandson; for Zechariah was the son of Barachiah. Prophesied unto the Jews —Commanding them from God to return to building the temple, with a promise of his favour and assistance.

COSTABLE, "The resumption of work5:1-2

The Book of Haggai contains four messages that Haggai delivered to the returned exiles in520 B.C. We know from what he said that the people had turned from their commitment to rebuild the temple, to constructing comfortable houses for themselves ( Haggai 1:2-11). The prophet Zechariah joined Haggai in encouraging the people to give God"s interests priority over their own ( Ezra 5:1).

"There is always an effective answer to discouragement in the bold proclamation of the word of God." [ote: McConville, p32.]

In response to the ministries of these prophets, the people began to rebuild the temple again ( Ezra 5:2; Haggai 1:12-14) in520 B.C. ( Ezra 4:24).

DUMMELOW, "The Building of the Temple Recommenced

This chapter gives an account of a renewed attempt to rebuild the Temple, and recites a letter from the Persian officials in Judæa to the Persian court to enquire whether the Jews had leave to proceed with the work.

1. Then the prophets] The hostility of their neighbours (Ezra 4:4-5), coupled with disastrous seasons (Haggai 1:10-11; Haggai 2:17), had so discouraged the people that they said 'The time is not come for the Lord's house to be built' (Haggai 1:2). Out of this despondency they were roused by two prophets, whose presence amongst them must of itself have convinced them that the Spirit of the Lord was once more with them.

Haggai] The prophecies of Haggai were all delivered in the second year of Darius. In them he upbraided the people for bunding substantial houses for themselves whilst neglecting the House of God; attributed to such neglect the prevalent scarcity, which was God's judgment upon them; and when the work was once again taken in hand by Zerubbabel, predicted that the glory of the second Temple would exceed that of the first.

Zechariah] The prophecies of Zechariah (who was really son of Berechiah and grandson of Iddo) were delivered at intervals between the second and fourth years of Darius. In them he consoled his countrymen for their afflictions, denounced (God's wrath upon the nations who had oppressed Jerusalem, encouraged with hopes of a great future both Zerubbabel and Joshua in their work of rebuilding the Temple, and exhorted the people to truth, justice, and mercy.

In the name.. even unto them] RM 'in the name of the God of Israel which was upon them': cp. Jeremiah 14:9 (which is lit. 'thy name is called upon us').

2. Began to build] It had really been begun sixteen years before (Ezra 3:8.), but the work having been suspended, it had to be recommenced.

3. Tatnai] perhaps the satrap of all the Persian possessions W. of the Euphrates (the 'river').

4. Said we] better, with the LXX, 'said they.'

5. They could not cause them to cease] Tatnai could not venture to arrest a work which was alleged to have the sanction of Cyrus (Ezra 5:13), though he cautiously sent to Persia to have the statement verified. Till the matter came, etc.] RV 'till the matter should come to Darius, and then answer should be returned.'

13. Cyrus the king of Babylon] The king of Persia included Babylon within his dominions: cp. ehemiah 13:6.

14. Sheshbazzar] i.e. Zerubbabel: see on ehemiah 1:8.

LAGE, "I. The Resumption of the Work of Building the Temple. Ezra 5:1-5

1Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them 2 Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem: and with them were the prophets of God helping them 3 At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-boznai, and their companions, and said thus unto them, Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall? 4Then said we unto them after this manner, What are the names of the men that make this building? 5But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, that they could not cause them to cease, till the matter came to Darius: and then they

returned answer by letter concerning this matter.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:1. Then the prophets, Haggai, the prophet and Zechariah.—We learn also from Haggai himself that the congregation at that time needed prophetic admonition. At first the most of them had, without doubt, with great reluctance allowed the building to remain unfinished, but gradually had lost the desire thereto, caring only for their own interests, such as the erection of their own houses in as beautiful a manner as possible. otwithstanding this, however, some of them had still such devotion to the Lord and zeal for His worship, that the prophetic office was possible, and there was relatively a great susceptibility for it. נביאה in Hebrew seems to have been almost a surname of Haggai, Ezra 6:14; Haggai 1:1. The ,הנביאplural “the prophets,” which in the Hebrew text follows Zechariah son of Iddo, as if Haggai had not yet been called prophet, is in favor of this view. The preposition עלafter “prophesied,” does not denote hostility, but simply the direction of the address, “unto” (comp. 2 Chronicles 20:37; 1 Kings 12:8, etc.), as is sufficiently clear from the contents of the prophecies.—The Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem.—Thus they are designated to distinguish them from those who remained behind in Chaldea. At the same time it indicates those who had undertaken the task of building the temple. עליהון is a closer designation of the name of God, so that the relative might be supplied before it: Who was over them (comp. Ezra 3:3, etc.), which characterizes them as those who belonged to God. ( Isaiah 4:1 and Jeremiah 4:16), who leads them, urges them on and encourages them.[F1]

PULPIT, "RECOMMECEMET OF THE BUILDIG I THE SECOD YEAR OF DARIUS. PREACHIG OF HAGGAI AD ZECHARIAH (Ezra 5:1-17 :l, 2). It appears from the extant prophecies of these two prophets that the long frustration of their hopes had had its natural effect on the spirits of the people. They had begun to weary of endeavours which produced no practical result, and to despair of accomplishing an object which all their efforts did not perceptibly advance. A reaction had set in. The burning enthusiasm which had shown itself on the first arrival of the exiles with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:68, Ezra 2:69; Ezra 3:11) had faded away; indolence had succeeded to activity, and a selfish desire of comfort to zeal for the honour of God. Instead of watching eagerly for an opportunity of recommencing the great work, and seizing the first occasion that offered itself, the people had come to acquiesce in its indefinite postponement, and to say among themselves, "The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built" (Haggai 1:2). Laying aside all idea of moving further in the matter of the temple, they had turned their energies to the practical object of establishing themselves in good and comfortable houses (Haggai 1:4, Haggai 1:9). The great revolution in Persia, by which the Pseudo-Smerdis was dethroned and slain, Magism put down, and the (comparatively) pure religion of Zoroaster re-established as the religion of the Persian state, failed to stir their minds or raise their hopes. A whole year was allowed to elapse, and nothing was done, no fresh effort made. It was the second year of King Darius (Ezra 4:24)—nay, it was the sixth month of that year, the month Elul, corresponding to our September, as we learn from Haggai (Haggai 1:1)—and still no step was taken. The nation was "eating," and "drinking," and "clothing itself" (Haggai 1:6), and making for itself "cieled houses" (Haggai 1:4), while the

house of God lay "waste" (Haggai 1:9)—in that unsightly condition always presented by works commenced and then suspended for years. Even Zerubbabel and Jeshua the civil and ecclesiastical rulers—acquiesced apparently in this miserable state of things—this tameness, sloth, indifference to God's honour, and general pursuit of mere carnal delights. Such was the situation, when suddenly, unexpectedly, to the people's consternation rather than their joy, a Prophet appeared upon the scene. "In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel." Prophecy had been in abeyance for sixteen years, since the "third of Cyrus," when Daniel uttered his last warning (Daniel 10:1). It was now revived. Haggai came forward, self-proclaimed a prophet of Jehovah (Haggai 1:13), and rebuked the people in the old prophetic tone, and "stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel and the spirit of Jeshua" (Haggai 1:14), and by exhortations, and warnings, and threats brought about in little more than three weeks (Haggai 1:15) the resumption of the work, which was henceforth pressed forward with zeal. Haggai's mission continued only for a very short space from September, b.c. 520, to December of the same year; but before his work came to an end God raised up a second prophet—"Zechariah the son of Iddo"—who carried on his task, sustained the spirit of the people and the rulers, and saw the happy accomplishment of the great undertaking, which he had previously announced as near (Zechariah 4:9), in the sixth year of Darius, b.c. 516.

Ezra 5:1

Zechariah the son of Iddo. Really the grandson (Zechariah 1:1). But Bere-chiah, his father, probably died while he was a child, and, being brought up by Iddo, he was called "the son of Iddo. Prophesied unto the Jews. The addresses of Haggai and Zechariah were only occasionally "prophetic," as we now commonly understand the word. But in the language of the Biblical writers all religious teaching is "prophesying," and Ezra here refers mainly to the exhortations addressed to the Jews by Zechariah and Haggai.

EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMMETARY, "ZECHARIAH THE PROPHET

Zechariah 1:1-6; Ezra 5:1;, Ezra 6:14

ZECHARIAH is one of the prophets whose personality as distinguished from their message exerts some degree of fascination on the student. This is not due, however, as in the case of Hosea or Jeremiah, to the facts of his life, for of these we know extremely little; but to certain conflicting symptoms of character which appear through his prophecies.

His name was a very common one in Israel, Zekher-Yah, "Jehovah remembers." In his own book he is described as "the son of Berekh-Yah, the son of Iddo," and in the Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra as "the son of Iddo." Some have explained this difference by supposing that Berekhyah was the actual father of the prophet,

but that either he died early, leaving Zechariah to the care of the grandfather, or else that he was a man of no note, and Iddo was more naturally mentioned as the head of the family. There are several instances in the Old Testament of men being called the sons of their grandfathers; [Genesis 24:47, cf. 1 Kings 19:16, cf. 2 Kings 9:14; 2 Kings 9:20] as in these cases the grandfather was the reputed founder of the house, so in that of Zechariah Iddo was the head of his family when it came out of Babylon and was anew planted in Jerusalem. Others, however, have contested the genuineness of the words "son of Berekh-Yah," and have traced their insertion to a confusion of the prophet with Zechariah son of Yebherekh-Yahu, the contemporary of Isaiah. This is precarious, while the other hypothesis is a very natural one. Whichever be correct, the prophet Zechariah was a member of the priestly family of Iddo, that came up to Jerusalem from Babylon under Cyrus. [ehemiah 12:4] The Book of ehemiah adds that in the high-priesthood of Yoyakim, the son of Joshua, the head of the house of Iddo was a Zechariah. If this be our prophet, then he was probably a young man in 520, and had come up as a child in the caravans from Babylon. The Aramaic document of the Book of Ezra [Ezra 5:1;, Ezra 6:14] assigns to Zechariah a share with Haggai in the work of instigating Zerubbabel and Jeshua to begin the Temple. one of his oracles is dated previous to the beginning of the work in August, 520, but we have seen that among those undated there are one or two which by referring to the building of the Temple as still future may contain some relics of that first stage of his ministry. From ovember, 520, we have the first of his dated oracles; his Visions followed in January, 519, and his last recorded prophesying in December, 518.

These are all the certain events of Zechariah’s history. But in the well-attested prophecies he has left we discover, besides some obvious traits of character, certain problems of style and expression which suggest a personality of more than usual interest. Loyalty to the great voices of old, the temper which appeals to the experience, rather than to the dogmas, of the past, the gift of plain speech to his own times, a wistful anxiety about his reception as a prophet, [Zechariah 2:13;, Zechariah 4:9;, Zechariah 6:15] combined with the absence of all ambition to be original or anything but the clear voice of the lessons of the past and of the conscience of today these are the qualities which characterize Zechariah’s orations to the people. But how to reconcile them with the strained art and obscure truths of the Visions-it is this which invests with interest the study of his personality. We have proved that the obscurity and redundancy of the Visions cannot all have been due to himself. Later hands have exaggerated the repetitions and raveled the processes of the original. But these gradual blemishes have not grown from nothing: the original style must have been sufficiently involved to provoke the interpolations of the scribes, and it certainly contained all the weird and shifting apparitions which we find so hard to make clear to ourselves. The problem, therefore, remains-how one who had gift of speech, so straight and clear, came to torture and tangle his style; how one who presented with all plainness the main issues of his people’s history found it laid upon him to invent, for the further expression of these, symbols so labored and intricate.

We begin with the oracle which opens his book and illustrates those simple

characteristics of the man that contrast so sharply with the temper of his Visions.

"In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of Jehovah came to the prophet Zechariah, son of Berekhyah, son of Iddo, saying: Jehovah was very wroth with your fathers."

"And thou shalt say unto them: Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: Turn ye to Me-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts-that I may turn to you, saith Jehovah of Hosts! Be not like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying: ‘Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Turn now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds,’ but they hearkened not, and paid no attention to Me-oracle of Jehovah. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever? But, My words and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? till these turned and said, As Jehovah of Hosts did purpose to do unto us, according to our deeds and according to our ways, so hath He dealt with us."

It is a sign of the new age which we have reached, that its prophet should appeal to the older prophets with as much solemnity as they did to Moses himself. The history which led to the Exile has become to Israel as classic and sacred as her great days of deliverance from Egypt and of conquest in Canaan. But still more significant is what Zechariah seeks from that past; this we must carefully discover, if we would appreciate with exactness his rank as a prophet.

The development of religion may be said to consist of a struggle between two tempers, both of which indeed appeal to the past, but from very opposite motives. The one proves its devotion to the older prophets by adopting the exact formulas of their doctrine, counts these sacred to the letter, and would enforce them in detail upon the minds and circumstances of the new generation. It conceives that truth has been promulgated once for all in forms as enduring, as the principles they contain. It fences ancient rites, cherishes old customs and institutions, and when these are questioned it becomes alarmed and even savage. The other temper is no whit behind this one in its devotion to the past, but it seeks the ancient prophets not so much for what they have said as for what they have been, not for what they enforced but for what they encountered, suffered, and confessed. It asks not for dogmas, but for experience and testimony. He who can thus read the past and interpret it to his own day-he is the prophet. In his reading he finds nothing so clear, nothing so tragic, nothing so convincing as the working of the Word of God. He beholds how this came to men, haunted them and was entreated by them. He sees that it was their great opportunity, which being rejected became their judgment. He finds abused justice vindicated, proud wrong punished, and all God’s neglected commonplaces achieving in time their triumph. He reads how men came to see this, and to confess their guilt. He is haunted by the remorse of generations who know how they might have obeyed the Divine call, but willfully did not. And though they have perished, and the prophets have died and their formulas are no more applicable, the victorious Word itself still lives and cries to men with the terrible emphasis of their fathers’ experience. All this is the vision of the true prophet, and it was the vision of Zechariah.

His generation was one whose chief temptation was to adopt towards the past the other attitude we have described. In their feebleness what could the poor remnant of Israel do but cling servilely to the former greatness? The vindication of the Exile had stamped the Divine authority of the earlier prophets. The habits, which the life in Babylon had perfected, of arranging and codifying the literature of the past, and of employing it, in place of altar and ritual, in the stated service of God, had canonized Scripture and provoked men to the worship of its very letter. Had the real prophet not again been raised, these habits might have too early produced the belief that the Word of God was exhausted, and must have fastened upon the feeble life of Israel that mass of stiff and stark dogmas, the literal application of which Christ afterwards found crushing the liberty and the force of religion. Zechariah prevented this-for a time. He himself was mighty in the Scriptures of the past: no man in Israel makes larger use of them. But he employs them as witnesses, not as dogmas; he finds in them not authority, but experience. He reads their testimony to the ever-living presence of God’s Word with men. And seeing that, though the old forms and figures have perished with the hearts which shaped them, the Word itself in its bare truth has vindicated its life by fulfillment in history, he knows that it lives still, and hurls it upon his people, not in the forms published by this or that prophet of long ago, but in its essence and direct from God Himself, as His Word for today and now. "The fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But My words and My statutes, with which I charged My servants the prophets, have they not overtaken your fathers? Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts, Be ye not like your fathers, but turn ye to Me that I may turn to you."

The argument of this oracle might very naturally have been narrowed into a credential for the prophet himself as sent from God. About his reception as Jehovah’s messenger Zechariah shows a repeated anxiety. Four times he concludes a prediction with the words. "And ye shall know that Jehovah hath sent me," as if after his first utterances he had encountered that suspicion and unbelief which a prophet never failed to suffer from his contemporaries. But in this oracle there is no trace of such personal anxiety. The oracle is pervaded only with the desire to prove the ancient Word of God as still alive, and to drive it home in its own sheer force. Like the greatest of his order Zechariah appears with the call to repent: "Turn ye to Me-oracle of Jehovah of Hosts-that I may turn to you." This is the pivot on which history has turned, the one condition on which God has been able to help men. Wherever it is read as the conclusion of all the past, wherever it is proclaimed as the conscience of the present, there the true prophet is found and the Word of God has been spoken.

This same possession by the ethical spirit reappears, as we shall see, in Zechariah’s orations to the people after the anxieties of building are over and the completion of the Temple is in sight. In these he affirms again that the whole essence of God’s Word by the older prophets has been moral-to judge true judgment, to practice mercy, to defend the widow and orphan, the stranger and poor, and to think no evil of one another. For the sad fasts of the Exile Zechariah enjoins gladness, with the duty of truth and the hope of peace. Again and again he enforces sincerity and the

love without dissimulation. His ideals for Jerusalem are very high, including the conversion of the nations to her God. But warlike ambitions have vanished from them, and his pictures of her future condition are homely and practical. Jerusalem shall be no more a fortress, but spread village-wise without walls. Full families, unlike the present colony with its few children and its men worn out in middle life by harassing warfare with enemies and a sullen nature; streets rife with children playing and old folk sitting in the sun; the return of the exiles; happy harvests and spring-times of peace; solid gain of labor for every man, with no raiding neighbors to harass, nor the mutual envies of peasants in their selfish struggle with famine.

It is a simple, hearty, practical man whom such prophesying reveals, the spirit of him bent on justice and love, and yearning for the un-harassed labor of the field and for happy homes. o prophet has more beautiful sympathies, a more direct word of righteousness, or a braver heart.

"Fast not, but love truth and peace. Truth and wholesome justice set ye up in your gates. Be not afraid; strengthen your hands! Old men and women-shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand for the fullness of their years; the city’s streets shall be rife with boys and girls at play."

