Ezra 4:18

The letter was translated from Aramaic into Persian, which was the king's native language.

Ezra contains a copy in Aramaic of the letter sent to Artaxerxes and his response.

These verses discuss later opposition to Jewish rebuilding efforts. They actually relate to events during the reign of:

• Xerxes in 486 to 465 BC

• Artaxerxes I in 465 to 424 BC

However, they are included here because they match the theme of opposition. Chronologically, Ezra 4:6 fits between chapters 6 and 7, while 4:7–23 fits before Nehemiah 1.

we have maintenance from the king's palace--literally, "we are salted with the salt of the palace." "Eating a prince's salt" is an Oriental phrase, equivalent to "receiving maintenance from him."

Here we have,
I. The orders which the king of Persia gave, in answer to the information sent him by the Samaritans against the Jews. He suffered himself to be imposed upon by their fraud and falsehood, took no care to examine the allegations of their petition concerning that which the Jews were now doing, but took it for granted that the charge was true, and was very willing to gratify them with an order of council to stay proceedings. 1. He consulted the records concerning Jerusalem, and found that it had indeed rebelled against the king of Babylon, and therefore that it was, as they called it, a bad city (Ezr 4:19), and withal that in times past kings had reigned there, to whom all the countries on that side the river had been tributaries (Ezr 4:20), and that therefore there was danger that if ever they were able (which they were never likely to be) they would claim them again. Thus he says as they said, and pretends to give a reason for so doing. See the hard fate of princes, who must see and hear with other men's eyes and ears, and give judgment upon things as they are represented to them, though often represented falsely. God's judgment is always just because he sees things as they are, and it is according to truth. 2. He appointed these Samaritans to stop the building of the city immediately, till further orders should be given about it, Ezr 4:21, Ezr 4:22. Neither they, in their letter, nor he, in his order, make any mention of the temple, and the building of that, because both they and he knew that they had not only a permission, but a command, from Cyrus to rebuild that, which even these Samaritans had not the confidence to move for the repeal of. They spoke only of the city: "Let not that be built," that is, as a city with walls and gates; "whatever you do, prevent that, lest damage grow to the hurt of the kings:" he would not that the crown should lose by his wearing it.
II. The use which the enemies of the Jews made of these orders, so fraudulently obtained; upon the receipt of them they went up in haste to Jerusalem, Ezr 4:23. Their feet ran to evil, Pro 1:16. They were impatient till the builders were served with this prohibition, which they produced as their warrant to make them cease by force and power. As they abused the king in obtaining this order by their mis-informations, so they abused him in the execution of it; for the order was only to prevent the walling of the city, but, having force and power on their side, they construed it as relating to the temple, for it was that to which they had an ill will, and which they only wanted some colour to hinder the building of. There was indeed a general clause in the order, to cause these men to cease, which had reference to their complaint about building the walls; but they applied it to the building of the temple. See what need we have to pray, not only for kings, but for all in authority under them, and the governors sent by them, because the quietness and peaceableness of our lives, in all godliness and honesty, depend very much upon the integrity and wisdom of inferior magistrates, as well as the supreme. The consequence was that the work of the house of God ceased for a time, through the power and insolence of its enemies; and so, through the coldness and indifference of its friends, it stood still till the second year of Darius Hystaspes, for to me it seems clear by the thread of this sacred history that it was that Darius, Ezr 4:24. Though now a stop was put to it by the violence of the Samaritans, yet that they might soon after have gone on by connivance, if they had had a due affection to the work, appears by this, that before they had that express warrant from the king for doing it (ch. 6) they were reproved by the prophets for not doing it, Ezr 5:1, compared with Hag 1:1, etc. If they had taken due care to inform Cambyses of the truth of this