Verse 1-2THE MISSIO OF PROPHECY

Ezra 5:1-2

THE work of building the temple at Jerusalem, which had been but nominally commenced in the reign of Cyrus, when it was suddenly arrested before the death of that king, and which had not been touched throughout the reigns of the two succeeding kings, Cambyses and Pseudo-Bardes, was taken up in earnest in the second year of Darius, the son of Hystaspes (B.C. 521). The disorders of the empire were then favourable to local liberty. Cambyses committed suicide during a revolt of his army on the march to meet the Pretender who had assumed the name of his murdered brother, Bardes. Seven months later the usurper was assassinated in his palace by some of the Persian nobles. Darius, who was one of the conspirators, ascended the throne in the midst of confusion and while the empire seemed to be falling to pieces. Elam, the old home of the house of Cyrus, revolted; Syria revolted; Babylon revolted twice, and was twice taken by siege. For a time the king’s writ could not run in Palestine. But it was not on account of these political changes that the Jews returned to their work. The relaxing of the supreme authority had left them more than ever at the mercy of their unfriendly neighbours. The generous disposition of Darius might have led them to regard him as a second Cyrus, and his religion might have encouraged them to hope that he would be favourable to them, for Darius was a monotheist, a worshipper of Ormazd. But they recommenced their work without making any appeal to the Great King and without receiving any permission from him, and they did this when he was far too busy fighting for his throne to attend to the troubles of a small, distant city.

We must look in another direction for the impetus which started the Jews again upon their work. Here we come upon one of the most striking facts in the history of Israel, nay, one of the greatest phenomena in the spiritual experience. of mankind. The voice of prophecy was heard among the ruins of Jerusalem. The Cassandra-like notes of Jeremiah had died away more than half a century before. Then Ezekiel had seen his fantastic visions, "a captive by the river of Chebar," and the Second Isaiah had sounded his trumpet-blast in the East, summoning the exiles to a great hope; but as yet no prophet had appeared among the pilgrims on their return to Jerusalem. We cannot account for the sudden outburst of prophecy. It is a work of the Spirit that breathes like the wind, coming we know not how. We can hear its sound; we can perceive the fact. But we cannot trace its origin, or determine its issues. It is born in mystery and it passes into mystery. If it is true that "poeta nascitur, non fit," much more must we affirm that the prophet is no creature of human culture. He may be cultivated after God has made him; he cannot be manufactured by any human machinery. o "School of the Prophets" ever made a true prophet. Many of the prophets never came near any such institution; some of them distinctly repudiated the professional "order." The lower prophets with which the orthern Kingdom once swarmed were just dervishes who sang and danced and worked themselves into a frenzy before the altars on the high places; these men were quite different from the truly inspired messengers of God. Their craft could be taught, and their sacred colleges recruited to any extent from the ranks of fanaticism. But the rare, austere souls that spoke with the authority of the Most High came in a totally different manner. When there was no prophet and when visions were rare men could only wait for God to send the hoped-for guide; they could not call him into existence. The appearance of an inspired soul is always one of the marvels of history. Great men of the second rank may be the features of their age. But it is given to the few of the very first order to be independent of their age, to confront it and oppose it if need be, perhaps to turn its current and shape its course.

The two prophets who now proclaimed their message in Jerusalem appeared at a time of deep depression. They were not borne on the crest of a wave of a religious revival, as its spokesmen to give it utterance. Pagan orators and artists flourished in an Augustan age. The Hebrew prophets came when the circumstances of society were least favourable. Like painters arising to adorn a dingy city, like poets singing of summer in the winter of discontent, like flowers in the wilderness, like wells in the desert, they brought life and strength and gladness to the helpless and despondent, because they came from God. The literary form of their work reflected the civilisation of their day, but there was on it a light that never shone on sea or shore, and this they knew to be the light of God. We never find a true religious revival springing from the spirit of the age. Such a revival always begins in one or two choice souls-in a Moses, a Samuel, a John the Baptist, a St. Bernard, a Jonathan Edwards, a Wesley, a ewman. Therefore it is vain for weary watchers to scan the horizon for signs of the times in the hope that some general improvement of society or some widespread awakening of the Church will usher in a better future. This is no reason for discouragement, however. It rather warns us not to despise the day of small things. When once the spring of living water breaks out, though it flows at first in a little brook, there is hope that it may swell into a great river.

The situation is the more remarkable since the first of the two prophets was an old man, who even seems to have known the first temple before its destruction by ebuchadnezzar. [Haggai 1:10; Haggai 2:9] Haggai is called simply "the prophet," perhaps because his father’s name was not known, but more likely because he himself had attained so much eminence that the title was given to him par excellence. Still this may only apply to the descriptions of him in the age of the chronicler. There is no indication that he prophesied in his earlier days. He was probably one of the captives who had been carried away to Babylon in his childhood, and who had returned with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem. Yet all this time and during the first year of his return, as far as we know, he was silent. At length, in extreme old age, he burst out into inspired utterance-one of Joel’s old men who were to dream dreams, [Joel 2:28] like John the Evangelist, whose greatest work dates from his last years, and Milton, who wrote his great epic when affliction seemed to have ended his lifework. He must have been brooding over the bitter disappointment in which the enthusiasm of the returned captives had been quenched. It could not be God’s will that they should be thus mocked and deceived in their best hopes. True faith is not a will-o’-the-wisp that lands its followers in a dreary swamp. The hope of Israel is no mirage. For God is faithful. Therefore the despair of the Jews must be wrong.

We have a few fragments of the utterances of Haggai preserved for us in the Old Testament Canon. They are so brief and bald and abrupt as to suggest the opinion that they are but notes of his discourses, mere outlines of what he really said. As they are preserved for us they certainly convey no idea of wealth of poetic imagination or richness of oratorical colouring. But Haggai may have possessed none of these qualities, and yet his words may have had a peculiar force of their own. He is a reflective man. The long meditation of years has taught him the value of thoughtfulness. The burden of his message is "Consider your ways." [Haggai 1:5; Haggai 1:7] In short, incisive utterances he arrests attention and urges consideration. But the outcome of all he has to say is to cheer the drooping spirits of his fellow-citizens, and urge on the rebuilding of the temple with confident promises of its great future. For the most part his inspiration is simple, but it is searching, and we perceive the triumphant hopefulness of the true prophet in the promise that the latter glory of the house of God shall be greater than the former. [Haggai 2:9]

Haggai began to prophesy on the first day of the sixth month of the second year of Darius. [Haggai 1:1] So effective were his words that Zerubbabel and his companions were at once roused from the lethargy of despair, and within three weeks the masons and carpenters were again at work on the temple. {Haggai 2:1. seq.} Two months after Haggai had broken the long silence of prophecy in Jerusalem Zechariah appeared. He was of a very different stamp; he was one of the young men who see visions. Familiar with the imagery of Babylonian art, he wove its symbols into the pictures of his own exuberant fancy. Moreover, Zechariah was a priest. Thus, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he united the two rival tendencies which had confronted one another in marked antagonism during the earlier periods of the history of Israel. Henceforth the brief return of prophetism, its soft after-glow

among the restored people, is in peaceable alliance with priestism. The last prophet, Malachi, even exhorts the Jews to pay the priests their dues of tithe. Zechariah, like Haggai, urges on the work of building the temple.

Thus the chronicler’s brief note on the appearance of two prophets at Jerusalem, and the electrical effect of their message, is a striking illustration of the mission of prophecy. That mission has been strangely misapprehended by succeeding ages. Prophets have been treated as miraculous conjurers, whose principal business consisted in putting together elaborate puzzles, perfectly unintelligible to their contemporaries, which the curious of later times were to decipher by the light of events. The prophets themselves formed no such idle estimate of their work, nor did their contemporaries assign to them this quaint and useless role. Though these men were not the creatures of their times, they lived for their times. Haggai and Zechariah, as the chronicler emphatically puts it, "prophesied to the Jews that were in Jerusalem even unto them." The object of their message was immediate and quite practical-to stir up the despondent people and urge them to build the temple-and it was successful in accomplishing that end. As prophets of God they necessarily touched on eternal truths. They were not mere opportunists; their strength lay in the grasp of fundamental principles. This is why their teaching still lives, and is of lasting use for the Church in all ages. But in order to understand that teaching we must first of all read it in its original historical setting, and discover its direct bearing on contemporary needs.

ow the question arises, In what way did these prophets of God help the temple-builders? The fragments of their utterances which we possess enable us to answer this question. Zerubbabel was a disappointing leader. Such a man was far below the expected Messiah, although high hopes may have been set upon him when he started at the head of the caravan of pilgrims from Babylon. Cyrus may have known him better, and with the instinct of a king in reading men may have entrusted the lead to the heir of the Jewish throne, because he saw there would be no possibility of a dangerous rebellion resulting from the act of confidence. Haggai’s encouragement to Zerubbabel to "be strong" is in a tone that suggests some weakness on the part of the Jewish leader. Both the prophets thought that he and his people were too easily discouraged. It was a part of the prophetic insight to look below the surface and discover the real secret of failure. The Jews set down their failure to adverse circumstances; the prophets attributed it to the character and conduct of the people and their leaders. Weak men commonly exercise their inactivity by reciting their difficulties, when stronger men would only regard those difficulties as furnishing an occasion for extra exertion. That is a most superficial view of history which regards it as wholly determined by circumstances. o great nation ever arose on such a principle. The Greeks who perished at Thermopylae within a few years of the times we are now considering are honoured by all the ages as heroes of patriotism just because they refused to bow to circumstances. ow the courage which patriots practised in pagan hands is urged upon the Jews by their prophets from higher considerations. They are to see that they are weak and cowardly when they sit in dumb despair, crushed by the weight of external opposition. They have made a mistake in putting their trust in princes. [Psalms 118:8-9] They have relied too much

on Zerubbabel and too little on God. The failure of the arm of flesh should send them back to the never-failing outstretched arm of the Almighty.

Have we not met with the same mistaken discouragement and the same deceptive excuses for it in the work of the church, in missionary enterprises, in personal lives? Every door is shut against the servant of God but one, the door of prayer. Forgetting this, and losing sight of the key of faith that would unlock it, he sits, like Elijah by Kerith, the picture of abject wretchedness. His great enterprises are abandoned because he thinks the opposition to them is insuperable. He forgets that, though his own forces are small, he is the envoy of the King of kings, who will not suffer him to be worsted if only he appeals to Heaven for fresh supplies. A dead materialism lies like a leaden weight on the heart of the Church, and she has not faith enough to shake it off and claim her great inheritance in all the spiritual wealth of the unseen. Many a man cries, like Jacob, "All these things are against me," not perceiving that, even if they are, no number of "things" should be permitted to check the course of one who looks above and beyond what is seen, and therefore only temporal, to the eternal resources of God.

This was the message of Zechariah to Zerubbabel;

"ot by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the head stone with shoutings of Grace, grace unto it!" [Zechariah 4:6-7]

Here, then, is the secret of the sudden revival of activity on the part of the Jews after they had been sitting for years in dumb apathy, gazing hopelessly on the few stones that had been laid among the ruins of the old temple. It was not the returning favour of the court under Darius, it was not the fame of the house of David, it was not the priestly dignity of the family of Zadok that awakened the slumbering zeal of the Jews; the movement began in an unofficial source, and it passed to the people through unofficial channels. It commenced in the meditations of a cairn thinker; it was furthered by the visions of a rapt seer. This is a clear indication of the fact that the world is ruled by mind and spirit, not merely by force and authority. Thought and imagination lie at the springs of action. In the heart of it history is moulded by ideas. "Big battalions," "the sinews of war," "blood and iron," are phrases that suggest only the most external and therefore the most superficial causes. Beneath them are the ideas that govern all they represent.

Further, the influence of the prophets shows that the ideas which have most vitality and vigor are moral and spiritual in character. All thoughts are influential in proportion as they take possession of the minds and hearts of men and women. There is power in conceptions of science, philosophy, politics, sociology. But the ideas that touch people to the quick, the ideas that stir the hidden depths of consciousness and rouse the slumbering energies of life, are those that make straight for the conscience. Thus the two prophets exposed the shame of indolence; they rallied their gloomy fellow-citizens by high appeals to the sense of right.

Again, this influence was immensely strengthened by its relation to God. The prophets were more than moralists. The meditations of Marcus Aurelius could not touch any people as the considerations of the calm Haggai touched the Jews, for the older prophet, as well as the more rousing Zechariah, found the spell of his message in its revelation of God. He made the Jews perceive that they were not deserted by Jehovah; and directly they felt that God was with them in. their work the weak and timid citizens were able to quit them like men. The irresistible might of Cromwell’s Ironsides at Marston Moor came from the unwavering faith in their battle-cry, "The Lord of Hosts is with us!" General Gordon’s immeasurable courage is explained when we read his letters and diaries, and see how he regarded himself as simply an instrument through whom God wrought. Here, too, is the strong side of Calvinism.

Then this impression of the power and presence of God in their destinies was deepened in the Jews by the manifest Divine authority with which the prophets spake. They prophesied "in the name of the God of Israel"-the one God of the people of both kingdoms now united in their representatives. Their "Thus saith the Lord" was the powder that drove the shot of their message through the toughest hide of apathy. Except to a Platonist, ideas are impossible apart from the mind that thinks them. ow the Jews, as well as their prophets, felt that the great ideas of prophecy could not be the products of pure human thinking. The sublime character, the moral force, the superb hopefulness of these ideas proclaimed their Divine origin. As it is the mission of the prophet to speak for God, so it is the voice of God in His inspired messenger that awakes the dead and gives strength to the weak.

This ultimate source of prophecy accounts for its unique character of hopefulness, and that in turn makes it a powerful encouragement for the weak and depressed people to whom it is sent. Wordsworth tells us that we live by "admiration, love, and hope." If one of these three sources of vitality is lost, life itself shrinks and fades. The man whose hope has fled has no lustre in his eye, no accent in his voice, no elasticity in his tread; by his dull and listless attitude he declares that the life has gone out of him. But the ultimate end of prophecy is to lead up to a gospel, and the meaning of the word "gospel" is just that there is a message from God bringing hope to the despairing. By inspiring a new hope this message kindles a new life.

ISBET, "PROPHET HELPERS‘Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel.’Ezra 5:1This reference to the prophets Haggai and Zechariah marks very plainly the nature and object of the prophetic office. The word which God in time past spake by the mouth of His holy prophets was no empty sound or mystical foretelling of future events, the interpretation of which was to be found when the events were fulfilled; it was then what it is now: the voice of God to His Church, stirring up zeal, and love, and faith, and obedience to every good word and work. It was the fresh spring of moral and religious life to the nation.

The great lessons we may learn from a review of the last canonical period of Jewish history are:—

I. The place which the spiritual element must occupy in all national and social organisation for the good of the people.—Secular power, Act of Parliament power, intellectual power, public opinion power, philanthropic power, have been tested and tried to the uttermost, but no one of them, nor all put together, have ever succeeded in regenerating a nation or converting a soul. That people is on the high road to apostasy which teaches for doctrines the commandments of men.

II. The religious teaching must be of the right stamp.—It must be revealed truth. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi preached by inspiration of God.

III. If declension and backsliding come in among a people, what appeal can be made to awaken fear and rouse the torpid conscience?—‘The day cometh which shall burn like an oven’ is no myth. The doctrine of everlasting punishment from the presence of the Lord is as certain as the hope of being with Him and like Him for ever. ‘Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men; for we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.’

Dean Fremantle.Illustration

‘The three causes which are apt to hinder our faithful zeal in building for the Lord—selfish sloth, unbelieving despondency, and carnal security—are they not the bane also of our own spiritual life? The Lord will not, He cannot, bless us personally while we yield to these temptations to slackness in the business in which He would engage us.’

LAGE,"Ezra 5:1-5. How does the Lord prevent our being conformed to the world? 1) By His warning word.—Starke: It is the office of faithful teachers to strengthen the faint hands and feeble knees ( Isaiah 35:3). 2) By the trials that He sends, especially by making the accomplishment of His own word difficult3) By providential care and preservation ( Ezra 5:5).—Brentius: Multa hic notanda. Primum, quod Deus sæpenumero nos a bono proposito impedit, non ut non exequamur, sed ut clarius et illustrius exequamur. Deinde, quod sit ingenium vulgi: mox enim putat, numquam fore, ut promoveat (sc. Deus opus suum, si aliquamdiu intermittatur).—The movements that the development and advance of the kingdom of God call forth: 1) The congregation is agitated by the overwhelming voice of God; it gives new courage, and lays hold of the work of building obligatory upon it with new joy.—Starke: Although it involves not a little danger for awhile to accomplish with obedience that which God commands in His word, yet we should obey not withstanding, and not allow ourselves to be frightened off by any danger2) The world is agitated, for it cannot quietly see the events in the kingdom of God, especially when the congregation is subordinated to its civil authority, but it is obliged to assist in furthering the cause of God in its own way3) God Himself is

agitated. He directs His eye with especial care and wisdom upon the leaders of the congregation, and stretches forth His hand to give protection and help.

2 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak set to work to rebuild the house of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them, helping them.

BARES, "Began to build - i. e., “made a second beginning” - recommenced the uncompleted work.

Helping them - By infusing zeal into the people (see Hag_1:12).

CLARKE, "Then rose up Zerubbabel - Here we find three classes of men joining in the sacred work: Zerubbabel the civil governor; Jeshua the high priest or ecclesiastical governor; and Haggai and Zechariah the prophets. How glorious it is when we see the civil government joining with the sacerdotal and prophetic for the establishment and extension of true religion!

GILL, "Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak,.... Whose spirits were stirred up and quickened by the ministry of the prophets, the Lord accompanying it by his Spirit, Hag_1:12,

and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem; to go on with the building of it; for they had laid the foundation before, and perhaps had carried it up to some little height, at least, before they ceased from it, Ezr_3:10

and with them were the prophets of God helping them; with words of counsel, comfort, and exhortation, directing and encouraging them, and promising them protection and success: these are the prophets before named.

HERY, " They had two good magistrates, who were forward and active in this work. Zerubbabel their chief prince, and Jeshua their chief priest, Ezr_5:2. Those that are in places of dignity and power ought with their dignity to put honour upon and with their

power to put life into every good work: thus it becomes those that preceded, and those that preside, with an exemplary care and zeal to fulfil all righteousness and to go before in a good work. These great men thought it no disparagement to them, but a happiness, to be taught and prescribed to by the prophets of the Lord, and were glad of their help in reviving this good work. Read the first chapter of the prophecy of Haggai here (for that is the best comment on these two verses) and see what great things God does by his word, which he magnifies above all his name, and by his Spirit working with it.

JAMISO, "Then rose up Zerubbabel ... and Jeshua ... began to build the house of God— The strong appeals and animating exhortations of these prophets gave a new impulse to the building of the temple. It was in the second year of the reign of Darius Hystaspes that the work, after a long interruption, was resumed.

K&D, "Ezr_5:2

“Then rose up Zerubbabel ... and Joshua ... and began to build the house of God at Jerusalem, and with them the prophets of God helping them.” The beginning to build is (Ezr_3:6, etc.) the commencement of the building properly so called, upon the foundations laid, Ezr_3:10; for what was done after this foundation-laying till a stop was put to the work, was so unimportant that no further notice is taken of it. The “prophets of God” are those mentioned Ezr_5:1, viz., Haggai, and Zechariah the son, i.e., grandson, of Iddo, for his father's name was Berechiah (see Introd. to Zechariah). Haggai entered upon his work on the first day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius; and his first address made such an impression, that Zerubbabel and Joshua with the people set about the intermitted work of building as early as the twenty-fourth day of the same month (comp. Hag_1:1 and Hag_1:14.). Two months later, viz., in the eighth month of the same year, Zechariah began to exhort the people to turn sincerely to the Lord their God, and not to relapse into the sins of their fathers.

ELLICOTT, "(2) Then rose up.—This does not intimate that they had become indifferent. But the voice of prophecy inspirited them to go on without formal permission of Darius, who was known secretly to favour them already.

The prophets of God helping them.—In these two prophets we can read the invigorating sayings that encouraged the people almost from day to day and from stage to stage of their work.

BESO, "Ezra 5:2. Then rose up Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and began to build the house — It had been begun to be built long before, but from the first had gone on very slowly, and afterward had been quite intermitted, till those great men, excited by the prophets, set the work forward again. With them were the prophets of God helping them — Encouraging them by their presence, and by assuring them that God would be with them to protect them from their enemies, and give them success. It is supposed the work had been stopped about fifteen years. The first chapter of Haggai is the best comment on these two verses.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:2. Then rose up Zerubbabel.—They now had an express command of God, which already in itself was an advantage; now moreover they could no longer doubt that the building would succeed.—And began to build.—Properly it should have been: They Revelation -commenced, but we might disregard the fact that בנה readily =rebuild, for the first beginning was so long before, and had had such little success, that it no longer came into consideration.

PULPIT, "Ezra 5:2

Then rose up Zerubbabel … and Jeshua. Haggai's preaching was especially addressed to these two leaders (Haggai 1:1), and their spirit was especially "stirred up" (Haggai 1:14) by his preaching. The prophets of God—Haggai and Zechariah—were with them, throughout their work, helping them; and that in various ways.

1. By direct command to the people—"Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house" (Haggai 1:8);

2. By warnings—"Because of mine house that is waste … therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit" (Haggai 1:9, Haggai 1:10);

3. By exhortations—"Be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be ye strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work" (Haggai 2:4); and

4. By encouraging prophecy—"The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it" (Zechariah 4:9); and "the glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts" (Haggai 2:9). By these and similar means the two prophets aroused a spirit of enthusiasm, which caused the work to make rapid progress, and was an invaluable assistance.

PULPIT, "Ezra 5:1, Ezra 5:2

The work revived.

How completely the work described in these verses was a revival of the previous work of building the temple, as described in chaps, 1-3; may be seen by the use of the word "began" in Ezra 5:2. Even "Zerubbabel" and "Jeshua," the leaders, had been remiss and, as it were, dead to the enterprise; consequently, in again going on with it, had again, as it were, to "begin." This seems also the best explanation of the singular way in which Haggai (Haggai 2:18) and Zechariah (Zechariah 8:9) speak of the "foundation" of the Lord's house as having been "laid" at this time. This second "foundation," in the reign of Darius, led to so much more than the first did in that of Cyrus, and proved so much more worthy, therefore, of such a name in the issue, that, not unnaturally, it got almost to monopolise that name even on prophetic lips.

It is thus, in another sphere, that historians speak of the Roman empire as being founded by Augustus Caesar, though in reality he only re-established in a more abiding form (as it turned out) what his predecessor, Julius Caesar, had previously founded and lost. Strictly speaking, indeed, would either of these first foundations have been a foundation practically if it had not been afterwards followed up and, as it were, superseded by a second? How this happy resurrection of a buried cause was brought about in this instance is the special point now to consider. It was by the indications of Providence, we shall find, in the first place; and by the voice of prophecy, in the next.

I. The IDICATIOS of PROVIDECE. Providence had spoken to the people, in the interim between the visit of Rehum (Ezra 4:23) and the time at which our chapter opens, in various ways.

1. In the language of hope. A change of rulers had taken place—both of chief rulers and also of subordinates. Darius instead of Artaxerxes; Tatnai, etc. (Ezra 5:3) instead of Rehum, etc. This was something of itself. When things are as bad as they can be, no change, to say the least, can be for the worse. In such a case, moreover, a violent change, such as this which brought Darius Hystaspis to the throne in place of the usurper Pseudo-Smerdis, and which probably, therefore, affected the empire in all its provinces, was of a still more hopeful description. How likely that the hand which took the previous monarch's crown should also reverse his policy! Especially as, in this instance (and it is almost certain that some rumours of this would reach the ears of the Jews), the new king was showing almost ostentatious respect to the name and memory of that Cyrus £ who had been so favourable to the Jews. To men anxious to be at work again, this would have been great encouragement to begin.

2. In the language of blessing. Judging from the apparently royal luxury which some of the returned Jews were enabled to indulge in (Jeremiah 22:14; Haggai 1:4), the means of recommencing the work must have been somehow placed in their power. This, also, a call to do so (comp. Deuteronomy 8:12, Deuteronomy 8:17, Deuteronomy 8:18; Galatians 6:10; James 4:17).

3. In the language of affliction. These other calls not being attended to, there came one of a different kind. God met the people in their path of disobedience, as the angel met Balaam (umbers 22:32), with signs of displeasure. The blessings he had given being misused, he began to withdraw them. Instead of plenty there was "dearth" (Haggai 1:11), to the great impoverishment (verse 6) and sore disappointment (begin. verse 9) of them all. See further Zechariah 8:9, Zechariah 8:10 as to the wide extent and deep severity of this visitation; and also as to the precise time of its occurrence, viz; just "before" the people for a second time laid the "foundations" of God's house. Putting these things together, were they not a loud constructive call to begin? So fair an opening, such ample means, such a clear-timed judgment, what does it all mean? To this effect, at least, the Jewish elders ought, in such circumstances, to inquire (see end of Job 10:2).

II. The VOICE of PROPHECY. It was the special privilege, however, of Israel to

have more than "constructive" calls from God's throne. He was graciously pleased to make known his will to them by articulate speech (Deuteronomy 4:33; Romans 3:1, Romans 3:2). So, accordingly, it was here. Besides these silent gestures on the part of Providence, so to call them, there were direct verbal utterances also from the lips of those who were authorised to speak to Israel in his name. Two such men, two of these prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, raised up especially, as it appears, for this special emergency, prophesied at that time to these returned Jews (Ezra 5:1). Much importance seems attached here to this fact. These prophets prophesied to these Jews, it is said, "in the name of the God of Israel which was upon them." Being God's people—being, in fact, the very heart and hope of God's people at that particular moment—God's prophets were commissioned to recognise and address them as such. Well might the people listen, that being the case. The purport, also, of the message thus sent to them was just as much to the point. A mere glance at the extant prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah will suffice to show this. The prophecies sent, e.g; were just what was needed—

1. In the way of appeal. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider" (Haggai 1:5); so again Haggai 1:7, "Consider so, twice over, and with a special note of urgency, in Haggai 2:18 : "Consider now from this day and upward … consider." Consider what you are doing, and what you ought to be doing, in your present circumstances. Consider their meaning and message, and what they are now saying to you, in effect.

2. In the way of interpretation and explanation. This is what these circumstances are saying to you, viz; that it is "time" to build the Lord's house (Haggai 1:1-3). There is no further change to be waited for. ow, under your present ruler, is the "time" to begin. Your recent blessings mean this (Haggai 1:4). Your present trials mean it too (Haggai 1:6-11). Thus did prophecy, in this case, interpret Providence, and explain the "signs," as it were, of those "times."

3. In the way of promise. Our present history seems to speak of this particularly in the end of Haggai 2:2—"the prophets of God helping them." The first result of the appeal and remonstrance above spoken of seems to have been a feeling of "fear" (Haggai 1:1-15. end of Haggai 1:12). As soon as this began to manifest itself (see middle of same verse) in a spirit of obedience, the voice of promise was heard. "Then spake Haggai the LORD'S messenger in the LORD'S message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the LORD" (Haggai 1:13). Within a short month after (comp. Haggai 1:15, and Haggai 2:1) came another and larger promise (Haggai 2:2-9); and two others again from the same prophet in about two months from that time. Besides that notable series of eight prophetic visions, mainly of hope and encouragement, from the prophet Zechariah, before the close of the same year (Zec 1:7-6:15). So plentifully was this precious dew vouchsafed at this special season of growth; and so harmoniously did all these various changes, dispensations, and voices work together for this revival of God's work.

From these considerations we see—

1. The duty of studying God's works: his works in providence, and in nature too, so

far as we have opportunities for so doing, because in all of them he has something to say to us, if we are only able to understand it. This applies especially to those works or doings of God which concern our own persons and times, because we may almost say of such doings that they are presented to us for study. ote the comparison on this subject between nature and providence in Matthew 16:2, Matthew 16:3; and see 1 Chronicles 12:32.

2. The duty of listening to Gods word. Partly on account of the clearer significance which it gives to God's works; partly because of the additional message which it brings of its own. For the language of some of God's works see Psalms 19:1-6, and comp. Romans 1:19, Romans 1:20. For the further language of God's word see same Psalms 19:7-9. Compare also, as showing the specially exalted and complementary character of prophecy or revelation, the remarkable declaration of Psalms 138:2, and 2 Peter 1:19-21. The dark page of God's doings (for so it is to us,. see Psalms 97:2) should never be neglected; but it never can be safely interpreted apart from the plainer page of his word. We may also see from these considerations what is—

3. The central topic of all prophecy. The building of God's house by God's Israel pointed forward in manifold ways to the coming and work of God's Son. That house was a well-known type of his body (John 2:19-21). In that restored house he himself was to appear (Haggai 2:7; Malachi 3:1; Luke 2:25-30). And out of that figurative "house" or family of Israel, as their peculiar crown and salvation, and as a blessing to all other families on earth, he was to arise. When, therefore, the work of building that house, under apparently hopeless circumstances, has to be revived, how fittingly does the spirit of prophecy suddenly reappear on the scene, to stimulate, direct, and encourage these men, who were, virtually, building for all mankind in building for their own Messiah. It may remind us of those well-known passages, John 5:39; Acts 10:43; Revelation 19:10. May it teach us also to give that adorable Saviour a similarly pre-eminent place in our thoughts I

3 At that time Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates went to them and asked, "Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?"

BARES, "Governor on this side the river - Compare Ezr_4:10 note. Tatnai was apparently satrap of Syria, which included the whole tract west of the Euphrates from Cilicia to the borders of Egypt. Zerubbabel must have been, to some extent, under his authority.

Who hath commanded you to build? - There was no doubt a formal illegality in the conduct of Zerubbabel and Jeshua: since all edicts of Persian kings continued in force unless revoked by their successors. But they felt justified in disobeying the decree of the Pseudo-Smerdis (see the Ezr_4:7 note), because the opposition between his religious views and those of his successor was matter of notoriety.

CLARKE, "Tatnai, governor - He was governor of the provinces which belonged to the Persian empire on their side of the Euphrates, comprehending Syria, Arabia Deserta, Phoenicia, and Samaria. He seems to have been a mild and judicious man; and to have acted with great prudence and caution, and without any kind of prejudice. The manner in which he represented this to the king is a full proof of this disposition.

GILL, "At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and their companions,.... These were new governors and officers under the king of Persia in those parts, the old ones, Rehum, Shimshai, &c. being either dead, or removed upon this new king coming to the throne: these came to the Jews:

and said thus unto them, who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall? for it seems by this time they had raised up the walls of the temple from its foundation to some height; for of these it must be understood, see Ezr_4:8 for it can hardly be thought they were as yet enclosing it with a wall round about it; now they asked them by what authority they did this? who set them to work? and what were their names? for that this question was asked, though not here expressed, is clear from Ezr_4:10 and to which an answer is given in the next verse.

HERY, "We have here, I. The cognizance which their neighbours soon took of the reviving of this good work. A jealous eye, it seems, they had upon them, and no sooner did the Spirit of God stir up the friends of the temple to appear for it than the evil spirit stirred up its enemies to appear against it. While the people built and ceiled their own houses their enemies gave them no molestation (Hag_1:4), though the king's order was to put a stop to the building of the city (Ezr_4:21); but when they fell to work again at the temple then the alarm was taken, and all heads were at work to hinder them, Ezr_5:3, Ezr_5:4. The adversaries are here named: Tatnai and Shethar-boznai. The governors we read of (ch. 4) were, it is probable, displaced at the beginning of this reign, as is usual. It is the policy of princes often to change their deputies, proconsuls, and rulers of provinces. These, though real enemies to the building of the temple, were men of better temper than the other, and made some conscience of telling truth. If all men have not faith (2Th_3:2), it is well some have, and a sense of honour. The church's enemies are not all equally wicked and unreasonable. The historian begins to relate what

passed between the builders and those inquisitors (Ezr_5:3, Ezr_5:4), but breaks off his account, and refers to the ensuing copy of the letter they sent to the king, where the same appears more fully and at large, which he began to abridge (Ezr_5:4), or make an extract out of, though, upon second thoughts, he inserted the whole.

JAMISO, "At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river— The Persian empire west of the Euphrates included at this time Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and other provinces subject to Darius. The empire was divided into twenty provinces, called satrapies. Syria formed one satrapy, inclusive of Palestine, Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and furnished an annual revenue of three hundred fifty talents. It was presided over by a satrap or viceroy, who at this time resided at Damascus. Though superior to the native governors of the Jews appointed by the Persian king, he never interfered with their internal government except when there was a threatened disturbance of order and tranquillity. Tatnai, the governor (whether this was a personal name or an official title is unknown), had probably been incited by the complaints and turbulent outrages of the Samaritans against the Jews; but he suspended his judgment, and he prudently resolved to repair to Jerusalem, that he might ascertain the real state of matters by personal inspection and enquiry, in company with another dignified officer and his provincial council.

COFFMA, "Verse 3THE GOVEROR TATTEAI IVESTIGATES

"At the same time came to them Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai, and their companions, and said unto them, Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall? Then we told them after this manner, what the names of the men were that were making this building. But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, and they did not make them cease, till the matter should come to Darius, and then answer should be returned by letter concerning it."

"At the same time ... came Tattenai" (Ezra 5:3). "The Persian Empire at that time was divided into twenty satrapies, presided over by governors under the authority of Darius. The territory ruled by Tattenai included Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and Cyprus."[4] This satrapy was called Syria, and Tattenai's capital was Damascus. We do not have to wonder how he happened to appear at that particular time when the Jews had taken up work on the temple. That evil racial mix of ten strains of people under the title of Samaritans had run like the tattletales they were to inform the governor against Israel. They found a governor who was fair-minded and who refused to become their instrument of hatred against Israel. He allowed the work to proceed until he could consult Darius the king.

"The governor beyond the River" (Ezra 5:3). "Beyond the River" in Ezra is always a reference to the territory west of the Euphrates. The perspective is from that of Darius' capital in Babylon, or Shushan.

"Shethar-bozenai" (Ezra 5:3). This man was apprently the secretary of Tattenai,

just as, at a later time, Shimshai was the secretary of Rehum.

"The eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews" (Ezra 5:4). The providence of God most certainly entered into this new development; however, God's instrument of blessing Israel here was in His appointment of Tattenai, a governor who would not be controlled or manipulated by the evil Samaritans.

ELLICOTT, "(3) Tatnai, governor on this side the river.—Satrap, or Pechah, of the entire province of Syria and Phœnicia, and therefore with a jurisdiction over Judaea, and over Zerubbabel its Pechah or sub-Satrap. What Shimshai was to the Samaritan Pechah, Rehum, Shethar-boznai seems to be to Tatnai—his secretary.

Who hath commanded you?—It is obvious that the overthrow of Smerdis, the Magian hater of Zoroastrianism and destroyer of temples, had encouraged the builders to go on without fearing molestation from the Court of Darius. Moreover, the two prophets had made their duty too plain to be deferred. Still, the decree of the preceding chapter had never been expressly revoked.

BESO, "Ezra 5:3-4. Tatnai and Shethar-boznai — These were probably new governors, or prefects, whom Darius had sent; for it was usual with new kings to change the governors of provinces. Who hath commanded you to build this house? — o sooner did the Spirit of God stir up the friends of the temple to appear for it, but the evil spirit stirred up its enemies to appear against it. While the people builded and ceiled their own houses, their enemies gave them no molestation, (Haggai 1:4,) though the king’s order was to put a stop to the building of the city, Ezra 4:21. But when they fell to work again at the temple, then the alarm was taken, and all heads were at work to hinder it. Then said we unto them — We Jews; What are the names, &c. — Certainly there ought to be no interrogation in this verse, but the words should be rendered, Then we told them accordingly (that is, according to what they asked) what were the names of the men that made this building; that is, who were the chief undertakers and encouragers of the work. For it appears, from Ezra 5:10, that Tatnai and his companions inquired who were the chief promoters of the work, to which a true answer was immediately given.

COSTABLE, "Tattenai"s question5:3-5

The text does not say if the Jews" antagonistic neighbors had provoked Tattenai, the governor of the Persian province in which Jerusalem stood, to ask to see the Jews" temple building permit. It simply says he asked to see it. The Jews kept the construction work going while Tattenai determined whether they had authority to build.

Tattenai had reason to question the Jews" actions without prodding from the Samaritans. The Persian Empire had undergone political upheaval since Cyrus" death in530 B.C. Cyrus" son and successor, Cambyses, had to put down several rebellions against his authority. This involved his executing his brother, Smerdis. An Egyptian nobleman, Gaumata, then claimed to be the true Smerdis and revolted

against Cambyses. Popular opinion swung behind Gaumata, and Cambyses committed suicide in522 B.C. However, the Persian army supported a distant cousin of Cambyses named Darius I (Hystaspes). Darius was able to overthrow Gaumata and to put down several other claimants to the throne, as well as rebellions in many different parts of the empire. [ote: A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, pp107-16.] In view of these events, it is easy to see why Tattenai would have been suspicious of any attempt to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and why he wrote to Darius for instructions.

Another reason for Tattenai"s concern may very well have been what Zechariah was prophesying. He said that the "Branch," the long-expected descendant of David"s line, would soon appear and sit on David"s throne ( Zechariah 3:8; cf. Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5-6). What Zechariah predicted of Messiah seemed to fit Zerubbabel to a tee ( Zechariah 6:9-15).

LAGE, "Ezra 5:3. At the same time.—ow again they were threatened with interruption. בה זמנא, at it, the time, = at the same time. Comp. Daniel 3:7; Daniel 3:9; Daniel 4:33.[F2] Again Persian officials arrive, but at this time only do their duty.—Tatnai, governor on this side the river, of the entire province to the west of the Euphrates, outranked Zerubbabel, whom Cyrus had appointed governor of Judah (comp. Ezra 5:14). He was perhaps unacquainted with the mission of Zerubbabel, because he had come into his office at a subsequent period to him.—Shethar Boznai who accompanied him, is not designated indeed as Shimshai (chap. Ezra 4:8 sq.), e. g, as scribe or chancellor, but the entire appearance is in favor of his being likewise a magistrate.—Their companions, however, who in Ezra 5:6 are especially called his companions, that Isaiah, Shethar-Boznai’s companions, and are named the Apharsachites, are according to Ezra 5:6 likewise government officials, probably of a lower grade. At this time also the Samaritans may have been at work in that they had called attention to the building of the temple in Jerusalem, but now they were no longer able to fill the officials with hostile sentiments. They simply inquire who hath commanded you to build this house?—לבנא here and in Ezra 5:13 is a singular form, since the infin. in Chald. is מבנא (comp. Ezra 5:2; Ezra 5:17; Ezra 6:8), or מבניה, comp. chapter Ezra 5:9. R. orzi has here and in Ezra 5:13 a dagesh in the ב, but there cannot be an assimilation of the מ because it has a vowel. It may be that the language was not entirely fixed in its usage of מ in the infin, as it is here absent from the infin. in Peal, to which elsewhere it is peculiar, so it has been at times prefixed to the Pael and Aphel, before which it is usually absent, and always to the infinitive of the passive conjugations in the later Targums. Comp. Winer, Gram, § 12. [Luzzatto Gram., § 88.—Tr.]. [Rawlinson, in loco. “There was no doubt a formal illegality in the conduct of Zerubbabel and Jeshua; since all edicts of Persian kings continued in force unless revoked by their successors. But they felt justified in disobeying the decree of the Pseudo-Smerdis, because the opposition between his religious views and those of his successors was a matter of notoriety. (See Ancient Monarchies, IV. p405).”—Tr.]. אשרנא, a word of doubtful etymology, is in Esdras rendered by פם ףפפחם ך דחם פבὰי פὰ ἄככב נםפב (the beams and all the rest), in the Sept. on the other hand by פם קןסחדפחם בם פב (this sacred service = this building). These derivations in the versions makes it probable that there was no fixed tradition

respecting the meaning; the one rendering being as much guess work as the other. The Vulg, Syriac and the Rabbins have explained it as “walls,” which might well be the most suitable and correct, having as its root not אשר (Gesen.), but אשן more properly אשון (firm, strong).

EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMMETARY, "EW DIFFICULTIES MET I A EW SPIRIT

Ezra 5:3-17; Ezra 6:1-5

IT is in keeping with the character of his story of the returned Jews throughout, that no sooner has the chronicler let a ray of sunshine fall on his page-in his brief notice of the inspiriting mission of the two prophets-than he is compelled to plunge his narrative again into gloom. But he shows that there was now a new spirit in the Jews, so that they were prepared to meet opposition in a more manly fashion. If their jealous neighbours had been able to paralyse their efforts for years, it was only to be expected that a revival of energy in Jerusalem should provoke an increase of antagonism abroad, and doubtless the Jews were prepared for this. Still it was not a little alarming to learn that the infection of the anti-Jewish temper had spread over a wide area. The original opposition had come from the Samaritans. But in this later time the Jews were questioned by the Satrap of the whole district east of the Euphrates-"the governor beyond the river," [Ezra 5:3] as the chronicler styles him, describing his territory as it would be regarded officially from the standpoint of Babylon. His Aramaic name, Tattenai, shows that he was not a Persian, but a native Syrian, appointed to his own province, according to the Persian custom. This man and one Shethar-bozenai, whom we may assume to be his secretary, must have been approached by the colonists in such a way that their suspicions were roused. Their action was at first only just and reasonable. They asked the Jews to state on what authority they were rebuilding the temple with its massive walls. In the Hebrew Bible the answer of the Jews is so peculiar as to suggest a corruption of the text. It is in the first person plural-"Then said we unto them," etc. [Ezra 5:4] In the Septuagint the third person is substituted" Then said they," etc., and this rendering is followed in the Syriac and Arabic versions. It would require a very slight alteration in the Hebrew text. The Old Testament Revisers have retained the first person-setting the alternative reading in the margin. If we keep to the Hebrew text as it stands, we must conclude that we have here a fragment from some contemporary writer which the chronicler has transcribed literally. But then it seems confusing. Some have shaped the sentence into a direct statement, so that in reply to the inquiry for their authority the Jews give the names of the builders. How is this an answer? Possibly the name of Zerubbabel, who had been appointed governor of Jerusalem by Cyrus, could be quoted as an authority. And yet the weakness of his position was so evident that very little would be gained in this way, for it would be the right of the Satrap to inquire into the conduct of the local governor. If, however, we read the sentence in the third person, it will contain a further question from the Satrap and his secretary, inquiring for the names of the leaders in the work at Jerusalem. Such an inquiry threatened danger to the feeble Zerubbabel.

The seriousness of the situation is recognised by the grateful comment of the chronicler, who here remarks that "the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews." [Ezra 5:5] It is the peculiarity of even the driest records of Scripture that the writers are always ready to detect the presence of God in history. This justifies us in describing the Biblical narratives as "sacred history," in contrast to the so-called "secular history" of such authors as Herodotus and Livy. The narrow conception of the difference is to think that God was with the Jews, while He left the Greeks and Romans and the whole Gentile world to their fate without any recognition or interference on His part. Such a view is most dishonouring to God, who is thus regarded as no better than a tribal divinity, and not as the Lord of heaven and earth. It is directly contradicted by the Old Testament historians, for they repeatedly refer to the influence of God on great world monarchies. o doubt a claim to the Divine graciousness as the peculiar privilege of Israel is to be seen in the Old Testament. As far as this was perverted into a selfish desire to confine the blessings of God to the Jews, it was vigorously rebuked in the Book of Jonah. Still it is indisputable that those who truly sought God’s grace, acknowledged His authority, and obeyed His will, must have enjoyed privileges which such of the heathen as St. Paul describes in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans could not share. Thus the chronicler writes as though the leaders of the Jews in their difficulties were the special objects of the Divine notice. The eye of God was on them, distinctively. God is spoken of as their God. They were men who knew, trusted, and honoured God, and at the present moment they were loyally carrying out the direction of God’s prophets. All this is special. evertheless, it remains true that the chief characteristic of Biblical history is its recognition of the presence of God in the affairs of mankind generally, and this applies to all nations, although it is most marked among those nations in which God is known and obeyed.

The peculiar form of Providence which is brought before us in the present instance is the Divine observation. It is difficult to believe that, just as the earth is visible to the stars throughout the day while the stars are invisible to the earth, we are always seen by God although we never see Him. When circumstances are adverse-and these circumstances are only too visible - it is hard not to doubt that God is still watching all that happens to us, because although we cry out in our agony no answer breaks the awful silence and no hand comes out of the clouds to hold us up. It seems as though our words were lost in the void. But that is only the impression of the moment. If we read history with the large vision of the Hebrew chronicler, can we fail to perceive that this is not a God-deserted world? In the details His presence may not be discerned, but when we stand back from the canvas and survey the whole picture, it flashes upon us like a sunbeam spread over the whole landscape. Many a man can recognise the same happy truth in the course of his own life as he looks back over a wide stretch of it, although while he was passing through his perplexing experience the thicket of difficulties intercepted his vision of the heavenly light.

ow it is a most painful result of unbelief and cowardice working on the consciousness of guilt lurking in the breast of every sinful man, that the "eye of

God" has become an object of terror to the imagination of to many people. Poor Hagar’s exclamation of joy and gratitude has been sadly misapprehended. Discovering to her amazement that she is not alone in the wilderness, the friendless, heart-broken slave-girl looks up through her tears with a smile of sudden joy on her face, and exclaims, "Thou God seest me!" [Genesis 16:13] And yet her happy words have been held over terrified children as a menace! That is a false thought of God which makes any of His children shrink from His presence, except they are foul and leprous with sin, and even then their only refuge is, as St. Augustine found, to come to the very God against whom they have sinned. We need not fear lest some day God may make a miserable discovery about us. He knows the worst, already. Then it is a ground of hope that while He sees all the evil in us God still loves His children-that He does not love us, as it were, under a misapprehension. Our Lord’s teaching on the subject of the Divine observation is wholly reassuring. ot a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father’s notice, the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and the exhortation based on these facts is not "Beware of the all-seeing Eye!" but "Fear not." [Luke 12:7]

The limitation of the chronicler’s remark is significant. He speaks of the eye of God, not of God’s mighty hand, nor of His outstretched arm. It was not yet the time for action; but God was watching the course of events. Or if God was acting, His procedure was so secret that no one could perceive it. Meanwhile it was enough to know that God was observing everything that was transpiring. He could not be thought of as an Epicurean divinity, surveying the agony and tragedy of human life with a stony gaze of supercilious indifference, as the proud patrician looks down on the misery of the dim multitude. For God to see is for God to care; and for God to care is for God to help. But this simple statement of the Divine observation maintains a reserve as to the method of the action of God, and it is perhaps the best way of describing Providence so that it shall not appear to come into collision with the free will of man.

The chronicler distinctly associates the Divine observation with the continuance of the Jews in their work. Because the eye of God was on them their enemies could not cause them to cease until the matter had been referred to Darius and his answer received. This may be explained by some unrecorded juncture of circumstances which arrested the action of the enemies of Israel; by the overruling Providence according to which the Satrap was led to perceive that it would not be wise or just for him to act until he had orders from the king; or by the new zeal with which the two prophets had inspired the Jews, so that they took up a bold position in the calm confidence that God was with them. Account for it as we may, we see that in the present case the Jews were not hindered in their work. It is enough for faith to perceive the result of the Divine care without discovering the process.

The letter of the Satrap and his secretary embodies the reply of the Jews to the official inquiries, and that reply clearly and boldly sets forth their position. One or two points in it call for passing notice.

In the first place, the Jews describe themselves as "servants of the God of heaven

and earth." Thus they start by mentioning their religious status, and not any facts about their race or nation. This was wise, and calculated to disarm suspicion as to their motives; and it was strictly true, for the Jews were engaged in a distinctly religious work. Then the way in which they describe their God is significant. They do not use the national name "Jehovah." That would serve no good purpose with men who did not know or acknowledge their special faith. They say nothing to localise and limit their idea of God. To build the temple of a tribal god would be to further the ends of the tribe, and this the jealous neighbours of the Jews supposed they were doing. By the larger title the Jews lift their work out of all connection with petty personal ends. In doing so they confess their true faith. These Jews of the return were pure monotheists. They believed that there was one God who ruled over heaven and earth.

In the second place, with just a touch of national pride, pathetic under the circumstances, they remind the Persians that their nation has seen better days, and that they are rebuilding the temple which a great king has set up. Thus, while they would appeal to the generosity of the authorities, they would claim their respect, with the dignity of men who know they have a great history. In view of this the next statement is most striking. Reciting the piteous story of the overthrow of their nation, the destruction of their temple, and the captivity of their fathers, the Jews ascribe it all to their national sins. The prophets had long ago discerned the connection of cause and effect in these matters. But while it was only the subject of prediction, the proud people indignantly rejected the prophetic view. Since then their eyes had been opened by the painful purging of dire national calamities. One great proof that the nation had profited by the fiery ordeal of the captivity is that it now humbly acknowledged the sins which had brought it into the furnace. Trouble is illuminating. While it humbles men, it opens their eyes. It is better to see clearly in a lowly place than to walk blindfold on perilous heights.

After this explanatory preamble, the Jews appeal to the edict of Cyrus, and describe their subsequent conduct as a direct act of obedience to that edict. Thus they plead their cause as loyal subjects of the Persian empire. In consequence of this appeal the Satrap and his secretary request the king to order a search to be made for the edict, and to reply according to his pleasure.

The chronicler then proceeds to relate how the search was prosecuted, first among the royal archives at Babylon-in "the house of books." [Ezra 6:1] One of Mr. Layard’s most valuable discoveries was that of a set of chambers in a palace at Koyunjik, the whole of the floor of which was covered more than a foot deep with terra-cotta tablets inscribed with public records. A similar collection has been recently found in the neighbourhood of Babylon. In some such record-house the search for the edict of Cyrus was made. But the cylinder or tablet on which it was written could not be found. The searchers then turned their attention to the roll-chamber at the winter palace of Ecbatana, and there a parchment or papyrus copy of the edict was discovered.

One of the items of this edict as it is now given is somewhat surprising, for it was not

named in the earlier account in the first chapter of the Book of Ezra. This is a description of the dimensions of the temple which was to be built at Jerusalem. It must have been not a little humiliating to the Jews to have to take these measurements from a foreign sovereign, a heathen, a polytheist. Possibly, however, they had been first supplied to the king by the Jews, so that the builders might have the more explicit permission for what they were about to undertake. On the other hand, it may be that we have here the outside dimensions, beyond which the Jews were not permitted to go, and that the figures represent a limit for their ambitions. In either case the appearance of the details in the decree at all gives us a vivid conception of the thoroughness of the Persian autocracy, and of the perfect subjection of the Jews to Cyrus.

Some difficulty has been felt in interpreting the figures because they seem to point to a larger building than Solomon’s temple. The height is given at sixty cubits, and the breadth at the same measurement. But Solomon’s temple was only thirty cubits high, and its total breadth, with its side-chambers, was not more than forty cubits. [1 Kings 6:2] When we consider the comparative poverty of the returned Jews, the difficulties under which they laboured, the disappointment of the old men who had seen the former building, and the short time within which the work was finished-only four years-[Ezra 4:24; Ezra 5:15] it is difficult to believe that it was more than double the size of the glorious fabric for which David collected materials, on which Solomon lavished the best resources of his kingdom, and which even then took many more years in building. Perhaps the height includes the terrace on which the temple was built, and the breadth of the temple adjuncts. Perhaps the temple never attained the dimensions authorised by the edict. But even if the full size were reached, the building would not have approached the size of the stupendous temples of the great ancient empires. Apart from its courts Solomon’s temple was certainly a small building. It was not the size, but the splendour of that famous fabric that led to its being regarded with so much admiration and pride.

The most remarkable architectural feature of all these ancient temples was the enormous magnitude of the stones with which they were built. At the present day the visitor to Jerusalem gazes with wonder at huge blocks, all carefully chiselled and accurately fitted together, where parts of the old foundations may still be discerned. The narrative in Ezra makes several references to the great stones-"stones of rolling" [Ezra 5:8] it calls them, because they could only be moved on rollers. Even the edict mentions "three rows of great stones," together with "a row of new timber," [Ezra 6:4] -an obscure phrase, which perhaps means that the walls were to be of the thickness of three stones, while the timber formed an inner pannelling; or that there were to be three storeys of stone and one of wood; or yet another possibility, that on three tiers of stone a tier of wood was to be laid. In the construction of the inner court of Solomon’s temple this third method seems to have been followed, for we read, "And he built the. inner court with three rows of hewn stone and a row of cedar beams." [1 Kings 6:36] However we regard it-and the plan is confusing and a matter of much discussion-the impression is one of massive strength. The jealous observers noted especially the building of "the wall" of the temple. [Ezra 5:9] So solid a piece of work might be turned into a fortification. But

no such end seems to have been contemplated by the Jews. They built solidly because they wished their work to stand. It was to be no temporary tabernacle, but a permanent temple designed to endure to posterity. We are struck with the massive character of the Roman remains in Britain, which show that when the great world conquerors took possession of our island they settled down in it and regarded it as a permanent property. The same grand consciousness of permanence must have been in the minds of the brave builders who planted this solid structure at Jerusalem in the midst of troubles and threatenings of disaster. Today, when we look at the stupendous Phoenician and Jewish architecture of Syria, we are, struck with admiration at the patience, the perseverance, the industry, the thoroughness, the largeness of idea that characterised the work of these old-world builders. Surely it must have been the outcome of a similar tone and temper of mind. The modern mind may be more nimble, as the modern work is more expeditious. But for steadfastness of purpose the races that wrought so patiently at great enduring works seem to have excelled anything we can attain. And yet here and there a similar characteristic is observable-as, for example, in the self-restraint and continuous toil of Charles Darwin, when he collected facts for twenty years before he published the book which embodied the conclusion he had drawn from his wide induction.

The solid character of the temple-building is further suggestive, because the work was all done for the service of God. Such work should never be hasty, because God has the leisure of eternity in which to inspect it. It is labour lost to make it superficial and showy without any real strength, because God sees behind all pretences. Moreover, the fire will try every man’s work of what sort it is. We grow impatient of toil; we weary for quick results; we forget that in building the spiritual temple strength to endure the shocks of temptation and to outlast the decay of time is more valued by God than the gourd-like display which is the sensation of the hour, only to perish as quickly as it has sprung up.

PULPIT, "REEWAL OF OPPOSITIO O THE PART OF THE EIGHBOURIG HEATHE. LETTER WRITTE BY THEM AD SET TO DARIUS (Ezra 5:3-17). Once more opposition showed itself. Tatnai, a high officer, called "governor on this side the river" (Ezra 5:3), perhaps satrap of Syria, and Shethar-boznai, or Sitrabarzanes, a Persian noble probably, at this time took the lead, and learning that the building was making progress, came in person to Jerusalem, and demanded to know by what authority the temple and city were being restored. Zerubbabel seems to have answered, "By the authority of a decree of Cyrus, issued in the year that he became king of Babylon" (Ezra 5:13); whereupon a second question was asked, "What are the names of the men responsible for carrying on the work?" Zerubbabel answered that he was alone responsible, giving his name as Sheshbazzar, and declaring himself to be acting under a commission received from Cyrus (Ezra 5:15), and never revoked. Thereupon Tatnai and Shethar-boznai seem to have proposed a cessation of the building until reference could be made to Darius and his pleasure learnt (Ezra 5:5); but Zerubbabel declined to agree to this, and the work proceeded without intermission (ibid.). Meanwhile, a letter was written to Darius, not unfairly stating the case, and

suggesting that the state archives should be searched for the decree ascribed to Cyrus, that it might be seen what exactly it was that the decree sanctioned, and further that the king should expressly declare what his own pleasure was in the matter (Ezra 5:17). This letter Tatnai, in his capacity of satrap, despatched to the court by special messenger, and so left the business to the decision of Darius and his counsellors, without further seeking to influence him. Remark the strong contrast between this despatch and that of the Samaritans. In the Samaritan letter private pique and enmity show themselves—Jerusalem is "the rebellious and the bad city" (Ezra 4:12), "hurtful unto kings and provinces'' (Ezra 4:15); its intention to revolt is assumed (Ezra 5:13); the king is warned that his dominion and revenue are in danger (Ezra 5:16); no hint is given of there having ever been any such document as the decree of Cyrus; no reference is made to Sheshbazzar or the royal commission that he had received; altogether, the case is stated as strongly as possible against the Jews, with great and manifest unfairness. Here, on the contrary, where the person who takes up the matter is the Persian governor, a dispassionate tone prevails; no charges are made; no abuse uttered; the letter is confined to a statement of facts and an inquiry; the Jews are allowed to give their own account of their proceedings, nearly half the letter being their statement of their own case (Ezra 5:11-15); the decree of Cyrus is brought into prominence, asserted on the one hand, not denied on the other; that it should be searched for is suggested; and finally there is a simple request that the king will declare his will in respect of the building.

Ezra 5:3

Tatnai, governor on this side the river. The title given to Tatnai is the same which is assigned to Zerubbabel, both in Ezra 6:7 and in Haggai (Haggai 1:1, Haggai 1:14, etc.), viz; pechah, which is a somewhat vague term of authority, translated sometimes "captain" (1 Kings 20:24; Daniel 3:2, Daniel 3:3, etc.), sometimes "deputy (Esther 8:9; Esther 9:3), but generally, as here, "governor." The etymology is uncertain, but seems not to be Semitic. The respective rank of Tatnai and Zerub-babel is indicated, not by this term, but by what follows it. Tatnai was pechah "beyond the river," i.e. governor of the whole tract west of the Euphrates; Zerubbabel was pechah of Judah only. A Greek writer would have called the one "satrap of Syria," the other "sub-satrap of Judaea." It was the duty of Tatuai to watch the proceedings of his sub-satraps.

4 They also asked, "What are the names of the men constructing this building?" [13]

BARES, "Then said we - The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions have “Then said they,” which brings this verse into exact accordance with Ezr_5:10.

CLARKE, "What are the names - It is most evident that this is the answer of the Jews to the inquiry of Tatnai, Ezr_5:3, and the verse should be read thus: Then said we unto them after this manner: These are the names of the men who make this building.

GILL, "Then said we unto them after this manner,.... In answer to their questions; namely, Ezra and other Jews replied; for though Ezra is said after this to come from Babylon in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, he might go thither on some business, and then return again at that time; some indeed think these are the words of Tatnai and those with him; so Ben Melech, which seems to be favoured by Ezr_4:10, and by reading the words with an interrogation, as we do; Aben Ezra says they are either the words of the builders, or of the scribes, the secretaries that came to question them; but they are the words of the former, as order requires, or otherwise no answer would be returned, at least as expressed; and the next clause may be read without an interrogation, and the sense be, that they told them not only that they acted according to an edict of Cyrus king of Persia, for this was said, as appears from Ezr_5:13, but they declared

what were the names of the men that did make this building; or employed them in it, namely, Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the chief men of the Jews; they made no scruple of telling them who they were; neither ashamed of their masters nor of their work, nor afraid of any ill consequences following hereafter.

K&D, "Ezr_5:4

Then told we them after this manner (נמא , Ezr_4:8), what were the names of the men

who were building this building. From אמרנא, we said, it is obvious that the author of this

account was an eye-witness of, and sharer in, the work of building. These is not a shadow

of reason for altering אמרנא into אמרו, or into the participle מרין" (Ew., Berth., and

others); the ε$ποσαν of the lxx being no critical authority for so doing. The answer in

Ezr_5:4 seems not to correspond with the question in Ezr_5:3. The royal officials asked, Who had commanded them to build? The Jews told them the names of those who had undertaken and were conducting the building. But this incongruity between the question and answer is merely caused by the fact that the discussion is reported only by a short extract restricted to the principal subjects. We learn that this is the case from the contents of the letter sent by the officials to the king. According to these, the royal functionary inquired not merely concerning the author of the command to build, but asked also the names of those who were undertaking the work (comp. Ezr_5:9 and Ezr_5:10); while the rulers of the Jews gave a circumstantial answer to both questions (Ezr_5:11-15).

ELLICOTT, "(4) Then said we.—The LXX. must here have read, “then said they.” But there is no need to change the text; the sentence is not a question, but a statement: “we said to the effect, what the names were.”

What are the names of the men . . .?—It is clear that this graphic account is much compressed. We must understand (see Ezra 5:10) that the authorities demanded the names of the chief promoters of the building in order to make them responsible.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:4. Then said we unto them.—Here the Masoretic text gives at once the answer of the Jews. But this text is in more than one respect singular. The first person might be explained, it is true, very well as having come from the use of an ancient document, whose author had taken part in the building. But אמר should be followed by the direct discourse, whilst the indirect is used, so that we must translate, not, then we said, but then said we to them, what the names of the men were. Besides, if the Jews here spake, that Isaiah, answered to the question in Ezra 5:3, instead of referring to the names of the men, we should expect another answer. It is natural therefore with Bertheau to conjecture that the text has been corrupted in some way, that is to say that the first person is incorrect, as it were, has come over from Ezra 5:9, instead of which we must read here the third person, so that the Persian officials still continue: then said they to them, what are the names of the men, etc., as from the start we might expect, according to Ezra 5:9-10. It is possible then that likewise אדין, which would separate almost too much the second part of the address from the first in Ezra 5:3, is a mistake likewise. The Sept. and Esdras already have regarded the verse as a question of the Persian officials, the former translating: פפו פבῦפבἔינןףבם, the latter, in that it passes over entirely the first four words. It is true that the objection might be raised, that then there is no answer on the part of the Jews. But this might have been omitted with reference to Ezra 5:11. The names of the men were important to the officials, for they had to know whom the king was to hold responsible. Instead of שמהת the more accurate editions have .שמהת

5 But the eye of their God was watching over the elders of the Jews, and they were not stopped until a report could go to Darius and his written reply be received.

CLARKE, "The eye of their God was upon the elders - The watchful care of God was upon the elders. They were assured of his favor; and they found his especial providence working in their behalf.

GILL, "But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews,.... He in his providence looked favourably at them, smiled upon them, encouraged them in the work by his good Spirit, and by the prophets, and gave them success, and protected and defended them, see 2Ch_16:9,

that they could not cause them to cease, till the matter came to Darius; they were not intimidated by what the governor and those with him said to them, but went on in their work; nor did the governor attempt to interrupt them, they having referred him and their cause to Darius for the truth of what they had said, and for further information from him:

and then they returned answer by letter concerning this matter; that is, Tatnai and those with him sent a letter to Darius about this affair, to which they had an answer, which are both related in this and the following chapters.

HERY, " The care which the divine Providence took of this good work (Ezr_5:5): The eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, who were active in the work, so that their enemies could not cause them to cease, as they would have done, till the matter came to Darius. They desired they would only cease till they had instructions from the king about it. But they would not so much as yield them that, for the eye of God was upon them, even their God. And, 1. That baffled their enemies, infatuated and enfeebled them, and protected the builders from their malicious designs. While we are employed in God's work we are taken under his special protection; his eye is upon us for good, seven eyes upon one stone in his temple; see Zec_3:9; Zec_4:10. 2. That quickened them. The elders of the Jews saw the eye of God upon them, to observe what they did and own them in what they did well, and then they had courage enough to face their enemies and to go on vigorously with their work, notwithstanding all the opposition they met with. our eye upon God, observing his eye upon us, will keep us to our duty and encourage us in it when the difficulties are ever so discouraging.

JAMISO 5-17, "But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, etc.— The unusual presence, the imposing suite, the authoritative inquiries of the satrap appeared formidable, and might have produced a paralyzing influence or led to disastrous consequences, if he had been a partial and corrupt judge or actuated by unfriendly feelings towards the Jewish cause. The historian, therefore, with characteristic piety, throws in this parenthetical verse to intimate that God averted the threatening cloud and procured favor for the elders or leaders of the Jews, that they were not interrupted in their proceedings till communications with the court should be made and received. Not a word was uttered to dispirit the Jews or afford cause of triumph to their opponents. Matters were to go on till contrary orders arrived from Babylon. After surveying the work in progress, he inquired: first, by what authority this national temple was undertaken; and, secondly, the names of the principal promoters and directors of the undertaking. To these two heads of enquiry the Jews returned ready and distinct replies. Then having learned that it originated in a decree of Cyrus, who had not only

released the Jewish exiles from captivity and permitted them to return to their own land for the express purpose of rebuilding the house of God, but, by an act of royal grace, had restored to them the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried off as trophies from the former temple, Tatnai transmitted all this information in an official report to his imperial master, accompanying it with a recommendatory suggestion that search should be made among the national archives at Babylon for the original decree of Cyrus, that the truth of the Jews’ statement might be verified. The whole conduct of Tatnai, as well as the general tone of his dispatch, is marked by a sound discretion and prudent moderation, free from any party bias, and evincing a desire only to do his duty. In all respects he appears in favorable contrast with his predecessor, Rehum (Ezr_4:9).

K&D, "Ezr_5:5

Tatnai and Shethar-Boznai had power to prohibit them from proceeding; they allowed them, however, to go on with their work till the arrival of an answer from the king, to whom they had furnished a written report of the matter. In these dealings, the historian sees a proof of the divine protection which was watching over the building. “The eye of their God was over the elders of the Jews, that they should not restrain them (from building) till the matter came to Darius; and they should then receive a letter concerning

this matter.” Bertheau incorrectly translates *יהך לד until the command of King :עד־טעמא

Darius should arrive. *ל is only used as a paraphrase of the genitive in statements of time;

otherwise the genitive, if not expressed by the status construc., is designated by *- or י-.

signifies to go to a ,ל* construed with ,ל formed by the rejection of ,הלך* fut. Peal of ,יהך*

place (comp. Ezr_7:13), or to come to a person. (טעם) טעמא does not here mean

commandment, but the matter, causa, which the king is to decide; just as ת.ן/, Ezr_6:11,

means thing, res. The clause יתיבון and till they (the royal :עד still depends upon ואדין

officials) then receive a letter, i.e., obtain a decision.

COKE, "Verse 5Ver. 5. But the eye of their God, &c.— i.e. The peculiar favour, good providence, and protection of God. Houbigant renders the last clause of the preceding verse thus: these are the names of the men who have undertaken this building.

REFLECTIOS.—1st, About fifteen years the building seems to have continued at a stand, till God by his prophets roused the people to the work.

1. They prophesied unto them, or against them; reproved them for their lukewarmness, and provoked them to renew the building. ote; (1.) Ministers must be faithful reprovers, and urge the sluggish builders to their work. (2.) When God raises up zealous preachers of his word, then there is hope that the wall will be built.

2. The effect of their prophesy was soon evident. Zerubbabel and Jeshua immediately set themselves to the work, and the prophets helped them; so that the people once more began with vigour to build. ote; (1.) They who are first in station, should be first to promote every good work. (2.) The help of the prophets is

the most essential part towards the establishment of the spiritual church: though a good magistrate can do much, a good minister can do more.

2nd, o sooner began the work to revive, than the jealousy of their neighbours began to appear.

1. The governors of Samaria, who had succeeded the former in their office, probably at the beginning of the new reign of Darius, immediately inquired into the authority on which the Jews proceeded. They were not, however, afraid or ashamed to produce their charter, and to give in the names of the principal authors of this good work; God encouraging them, and strengthening them to persevere, till the matter came before Darius, to whom they appealed. ote; (1.) If God's eye be upon us for good, we need not fear what man can do unto us. (2.) The comfortable presence of God should quicken and enliven us to greater diligence in his service.

2. The governors Tatnai and Shethar-boznai hereupon dispatched a letter to the king, informing him of what was doing, and desiring his directions; and herein they acted with much greater candour and honesty than their predecessors, representing the true state of the fact. After wishing the king prosperity and all earthly happiness, they inform him, that they had visited the province of Judea, and observed there a magnificent structure raising to the great God whom the Jews worshipped, which was carried on with assiduity and zeal; that, on inquiring into the authority on which they presumed thus to act, they received for answer, That this house, which a great king among them had formerly erected, and for their sins God had suffered ebuchadnezzar to destroy, Cyrus had given them a commission to rebuild; and restored to them withal the vessels which had been carried to Babylon: in consequence of which, they had proceeded under the direction of Sheshbazzar, their prince; and that they had ever since been at work upon it, though, by reason of the interruptions they had met with, it was not yet finished. They beg therefore, if the king pleased, that search might be made in the records, respecting the truth of this decree in their favour; and that he would inform them of his pleasure in the matter. ote; (1.) We should ever reflect with shame on the sins that have provoked God's visitations. (2.) If the people of God can but obtain a fair hearing, they need not fear for their cause. (3.) Many an unjust sentence has gone forth against the faithful, not so much from malice in the magistrate, as from the misinformation of their enemies. (4.) Truth, though long suppressed, will usually at last prevail.

ELLICOTT, "(5) And then they returned answer.—And [till] they should receive answer. It is implied that “the eye of their God” was with special vigilance fixed on the work, and it will appear that His influence was upon the officials of Persia as well as upon the rulers of the Jews. The letter that follows shows this.

BESO, "Ezra 5:5. But the eye of God was upon the elders, &c. — The peculiar favour, watchful providence, and powerful protection of God, giving them courage and resolution to go on with the work, notwithstanding the threats of their enemies; and so overruling the hearts and hands of their enemies, that they did not hinder

them by force, as they might have done. While we are employed in God’s work, we are taken under his special protection, and his eye is upon us for good.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:5. The eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews.—This is the prelimiminary result, producing for them mildness on the part of the officials, and securing them from interruption. The eye is used instead of the hand, because the Providence and Wisdom of God above all came into consideration. Comp. Psalm 34:16; Zechariah 4:10; 1 Peter 3:2. The שבין, corresponding with the זקנים in Hebrew, are at the same time the שרים Ezra 10:8.—Until the report came to Darius, and they then brought back a letter concerning the matter.—Bertheau understood it as: Until a command arrived from Darius, etc. But מעם need not be the royal decree. Although this word does not assume the wider sense of causa (Keil), it yet has the meaning of ratio, and indeed also in the sense of account (or likewise of consideration) יהב טעמא, Daniel 6:3 = give account. Thus it may be used here for a report, by which officers would give their king an account of an important occurrence, and their observation of it. The ל before Darius cannot be a circumlocution of the genitive—it is thus used only in designations of time. On the other hand its use with הל� to give the end, is entirely assured. Comp. Ezra 7:13, etc. Finally, if it did not mean “to Darius,” the הל� alone would be too indefinite. As well Esdras as the Septuagint also has, therefore, although rendering freely, properly understood it as a report to Darius. aturally, however, these words are only preparatory for the following clause: “Until they bring back a letter, etc.”, which really for the first expresses the limit of time meant.יה� imperf. of הלך (comp. Ezra 6:5; Ezra 7:13) is referred by Winer, § 25, to a special root הה�. It is possible, however, that as usually the ה is absorbed at the beginning, so here the ל of הלך and thus we have יה� for יהל�.[F3] The letter to be brought back, was certainly to come from Darius, there is no occasion to think of one from Tatnai, etc., unless it is already supposed that there is a royal command in טעם. The subject of יתיבון is indefinite “they.”

PULPIT, "The eye of their God was upon the elders. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous" (Psalms 34:15) with a jealous watchfulness, which never for a moment slackens. "He withdraweth not his eyes from them" (Job 36:7). othing happens to them that he does not know and allow. At this time the elders, who pre-aided over the workmen employed in the restoration, were a special subject of God's watchful care, so that those who would fain have hindered them could not. The work of rebuilding went on uninterruptedly during the whole time that the messengers were away.

6

This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates, the officials of Trans-Euphrates, sent to King Darius.

BARES, "Apharsachites, like Apharsites, and Apharsathchites Ezr_4:9, are thought by some to be forms of the word “Persians,” which is applied here generally to the foreign settlers in Samaria. (Others identify the first and the third names with the “Paretaceni,” a people on the Medo-Persian border.)

GILL, "The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river,.... Which is thought by some to be one of the nations mentioned, Ezr_4:9 the name being pretty near alike to two of them; but perhaps might be a distinct colony in those parts Tatnai was governor of:

these sent unto Darius the king; and is as follows.

K&D 6-17, "In Ezr_5:6-17 follows the letter which the royal officials sent to the king. Ezr_5:6 and Ezr_5:7 form the introduction to this document, and correspond with Ezr_5:8-11 in Ezra 4. Copy of the letter (comp. Ezr_4:11) which Tatnai, etc., sent. The senders of the letter are, besides Tatnai, Shethar-Boznai and his companions the Apharsachites, the same called Ezr_4:9 the Apharsathchites, who perhaps, as a race specially devoted to the Persian king, took a prominent position among the settlers in Syria, and may have formed the royal garrison. After this general announcement of the letter, follows the more precise statement: They sent the matter to him; and in it was written, To King

Darius, much peace. ת.ן/ here is not command, but matter; see above. כ0א, its totality, is

unconnected with, yet dependent on שלמא: peace in all things, in every respect. The letter

itself begins with a simple representation of the state of affairs (Ezr_5:8): “We went into the province of Judaea, to the house of the great God (for so might Persian officials speak of the God of Israel, after what they had learned from the elders of Judah of the edict of Cyrus), and it is being built with freestone, and timber is laid in the walls; and this work is being diligently carried on, and is prospering under their hands.” The placing of wood in the walls refers to building beams into the wall for flooring; for the building was not so far advanced as to make it possible that this should be said of

covering the walls with wainscotting. The word 3ס/רנא here, and Ezr_6:8, Ezr_6:12-13;

Ezr_7:17, Ezr_7:21, Ezr_7:26, is of Aryan origin, and is explained by Haug in Ew. Janro.

v. p. 154, from the Old-Persian us-parna, to mean: carefully or exactly finished-a meaning

which suits all these passages.

COFFMA, "Verse 6GOVEROR TATTEAI'S LETTER TO DARIUS I

"The copy of the letter that Tattenai the governor beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai, and his companions the Apharsachites, who were beyond the River, sent unto Darius the king; they sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus: Unto Darius the king, all peace. Be it known unto the king, that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls; and this work goeth on with diligence and prospereth in their hands. Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall? We asked them their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were at the head of them. And thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are building the house that was builded there many years ago, which a great king of Israel builded and finished. But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. But in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God. And the gold and silver vessels also of the house of God, which ebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered unto one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor; and he said unto him, Take these vessels, go, put them in the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be buUded in its place. Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time, even until now, hath it been in building, yet it is not completed. ow therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure-house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem; and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter."

One must admit that this letter is a fair and honorable presentation of the truth as Tattenai laid it out before Darius the king. What a contrast there is here with that prejudiced and derogatory letter that the evil governor Rehum would, at a later time, send to Artaxerxes.

"Builded with great stones" (Ezra 5:8). "The Hebrew here is rolling stones, that is, stones so large that they would have to be moved by rolling them on rollers."[5] Dummelow gave the dimensions of some of those stones as "Sixty-seven feet long, seven and one half feet high, and nine feet wide."[6]

"Sheshbazzar" (Ezra 5:14). This is the man to whom was counted the sacred vessels that he restored to Israel, even those that ebuchadnezzar had looted from the

Temple of Solomon. He was evidenly Cyrus' man in charge of that first expedition to Jerusalem; and scholars differ on just what connection he had with Zerubbabel. Hamrick thought that he might have been the same person as Zerubbabel,[7] in which case his Babylonian name might have been Sheshbazzar. However, the opinion of Cundall may be correct: "If Sheshbazzar was the Persian appointed leader, it would account for the fact that in this official communication he would be tactfully mentioned as the one who laid the foundations of the Temple, whereas Zerubbabel, the popular leader would be given the prominence in the domestic account."[8]

"Let there be search made ... whether it be so ... that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build the house of God at Jerusalem" (Ezra 5:17). This was the key request of Darius by Tattenai. If indeed it was true that Cyrus had made such a decree, then according to the Medo-Persian tradition it was impossible to change it. Daniel twice referred to the "Law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not" (Daniel 6:8,12). Daniel commented that, "It is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed" (Daniel 6:15). If the projected search proposed by Tatrenal revealed that Cyrus indeed had made such a decree as the Jews claimed, then it was settled; the law could not be changed.

ELLICOTT, "6) The copy of the letter.—This letter of Tatnai is introduced much in the same way as Helium’s; but its dispassionateness and good faith are in striking contrast with the latter.

Apharsachites.—Probably here the same as the Apharsites before, and suggesting some kind of Persian guard. But the reason of their introduction specifically here is obscure.

COSTABLE, "Verses 6-17Tattenai"s letter5:6-17

In contrast to Rehum and Shimshai"s letter to Artaxerxes ( Ezra 4:11-16), Tattenai"s letter to Darius was fair and objective. He gave no indication of wanting to stop the Jews" project. He only wanted to know if Cyrus had really given permission for the Jews to rebuild the temple and if Darius wanted that edict to stand.

The record of this letter in the text shows that high-ranking government officials had observed God"s care of His chosen people. This would have encouraged the original readers of Ezra with the assurance that what they had done was honest, and that God was moving governors and kings to accomplish His will (cf. Proverbs 21:1).

Opposition to Temple ConstructionEzra 4-5

Scripture

The form it took

What it tested

How they reacted

Ezra 4:1-2 (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14)

Israel"s enemies offered to help.

Their wisdom

Zerubbabel declined the offer.

Ezra 4:4-5 (cf. 2 Timothy 1:7)

They discouraged and frightened the builders.

Their faith

The Jews trusted God and pressed on.

Ezra 4:6-23 (cf. Matthew 16:18)

They tried legal action and red tape.

Their patience

God gave a favorable decision through Artaxerxes, and Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the Jews.

Ezra 5:3 (cf. Matthew 28:19-20)

They demanded proof of authority to build.

Their perseverance

The builders kept on working.

". . . against the background of rampant polytheism or even the dualism of newly emerging Zoroastrianism it was important to affirm that Yahweh is Lord of all in heaven and on earth. To their enemies the Jews affirmed this when they announced that they were building the second Temple as the "servants of the God of heaven and earth" ( Ezra 5:11)." [ote: Merrill, "A Theology . . .," p191.]

"The God of heaven is probably an attempt by the Jews to create sympathy for their

cause in the Persian court, because Ahuramazda, the Persian god, was also regarded as "god of the heaven," and was known as the creator of heaven and earth." [ote: Fensham, The Books . . ., p83.]

PETT, "Verses 6-17The Persian Governor Writes To King Darius Concerning The Building Of The Temple And The Statement Of The Elders Concerning Their Case (Ezra 5:6-17).

It should be noted how deliberately the writer gives an exact record of the correspondence which took place to and fro. He was a careful historian. He first records the letter which Tattenai sent to King Darius in Aramaic. It is probable that a copy of this letter (Ezra 5:6) was given to the Jewish elders so that they would know what was said. This would serve to confirm the impartiality of Tattenai who appears only to have been doing his duty as he saw it.

Ezra 5:6-7

‘The copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor of Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai, and his companions the Inspectors (Apharsachites), who were of Beyond the River, sent to Darius the king. They sent a letter to him, in which was written thus:’This would appear to summarise the preamble with which a letter would normally commence, which would be something like, ‘Tattenai, the governor of Beyond the River, and Shethar-bozenai, and his companions the Apharsachites, to Darius the King’. The Apharsachites are again referred to in Ezra 6:6. The word is derived from the Old Persian (OP) word frasarka meaning inspectors. They are to be distinguished from the Apharsathchites of Ezra 4:9, where the word probably signifies ‘envoys’ (OP fraistarka). We are then given the contents of the letter. We again note the Persian style, both of the preamble and of the letter, confirming its authenticity.

‘In which was writtenthus. The word for ‘thus’ (signifying ‘in the body of the letter’) is typical of Aramaic legal documents

LAGE, "II. The Report of the officials. Ezra 5:6-17

6The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-boznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river, sent unto Darius the king: 7They sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus; Unto Darius the king, all peace 8 Be it known unto the king, that we went into the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goeth fast on, and prospereth in their hands 9 Then asked we those elders, and said unto them thus, Who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls? 10We asked their names also, to certify thee, that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them 11 And thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and build the house that was builded these many years ago, which a great

king of Israel builded and set up 12 But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, he gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon 13 But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon, the same king Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God 14 And the vessels also of gold and silver of the house of God, which ebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered unto one, whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor; 15And said unto him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be builded in his place 16 Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished 17 ow therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king’s treasure house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be Song of Solomon, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem, and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:6-17. The report of the officers to Cyrus in Ezra 5:6-7, at first, precisely like Ezra 4:8-11, has the superscription which this letter probably received already in the collection of documents at Jerusalem.—These are the contents of the letter that Tatnai.—Shethar-boznai and his companions the Apharsachites.—We must leave in doubt the question why the Apharsachites (comp. Ezra 4:9) are especially mentioned as the companions of Shethar-boznai, which here means either lower officials or as it were men of the same race, or else people especially attached to him.[F4]

7 The report they sent him read as follows: To King Darius: Cordial greetings.

GILL, "They sent a letter unto him, wherein was written thus,.... Or this was the inscription of it:

unto Darius the king, all peace; wishing him all kind of happiness and prosperity.

8 The king should know that we went to the district of Judah, to the temple of the great God. The people are building it with large stones and placing the timbers in the walls. The work is being carried on with diligence and is making rapid progress under their direction.

BARES, "Great stones - literally, as in the margin; i. e., stones so large that they were rolled along, not carried. Others translate “polished stones.”

CLARKE, "With great stones - They are making a very strong and a very costly building.

GILL, "Be it known unto the king,.... This seems to have been the usual form of beginning a letter to a king in those days, Ezr_4:12 that we went into the province of Judea; which from a kingdom was reduced to a province, and was become a part of the Babylonian, now Persian, monarchy, see Ezr_2:1 to the house of the great God; as the Jews called the Lord their God; and even the Heathens had a notion that there was one supreme God, though they worshipped inferior ones; and some had a notion that Jehovah the God of the Jews was he:

which is builded with great stones; marble stones; as Jarchi (q), stones of rolling, as it may be rendered; which, according to Aben Ezra, were so large and heavy, that they could not be carried, but were obliged to roll them:

and timber is laid in the walls, cedar wood, as Aben Ezra interprets it, for beams, for flooring and raftering; or rather, is put upon the walls, for the lining and wainscoting of them, which was done with cedar wood:

and this work goeth fast on, and prospereth in their hands; and, unless timely prevented, will soon be finished.

JAMISO, "the house of the great God, which is builded with great stones— literally, “stones of rolling”; that is, stones of such extraordinary size that they could not be carried - they had to be rolled or dragged along the ground.

ELLICOTT, "(8) To the house of the great God.—A solemn tribute to the God of the Jews, which, however, the decree of Cyrus enables us to understand in this official document. Tatnai probably dwelt at Damascus, and when he went to Jerusalem was deeply impressed. But he only gives a statement of the progress which he observed in the Temple. “The walls here are the walls within the Temple, not the city walls.

BESO, "Ezra 5:8. To the house of the great God — Whom the Jews account the great God, the God of gods, esteeming all others to be but little, or rather false gods. And, indeed, thus far the greater part of the Samaritans agreed with them.

PETT, "Ezra 5:8

‘Be it known to the king, that we went into the district of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is being built with massive stones, and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goes on with thoroughness and prospers in their hands.’The reason for writing is now given. They wish to make known to the king that they have been fulfilling their responsibilities of being the eye of the king, in this case by going into the district of Judah to check out a report that the Jews were engaged in building something with massive stones. The first years of Darius, as so often when kings first came to the throne, had been a signal to disaffected factions to rebel against him. The report that they had received of the use of ‘massive stones’, very naturally therefore had aroused their suspicions.

o doubt the report, suitably embellished, had come from Judah’s enemies (Ezra 4:1). But when the Persian representatives had arrived they had discovered that what was being built was a Temple to ‘the great God’ (the same description of God is used in Persepolis fortification tablets). It was being built with massive stones, and with timber laid in the walls (as with Solomon’s Temple - 1 Kings 6:36). These courses of timber would provide the flexibility needed if an earthquake struck. Here was the explanation for the massive stones. And the work was going on with thoroughness, and was prospering. In other words they were making a good job of it, and making proper use of the materials. These words confirm that Tattenai was seeking to be fair to the builders, and did not see them as a threat. But the question then was, did they have proper authorisation?

LAGE, "Ezra 5:8. Be it known unto the king.—The letter in Ezra 4:12 began in the same way. The present letter however is distinguished by the fact that it gives first of all a simple objective report. Judah is called a מרינה (see Ezra 2:1), the god of the Jews, the great God.—It is not probable however that they, like the Samaritans ( Ezra 4:1) actually paid a certain degree of reverence to him, rather the deep reverence of the Jews made such an impression upon them that they supposed He must be an especially great God (namely, for His worshippers). What they say respecting the building, is manifestly to show that the work was welldone, in a strong, stately manner.—Of great stones.—אבן נלל here the accusative of material is the stone which was too heavy to lift, and which could only be rolled along; thus

very heavy and large stones (as Ezra 4:4), which were only taken for great buildings, designed to last a very long time. The Sept. emphasizes by its translation כטןי ἐךכוךפן, the excellence of the material; Ezra 4:9, by its translation כטןי מוףפὸ—.at the same time the labor applied to them, as well as their costliness עῖי נןכץפוכוAnd timber is laid in the walls.—Berth. understands by this the placing of beams in the walls, that Isaiah, in the partitions, [Rawlinson, in loco, “party walls”], or likewise the erection of the scaffolding on the outer walls. But the expressions indicate rather the inlaying of the walls with wood work artistically finished (comp. Psalm 74:6), thus according to the view of the writer represent the building ,פתוחיה as one erected with great care. It is true the work had not made such progress, in fact that the walls, which themselves were first built of the great stones, could have been already inlaid. But it is probable that the zeal, which is clearly enough attested by Haggai, manifested itself likewise in this way, that those skilled in wainscoting went at once to work, since moreover it was necessary to make as great haste as possible on account of the threatened interruption. The haste is expressly referred to by the officials in the last words—and this work goeth fast on—אספרנה (comp. Ezra 6:8; Ezra 6:13; Ezra 7:17; Ezra 7:21; Ezra 7:26) is explained from the Persian, and means properly, very active. אם is probably the ancient Persian us or os, Sanscrit ut, which expresses intensity; as our “very” and parna is an adjective from the ancient Persian par, Zend pere = do, complete. Comp. Haug. a. a. O. The subject of מצלה, it prospereth is not the form עבידתה (comp. Ezra 4:14; Daniel 6:28), but “it.”

PULPIT, "We went into the province of Judaea. It has been supposed, on the strength of a doubtful passage in ehemiah (ehemiah 3:7), that Tatnai ordinarily resided at Jernsalem. But this expression indicates the contrary. Most probably the satrap of Syria held his court at Damascus. The house of the great God is a remarkable expression in the mouth of a heathen. It has some parallels, e.g. the expressions of Cyrus in Ezra 1:2, Ezra 1:3, and of ebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2:47 and Daniel 3:29; but they were persons who had been brought to the knowledge that Jehovah was the one true God, under very peculiar and miraculous circumstances. Tatnai, on the other hand, represents the mere ordinary Persian official; and his acknowledgment of the God of the Jews as "the great God" must be held to indicate the general belief of the Persians on the subject (see the comment on Ezra 1:2). Which is builded. Rather, "being builded." With great stones. Literally, "stones of rolling," which is commonly explained as stones so large that they had to be rolled along the ground. But the squared stones used in building neither were, nor could be, rolled; they are always represented as dragged, generally on a rough sledge. And it is not at all probable that in the "day of small things" (Zechariah 4:10) the Jews were building with very large stones. The LXX. translate "choice stones;" the Vulgate "unpolished'' or "rough stone." Some of the Jewish expositors suggest "marble." And timber is laid. A good deal of timber had been employed in the old temple, but chiefly for the floors of chambers (1 Kings 6:10), for the internal lining of the walls (1 Kings 6:9, 1 Kings 6:15), and probably for the roofing. In the new temple, timber seems to have been employed also as the main material of the party-walls. Here again we have a trace of the economy necessary in the "day of small things."

9 We questioned the elders and asked them, "Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?"

GILL, "Then asked we those elders,.... The elders of the province of Judea; the chief men of it:

who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls? see Ezr_5:3.

K&D, "Hereupon the royal officials asked the elders of the Jews who had commanded them to build, and inquired concerning their names, that they might write

to the king the names of the leading men (see the remark on 3 and 41). בראשהם does -י

not mean, who are at the head of them: but, who act in the capacity of heads.

PETT, "Ezra 5:9

‘Then we asked those elders, and said to them thus, “Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to make use of and fashion this material?”So the writer of the letter then made clear to the king that they had asked the Jewish elders who it was who had given the authorisation for the building of the house, and the use and shaping of this expensive building material. They wanted the king to recognise that they had done their own job thoroughly as well.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:9-10 then give an account at first of their question.—Then asked we those elders.—אל�, those who, as a matter of course, were in Jerusalem at the head, Ezra 5:10, at their head.—בראשהם is more naturally explained as at their head (comp. 2 Chronicles 20:2), than: in their capacity as their heads (Berth, Keil). [A. V, “that were the chief of them”]. The latter interpretation of ב is in itself doubtful, especially moreover, since no verb is given with it. The plural, expressed by the vowels, may be explained by the fact that they worked in different groups, namely,

by families (comp. ehemiah 3.)

10 We also asked them their names, so that we could write down the names of their leaders for your information.

GILL, "We asked their names also,.... The names of the elders, those that set men about this work:

to certify that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them; take the names of them in writing, that they might with certainty acquaint the king who they were, and that if it was necessary they might be called to an account for what they were doing.

PETT, "Ezra 5:10

‘We asked them their names also, to certify to you, that we might write the names of the men who were at the head of them.’They also confirmed that they had demanded the names of those who were responsible for the work, so that they could report them to Darius. This may have been in order that, if he felt it necessary, he could take suitable action against them, or it may have been so that he would know that the men doing the work were not subversive, but reliable. He was no doubt confident that Darius’ system of spies would have provided him with the names of any who appeared to be subversive. The kings of Persia had an efficient spy system which reported back directly to him. Thus a quick check of the list would confirm whether or not there was anything reported against these men.

11

This is the answer they gave us: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, one that a great king of Israel built and finished.

CLARKE, "We are the servants of the God of heaven - How simple, plain, and ingenuous is this confession! They were the servants of the God of heaven. How came they then into bondage! Why, they provoked the God of heaven - repeatedly sinned against him, and then he gave them into the hands of their enemies.

GILL, "And thus they returned us answer,.... To the purpose and in the manner following:

saying, we are the servants of the God of heaven and earth; signifying that they were doing his work, in obedience to his will, and to whom they were accountable:

and build the house that was builded these many years ago; even five hundred years ago, or thereabout; so that they were not erecting a building where there was none before, but were rebuilding what was in ruins:

which a great king of Israel builded and set up; King Solomon, who was a great king for wisdom, honour, riches, peace, prosperity, and extent of his kingdom.

K&D, "The answer of the elders of the Jews. They returned us answer in the following

manner (לאמר = לממר): “We are His, the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and

build the house which was built many years ago; and a great king of Israel built and

completed it.” נה- of before this, i.e., before the present; to which is added the ,מ:דמת

more precise definition: many years (accusative of time), i.e., many years before the present time.

ELLICOTT, "(11) And thus they returned us answer.—The elders of the Jews take the Syrian satrap into their confidence, and give, in a few most pathetic words the record of their national honour, their national infidelity, and their national humiliation. Every word is true to the history, while the whole exhibits their deep humility and holy resolution.

BESO, "Ezra 5:11. We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth — The God we worship is not a local deity; and therefore we cannot be charged with making a faction, or forming a sect in building this temple to his honour. But we pay our homage to the God on whom the whole creation depends, and therefore ought to be protected and assisted by all, and hindered by none. It is the wisdom as well as duty of kings to countenance the servants of the God of heaven. And build the house that was builded — Or rather, rebuild the house that was first built many years ago.

PETT, "Ezra 5:11

‘And thus they returned us answer, saying, “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are rebuilding the house which was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.”The writer then reported on the answer that they had received. The Jewish elders had declared that they were the servants of the God of heaven and earth. We have seen previously that the ‘God of Heaven’ was the ame by which YHWH was known outside Palestine, and which Cyrus had used in his decree (see Ezra 1:2). Here the elders were also emphasising another relevant fact about Him. He was not only concerned with heaven but also with earth. And it was as His servants that they were rebuilding the house, a house which had been built many years before by a great king of Israel. It was thus not something new, but the establishing of something which had existed for centuries. There was nothing subversive about it.

‘A great king of Israel.’ The elders would have known the name of the great king of Israel but they recognised that Tattenai would not, and they wanted to get over the idea of how great he was.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:11 sq. gives the answer of the heads of the Jews.—And thus they made us the report, namely, the one required. לממר= לאמר —We are the servants of the God of heaven.—The pleonastic suffix of עבדוהי emphasizes very strongly the fact, not that they above all others and alone are servants of God (Berth.) but that they above all others are servants of the God of heaven, and not of any lower being. They therefore expressly designate God as the God of heaven and earth, that Isaiah, the highest; yea, properly the only true God. They would without doubt show the officers that they had good grounds and were very well entitled to build their temple, and that those would do wrong who should oppose their undertaking. On this account therefore they add that their God had had this house long ago, and in it had long ago possessed a worthy place of worship.—And we build the house that was built.—not התבנא, it was once built, but הוא בנא, it was built and continued to be a place of worship—these many years ago.—מקדמת דנה =before this (present) time.—A great king of Israel built and completed it.—It would have been an evidence against their God if He had not provided Himself with a worthy place of worship in ancient times, and had not made the king of his people great and mighty. They say intentionally not the great king Song of Solomon, but a great king (the genitive relation being expressed by ל); they thus emphasize better the idea itself, that the king was a great one.

PULPIT, "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. Instead of doing as they were requested, and giving in a long list of names and titles of office, the elders merge their individuality in this general phrase; as though they would say, "As individuals, we are nothing; as men of mark in our nation, we are nothing; what we do, we do simply as servants of God, directed by him (Haggai 1:8), bound to obey him, answerable only to him for our conduct." They speak of God as "the God of heaven and earth"—a very rare title—partly in humble acknowledgment of his universal and absolute dominion, as Christians speak when they call God "the Maker of heaven and earth;" partly to impress favourably those to whom they speak, persons accustomed to regard God primarily as the Being who "gave mankind earth and heaven". And build. That is "rebuild." The house that was builded these many years ago. The old house, begun more than 400, finished nearly 400 years previously, and only just beginning to rise again from its ruins, after lying waste for nearly seventy years. Which a great king of Israel builded and set up. Solomon, the greatest of the Jewish monarchs, if we consider the extent and prosperity of his kingdom, and the position that it occupied among the other kingdoms of the earth—a "great king" under whatever aspect we view him, though one who sowed the seeds of that corruption which ultimately sapped the national life, and provoked God to bring the monarchy to an end.

12 But because our fathers angered the God of heaven, he handed them over to ebuchadnezzar the Chaldean, king of Babylon, who destroyed this temple and deported the people to Babylon.

GILL, "But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath,.... By their idolatries; which accounts for it how it was that they who were the servants of the great God of heaven and earth, and this temple built for the honour of his name, were not preserved by him; but they were carried captive, and this house left desolate: it was for their sins for which

he (God) gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon; see 2Ch_36:19.

HENRY 12-16, "The account they sent to the king of this matter, in which we may observe,

1. How fully the elders of the Jews gave the Samaritans an account of their proceedings. They, finding them both busy and prosperous, that all hands were at work to run up this building and that it went on rapidly, put these questions to them: - “By what authority do you do these things, and who gave you that authority? Who set you to work? Have you that which will bear you out?” To this they answered that they had sufficient warrant to do what they did; for, (1.) “We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth. The God we worship is not a local deity, and therefore we cannot be charged with making a faction, or setting up a sect, in building this temple to his honour: but we pay our homage to a God on whom the whole creation depends, and therefore ought to be protected and assisted by all and hindered by none.” It is the wisdom as well as duty of kings to countenance the servants of the God of heaven. (2.) “We have a prescription to this house; it was built for the honour of our God by Solomon many ages ago. It is no novel invention of our own; we are but raising the foundations of many generations,” Isa_58:12. (3.) “It was to punish us for our sins that we were, for a time, put out of the possession of this house; not because the gods of the nations had prevailed against our God, but because we had provoked him (Ezr_5:12), for which he delivered us and our temple into the hands of the king of Babylon, but never intended thereby to put a final period to our religion. We were only suspended for a time, not deprived for ever.” (4.) “We have the royal decree of Cyrus to justify us and bear us out in what we do. He not only permitted and allowed us, but charged and commanded us to build this house (Ezr_5:13), and to build it in its place (Ezr_5:15), the same place where it had stood before.” He ordered this, not only in compassion to the Jews, but in veneration of their God, saying, He is the God. He also delivered the vessels of the temple to one whom he entrusted to see them restored to their ancient place and use, Ezr_5:14. And they had these to show in confirmation of what they alleged. (5.) “The building was begun according to this order as soon as ever we had returned, so that we have not forfeited the benefit of the order for want of pursuing it in time; still it has been in building, but, because we have met with opposition, it is not finished.” But, observe, they mention not the falsehood and malice of the former governors, nor make any complaint of them, though they had cause enough, to teach us not to render bitterness for bitterness, nor the most just reproach for that which is most unjust, but to think it enough if we can obtain fair treatment for the future, without an invidious reference to former injuries, Ezr_5:16. This is the account they give of their proceedings, not asking what authority they had to examine them, nor upbraiding them with their idolatry, and superstitions, and medley religion. Let us learn hence with meekness and fear to give a reason of the hope that is in us (1Pe_3:15), rightly to understand, and then readily to declare, what we do in God's service and why we do it.

K&D, "For this reason (להן), because (מאשר = מן־-י, e.g., Isa_43:4) our fathers

provoked the God of heaven, He gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, and he (Nebuch.) destroyed this house, and carried the people

away into Babylon. For ס-יא the Keri requires ס-3ה , the ordinary form of the absolute

state of the noun in ai. סתר, Pael, in the sense of destroy, appears only here in biblical

Chaldee, but more frequently in the Targums. ע;ה, its people, would refer to the town of

Jerusalem; but Norzi and J. H. Mich. have �;ע, and the Masora expressly says that the

word is to be written without Mappik, and is therefore the stat. emphat. for ע;א.

ELLICOTT, "(12) Gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the Chaldean.—These words not only show that the people regarded themselves as punished by the sole hand of God, but also remind the overthrowers of the Chaldean power that they also themselves are no more than instruments of the same Divine will.

BESO, "Ezra 5:12-14. After that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven —It was to punish us for our sins, that we were, for a time, put out of the possession of this house, and not because the gods of the nations had prevailed against our God. But in the first year of Cyrus, &c. — We have the royal decree of Cyrus to justify us, and bear us out in what we do. And he not only permitted, but charged and commanded us, to build this house, and to build it in its place, (Ezra 5:15,) the same place where it had stood before. And the vessels also, &c. — These also he delivered to one whom he intrusted with the care of them, and commanded him to restore them to their ancient place and use. And these we have to show in confirmation of what we allege.

PETT, "Ezra 5:12

“But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon.”And the elders had explained that the reason why the Temple had needed rebuilding was not because of the powerlessness of their God, the God of Heaven. It was because their fathers had provoked the God of Heaven to anger. As a consequence He had given them into the hands of ebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who had destroyed the house and carried the people away to Babylon. The reference to ebuchadnezzar as ‘the Chaldean’ distinguishes him from the current King of Babylon, who was a Persian. It was making clear that this destruction had not been the work of a Persian.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:12. It is true the temple has been destroyed, but this does not show any weakness in their God, but rather His holiness.—On this account, because our fathers provoked.—להן does not refer to that which precedes, but to what follows, for it is used in its usual sense of “on this account,” and is here really = only on this account. It does not follow from the fact that it sometimes has the sense of “but” after negative expressions, that it may also be an adversative particle, and mean “nevertheless,” “however,” “yet.” מן־די however, is here not in the temporal sense, [A. V.after that], for then it would express very vaguely the idea: since that the fathers had already provoked God long before He abandoned His temple; but it is

here in its usual causal sense “because.” מן may be very properly used in this sense, comp. Hebrew מאשר, Isaiah 43:4. סתר, = to conceal, then like the Hebrew הכחיד, to destroy. It is true it is only used here in the Bible in this sense, but in the Targums occurs quite frequently. עמה might, if it had the suffix, that Isaiah, if the ה were pointed with mappiq, mean simply, “the people of the land;” ארע is often to be supplied. Yet the Massora remarks, that mappiq is not to be written, and R. orzai and J. H. Mich. have left it out, so that the הis to be taken as a representative of the .as is often the case in this book ,א

PULPIT, "Ezra 5:12

Our fathers provoked the God of heaven unto wrath. Mainly by their long series of idolatries, with the moral abominations that those idolatries involved—the sacrifice of children by their own parents, the licentious rites belonging to the worship of Baal, and the unmentionable horrors practised by the devotees of the Dea Syra. For centuries, with only short and rare intervals, "the chief of the priests, and the people, had transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen," and had even "polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles 36:14). Therefore, he gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon. He punished, as he always does, national apostasy with national destruction. Making an idolatrous people, but a less guilty one, his sword, he cut off Judah, as he had previously cut off Israel, causing the national life to cease, and even removing the bulk of the people into a distant country. ot by his own power or might did ebuchadnezzar prevail. God could have delivered the Jews from him as easily as he had delivered them in former days from Jabin ( 4:2-24), and from Zerah (2 Chronicles 14:11-15), and from Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:20-36). But he was otherwise minded; he "gave them into the hand of ebuchadnezzar". He divided their counsels, paralysed their resistance, caused Pharaoh Hophra to desert their cause (2 Kings 24:7), and left them helpless and unprotected. ebuchadnczzar was his instrument to chastise his guilty people, and in pursuing his own ends merely worked out the purposes of the Almighty.

13 "However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.

GILL, "But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon,.... That is, the first year he was king of Babylon, having taken it, otherwise he was king of Persia many years before:

the same King Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God; see Ezr_1:1.

JAMISO, "Cyrus the king ... made a decree— The Jews were perfectly warranted according to the principles of the Persian government to proceed with the building in virtue of Cyrus’ edict. For everywhere a public decree is considered as remaining in force until it is revoked but the “laws of the Medes and Persians changed not” [Dan_6:8, Dan_6:12, Dan_6:15].

K&D, "In the first year, however, of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus made a

decree, etc.; comp. Ezr_1:3. The infin. לבנא like Ezr_5:3. - On Ezr_5:14 and Ezr_5:15,

comp. Ezr_1:7-11. ויחיבו, praeter. pass. of Peal; they were given to one Sheshbazzar, (is)

his name, i.e., to one of the name of Sheshbazzar, whom he had made pechah.

Zerubbabel is also called חה/, Hag_1:1, Hag_1:14, and elsewhere.

PETT, "Ezra 5:13

“But in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God.”But then had come a new change in the situation, for on Cyrus the Persian becoming king of Babylon he had made a decree that the house of God on which they were now working should be rebuilt. (They did not need to spell out that Cyrus was a Persian, for it was something that everyone knew, most of all Darius). Thus what they were doing was actually at the command of the king of Persia.

This is an almost unique reference to Cyrus as king of Babylon outside records which relate to Babylon (where it is used regularly), but the reason for it is clear. He was being seen as having taken over the reins from the Chaldean kings of Babylon. Cyrus was in fact seen as king of Persia, king of Babylon, king of Egypt, as well as many other titles, depending on who was in mind in the record being made (compare ‘king of Assyria’ in Ezra 6:22).

PULPIT, "Ezra 5:13

In the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon. Recent discoveries of contract tablets have shown that at Babylon Cyrus bore the title of "king of Babylon" from the date

of his conquest of the city. The same title was passed on to his successors, Cambyses, Darius, etc. Hence we find Artaxerxes Longimanus called "king of Babylon" by ehemiah (ehemiah 13:6).

14 He even removed from the temple [14] of Babylon the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which ebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to the temple [15] in Babylon. "Then King Cyrus gave them to a man named Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed governor,

GILL, "Of which, and of what is said concerning them, and particularly of the delivery of them to Sheshbazzar, whom Cyrus made governor of Judah, and ordered him to carry them to Jerusalem, and build the temple there, and put them in it, see Ezr_1:7.

PETT, "Ezra 5:14

“And the gold and silver vessels also of the house of God, which ebuchadnezzar took out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, and brought into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered to one whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor,”Furthermore as proof of his generosity, and his reverence for the God of the Jews, Cyrus had taken out of the temple of Babylon the gold and silver vessels which ebuchadnazzar had taken from the house of God in Jerusalem, and had delivered them to Sheshbazzar, whom he had appointed as governor over the returnees, so that they might eventually be restored to their rightful place, the house of God in Jerusalem.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:14. And the vessels also—did Cyrus the king take.—So great was the recognition that Cyrus gave to the true God, that he not only allowed His veneration, but furthered it with offerings, so that the building of the temple, unless

the vessels were to remain without a suitable place, became so much the more necessary. היכלא is here used as at the first, so naturally also the second and third time in the sense of temple. Comp. בית א�היו, Ezra 2:7. ויהיבו is probably the conjugated passive participle = and they were given, not the active preterite = they gave, for the indefin. subject with sing. (against Berth.). In the last case we would expect המו after the object, which is not elsewhere in such cases omitted: moreover, the yod in the second syllable has usually only an intrans. or passive signification.—Whose name is Sheshbazzar—thus indefinitely, as we would say, to Sheshbazzar, as he is called. For this name see Ezra 1:8. As in Haggai 1:1, etc., so here Zerubbabel is designated as Pechah, whilst in Ezra 1:8 as prince of Judah, נשיא.

PULPIT, "The vessels also of gold and silver. See Ezra 1:7-11. On the great importance attached to these vessels, see the comment on Ezra 1:7. So long as they remained at Babylon they were a tangible evidence of the conquest, a glory to the Babylonians, and a disgrace to the Jews. Their retention was a perpetual desecration. Their restoration by Cyrus was an act at once of piety and of kindliness. On the temple of Babylon, out of which Cyrus took them, see the comment on Ezra 1:7.

15 and he told him, `Take these articles and go and deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem. And rebuild the house of God on its site.'

K&D, "Take these vessels, go forth, place them in the temple. For א0ה the Keri reads

The three imperatives succeed .נחת is imperat. Aphel of "חת .according to 1Ch_20:8 ,אל

each other without any copula in this rapid form of expression. The last sentence, ”and let the house of God be built in its place,” i.e., be rebuilt in its former place, gives the reason for the command to deposit the vessels in the temple at Jerusalem, i.e., in the house of God, which is to be rebuilt in its former place.

ELLICOTT, "(15) Take these vessels, go, carry them . . . and let the house of God . . .—The three imperatives in this verse, without a copula, followed by a fourth,

vividly express the feeling of the suppliants in the remembrance of the decree: thus we have another note of historical truth.

PETT, "Ezra 5:15

“And he said to him, ‘Take these vessels, go, put them in the temple which is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be built in its place.’ ”And what was more it was his command that the house of God be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and that those vessels then be put within it. This command envisaged both the rebuilding of the Temple, the task that the elders were now engaged in, and the restoration to that Temple of the gold and silver vessels which had been stolen from the previous Temple. Cyrus was concerned to get all the gods in his empire on his side, as indeed Darius would be too (Ezra 6:7-12).

LAGE, "Ezra 5:15. And he said unto him, Take these vessels.—In connection with giving out the vessels Cyrus expressly ordained the building of the temple. Instead of אלה, the Qeri is here as in 1 Chronicles 20:8, אל. The three unconnected imperatives, “take, go forth, lay down,” comprehend the three Acts, to a certain extent, in one, thus expressing likewise the zeal of Cyrus, and the zeal that Sheshbazzar was expected to exhibit. אחת, notwithstanding the Chateph Pathah, may be merely the imper. Aphel of נחת, of which we have the part. in Ezra 6:1, and the imperf. in Ezra 6:5.—And let the house of God be built.—These words are connected with the words lay them down in the temple as a necessary complement, by the copula ו.

PULPIT, "Let the house of God be builded in his place. i.e. upon the old holy site—the place where Abraham offered his son Isaac, in a figure (Hebrews 11:17-19), where the angel stood and stayed the pestilence in David s time (2 Samuel 24:16-18), and where "the glory of the Lord descended and filled the house" under Solomon (2 Chronicles 7:1).

16 So this Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundations of the house of God in Jerusalem. From that day to the present it has been under construction but is not yet finished."

BARES, "Since that time even until now - Sixteen years - from 536 B.C. to 520 B.C. The adversaries of the Jews here overstep the truth; since, in point of fact, the work had been suspended for a while Ezr_4:24.

CLARKE, "Sheshbazzar - Probably the military officer that conducted the people from Babylon, and had the oversight of the work; but some think that Ezra is meant.

GILL, "Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundation of the house of God which is in Jerusalem,.... Which makes it clear, that by Sheshbazzar is meant Zerubbabel; for he it was that laid the foundation of the temple, or at least by whose order it was laid, see Zec_4:9

and since that time even until now; from the first of Cyrus to the second of Darius, a space of about eighteen years, and just seventy from the destruction of the temple:

hath it been in building, and yet it is not finished; the work going on slowly, not without interruption and intermission, through the enmity of the Samaritans unto them, who had made false representations of them; but these men, Tatnai and those with him, as the Jews gave them a very particular account of things, as above, so they fairly and fully related them in this their letter to the king.

JAMISO, "Then came ... Shesh-bazzar ... since that time even until now hath it been in building— This was not a part of the Jews’ answer - they could not have said this, knowing the building had long ceased. But Tatnai used these expressions in his report, either looking on the stoppage as a temporary interruption, or supposing that the Jews were always working a little, as they had means and opportunities.

K&D, "In virtue of this command of Cyrus, this Sheshbazzar came (from Babylon to Jerusalem), and laid then the foundations of the house of God, and from that time till

now it has been building, and is not (yet) finished. שלים, part. pass. of שלם, often used in

the Targums and in Syriac for the Hebrew מם<; hence in Dan_5:26 the Aphel, in the

meaning of to finish, and Eze_7:19, to restore. This statement does not exclude the cessation from building from the last year of Cyrus to the second of Darius, narrated Ezra 4-6:7, as Bertheau and others suppose, but only leaves the unmentioned circumstance which had been the cause of the delay. If the section Ezra 4:6-23 does not refer to the building of the temple, then neither is a “forcible interruption” of the building spoken of in Ezra 4; but it is only said that the adversaries frustrated the purpose of the Jews to rebuild the temple till the time of Darius, and weakened the hands of the people, so that the work of the house of God ceased.

ELLICOTT, "(16) Since that time.—o account is taken of the long interruption. Whether these words are part of the answer given to Tatnai by the Jewish leaders, or his own statement to Darius, it is evident that the unfinished building of a house decreed to be built by Cyrus is regarded as demanding investigation as to the nature and validity of the decree itself.

BESO, "Ezra 5:12-14. After that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven —It was to punish us for our sins, that we were, for a time, put out of the possession of this house, and not because the gods of the nations had prevailed against our God. But in the first year of Cyrus, &c. — We have the royal decree of Cyrus to justify us, and bear us out in what we do. And he not only permitted, but charged and commanded us, to build this house, and to build it in its place, (Ezra 5:15,) the same place where it had stood before. And the vessels also, &c. — These also he delivered to one whom he intrusted with the care of them, and commanded him to restore them to their ancient place and use. And these we have to show in confirmation of what we allege.

PETT, "Ezra 5:16

“Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem, and since that time even until now has it been in building, and yet it is not completed.”The elders had then explained that this same Sheshbazzar had obeyed the king’s command, and had laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem, and since then it had been in process of being built, but was not yet completed, which was why they were now working on it.

This was a slightly artificial description of what had happened, for as we know after the foundations were laid, the work had ceased for a good number of years, until recently recommenced. But the Jews would have been well aware that they might well be asked why they had not carried out Cyrus’ decree immediately. They thus tried to give the impression of a long process which had not yet been completed. So while what they said was not untrue, it was certainly deceptive. But they would not have dared to say otherwise. To suggest that they had deliberately not obeyed the king’s command could have been seen as gross disobedience.

This is the only mention of the fact that Sheshbazzar laid the foundations of the Temple. In Ezra 3:10 we were informed that it was Zerubbabel and Jeshua who had caused the foundations of the Temple to be laid. Can they both be correct? There are a number of possible explanations:

1) That Sheshbazzar commenced laying foundation stones in obedience to the charge given him by Cyrus, but that this was interrupted by his early death so that the final completion of the laying of the foundations was carried out by his successor. It must be recognised that the laying of the foundations of so large a project would necessarily take a good amount of time. The ground had to be

levelled, the correct material had to be obtained from sources outside Jerusalem, and it then had to be conveyed to the site and shaped so as to be suitable for their purpose, and whilst some suitable stones might be found from the previously destroyed Temple, even they would have required to be dressed ready for the project in hand. The initial laying of some foundation stones may have been achieved easily by utilising material available on the site, but the returnees would not have had the resources immediately available which would have enabled the rest of the work to be done quickly. Building so large a building was a huge project. So laying the whole foundations would necessarily therefore have been a lengthy task, easily commenced but not so easily finished.The Jews would mention Sheshbazzar because his was the name linked with Cyrus’ decree, but it would not necessarily indicate that he had completed the task. In our view this must be seen as a very probable explanation. It is difficult to see how, having received the king’s command, Sheshbazzar would have dared not to have commenced the work as soon as practicable, even if only in a very limited fashion. He would want to report back to the king that the work had begun. But we can easily see how his early death might have devolved the work on Zerubbabel and Jeshua, so that it was they who really completed the task of laying the foundations. or would they have delayed too long. Whilst not as conscious of the king’s command as Sheshbazzar, he would have instilled into them the necessity of carrying out the work, and besides this was one of the main reasons for their return. Jeshua especially, as High Priest designate, would have been keen for the work to continue, to say nothing of the fact that the valuable gold and silver vessels that they had brought with them were for use in the Temple, and would meanwhile have to be kept safe. All this would have increased the sense of urgency.But equally we can see how the delay necessary for the gathering of the materials, the problems of actually obtaining those materials and conveying them to the site, and the continuing hostility of those round about them which would often erupt into violence, would over time have weakened their resolve, and especially so because the task was so enormous, whilst they had their own livelihoods to consider in very difficult circumstances. It would have been so easy to find excuses for delaying the work until ‘a more suitable time’.2) That Sheshbazzar’s name was connected with the work by the elders because they knew that it was his name that would be in the decree, but that the work had really been begun by Zerubbabel soon after his early death. Thus it was Sheshbazzar’s representatives who had laid the foundations, and not Sheshbazzar himself, although that was not something that had to be particularised in such a brief statement. They had acted in Sheshbazzar’s name.3) That Sheshbazzar was mentioned because his was the name connected with the decree, but that the work had actually not been commenced until the initiative brought about by Haggai and Zechariah nearly twenty years afterwards, and that the statement that the work had commenced ‘in the second year of their coming to the house of God in Jerusalem’ (Ezra 3:8) did not indicate the second year of their return, but the second year of their eventually taking an interest in building that house of God in Jerusalem. In my view, however, this is to ignore the plain meaning of the words (their very reason for returning was so that they might come to that holy site), and overlooks the fact that the king’s command to build the Temple

would have been seen as urgent, and this especially so in view of the valuable artefacts which they had brought with them whose purpose was to be used in the Temple. The presence of those artefacts would have made the building of the Temple an urgent priority to the one into whose charge they had been committed.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:16. Then came this Sheshbazzar, namely from Babylon to Jerusalem, and laid the foundations,etc.—The copula is also lacking before יהב, because the two acts are connected together in the closest way. אשיא, as in Ezra 4:12. Here it can only mean the laying of the foundations in Ezra 3:8-10.—Since that time even until now hath it been in building, and is not yet finished.—These words were probably designed to let the present activity appear as a simple continuation of the building, ordained by Cyrus, thus also as something entirely justified. At any rate it was entirely in the interest of the Jews to be silent respecting the fact that Cyrus had allowed an interruption to take place, and there is nothing in our representation of the subject opposed to its reality. But had the express prohibition of the Artaxerxes in Ezra 4:17 sq. already preceded, yet the Jews might well have said that it had been occasioned only by the entirely groundless slanders of the Samaritans. Hence they must regard it as their absolute duty to contradict these slanders. שלם occurs only here in Bib. Chaldee, yet often enough in the Targums and Syriac, and indeed in the sense of “complete and ready.”

PULPIT, "Since that time even until now hath it been in building. It is not quite clear whether these words are part of the answer given by the Jews to Tatnai, which he reports to Darius (see Ezra 5:11), or Tatnai's own statement of what he believes to have been the fact. Perhaps the latter view is the more probable; and we may suppose Tatnai not to have been aware that from the second year of Cyrus to the commencement of the reign of Smerdis, and again during the latter part of this reign and the first eighteen months of the reign of Darius, the work had been suspended.

17 ow if it pleases the king, let a search be made in the royal archives of Babylon to see if King Cyrus did in fact issue a decree to rebuild this house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us his decision in this matter.

BARES, "Let there be search made ... at Babylon - They perhaps doubted whether proof of the decree of Cyrus remained in the archives. The Pseudo-Smerdis had had the records in his power for seven months; and, when he reversed the policy of his predecessors, might have been expected to destroy their edicts. The decree was not found at Babylon, the most natural place for it, but in the provincial capital of Ecbatana, which Tatnai and his friends had not asked Darius to have searched (see Ezr_6:2).

CLARKE, "The - treasure house - ginzaiya. This is a Persian word, gunji, a גנזיא

treasury.

There is a great deal of good sense and candour in this letter. Nothing of passion or prejudice appears in it. They laid before the king a fair statement without any attempt to prejudice his mind, and gave him those directions which were most likely to lead him to the truth, and to form a correct judgment on a business which, however it issued, must be of considerable importance to the state. God was in all this business; he was now giving an additional proof of his continued regard for a disobedient people, whom, though he had punished in his justice, he had spared in his mercy.

GILL, "Now therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure house, which is there at Babylon,.... Where were the archives of the kingdom, where the laws, decrees, edicts, and proclamations, and other things relating to the state, were laid up, that recourse might be had to them upon occasion:

whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem; which the Jews affirmed was made by him, and upon which they proceeded:

and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter; whether the Jews should be allowed to go on with the building of their temple, and finish it, or whether they should be restrained from it; signifying they were ready to do his will and pleasure either way, as he thought fit.

HERY, "How fairly the Samaritans represented this to the king. (1.) They called the temple at Jerusalem the house of the great God (Ezr_5:8); for though the Samaritans, as it should seem, had yet gods many and lords many, they owned the God of Israel to be the great God, who is above all gods. “It is the house of the great God, and therefore we dare not oppose the building of it without orders from thee.” (2.) They told him truly what was done, not stating, as their predecessors did, that they were fortifying the city as if they intended war, but only that they were rearing the temple as those that intended worship, Ezr_5:8. (3.) They fully represented their plea, told him what they had to say for themselves, and were willing that the cause should be set in a true light. (4.) They left it to the king to consult the records whether Cyrus had indeed made such a decree, and then to give directions as he should think fit, Ezr_5:17. We have reason to think that if Artaxerxes, in the foregoing chapter, had had the Jews' cause as fairly represented to him as it was here to Darius, he would not have ordered the work to be hindered. God's

people could not be persecuted if they were not belied, could not be baited if they were not dressed up in bears' skins. Let but the cause of God and truth be fairly stated, and fairly heard, and it will keep its ground.

K&D, "After thus representing the state of affairs, the royal officials request Darius to cause a search to be made among the archives of the kingdom, as to whether a decree made by Cyrus for the erection of the temple at Jerusalem was to be found therein, and then to communicate to them his decision concerning the matter. “And if it seem good to the king, let search be made in the king's treasure-house there at Babylon, whether it be

so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king.” על טב על like the Hebrew ,הן Dוב _Est ,אם

1:19, for which in older Hebrew לו �עינים D, Deu_23:17, orוב ,Gen_19:8; Jdg_10:15 ,טוב

and elsewhere, is used. ז�א. ,house of the treasure, more definitely called, Ezr_6:1 ,�ית

house of the rolls, where also the royal treasures were deposited. Hence it is obvious that

important documents and writings were preserved in the royal treasury. ה;<, there, is

explained by ”which at Babylon.” רעות, chald. voluntas, comp. Ezr_7:18. Concerning the

behaviour of these officials Brentius well remarks: vides differentiam inter calumniatores et bonos ac probos viros. Una eademque causa erat aedificii templi, unus idemque populus Judaeorum; attamen hujus populi causa aliter refertur ab impiis calumniatoribus, aliter a bonis viris.

ELLICOTT, "(17) Let there be search made.—All depended on the original decree, which nothing done intermediately by the usurper could cancel. And the request of Tatnai seems to imply that it would be found: although the original was not found in Babylon, as was expected, a copy had been made.

BESO, "Ezra 5:17. ow therefore, let there be search made, &c. — So they properly propose, that the real facts might be ascertained; in the king’s treasure-house — The house or place where the records of the kingdom were preserved very carefully, as rich treasures are wont to be. Thus these Samaritans seem to have given a fair representation of the cause of the Jews to the king, telling him only what was done namely, that they were rearing the temple, as persons that intended to worship, and not what was not done, that they were fortifying the city, as if they intended war; as those Samaritans that had written to Artaxerxes had falsely represented. It is probable, if their case had been as fairly stated to the former king (see the foregoing chapter) as it was now to Darius: he would not have ordered the work to be hindered. God’s people could not be persecuted if they were not belied. Let but the cause of God and truth be fairly stated and heard, and it will keep its ground.

PETT, "Verse 17Tattenai Advises The King On What He Might Do ext, If It Was His Good Pleasure To Do So (Ezra 5:17).,

Ezra 5:17

‘ow therefore, if it seem good to the king, let a search be made in the king’s treasure-house, which is there at Babylon, whether it was so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem, and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter.’Having outlined what the elders of the Jews had told him Tattenai suggested to the king that if he wished to confirm that such a decree had been issued by Cyrus he should initiate a search in the king’s treasure house in Babylon, the place where such a decree, if it existed, was most likely to be found. He then asked for instructions as to how he should proceed.

As it would turn out the decree would not be found in the king’s treasure house in Babylon. Rather it was discovered at Achmetha, in a palace in the province of Media (Ezra 6:2). Cyrus had in fact spent some time in Achmetha after the conquest of Babylon, and therefore at the time of his decree. There is a touch of authenticity about this. Those charged with discovering the decree would not want to return empty handed

‘If it seems good to the king.’ This phrase is typical of official Aramaic letters at this time, as is evidenced by papyri. Clearly Tattenai did not dare to tell king Darius what to do, but could only make a helpful suggestion as one of his advisers, leaving the decision in the king’s hands.

LAGE, "Ezra 5:17. And now, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the treasure-house.—טבעל, comp. Ezra 7:18; Daniel 6:24, as in later Hebrew, טוב ;Esther 3:9 ) ננזים .Heb ,גנזיא .Esther 1:19, good according to any one’s judgment ,עלEsther 4:7), are the treasures, probably from גנז= כנס , collect, and dshanasa, conceal, but at the same time in accordance with the Arian gaza, comp. גזבר, Ezra 1:8; on the other hand, �1, גנז Chronicles 28:11. It is clear from this passage and Ezra 6:1, that written documents were likewise preserved in the treasure-house.—Whether a command was given by king Cyrus.—הן = whether, as likewise Jeremiah 2:10. For שים, vid. Ezra 4:19. רעות, comp. Ezra 7:18, from רעה= רעח , voluntas, opinion.

PULPIT, "Let there be search made in the king's treasure house. The Vulgate has "in the king's library;" and this, though not the literal rendering, is probably what was intended by Tatuai. Libraries or record chambers were attached to the royal residences under the old Assyrian and Babylonian kings; and the practice was no doubt continued by the Persians. Some of these record offices have been recently found, and their stores recovered. In the year 1850 Mr. Layard came upon the royal library of Asshur-bani-pal at Koyunjik, and obtained from it several hundreds of documents. More recently, in 1875-6, some Arab explorers happened upon a similar collection near Babylon, which yielded from 3000 to 4000 tablets. It is quite possible that the "decree of Cyrus" may still exist, and be one day recovered.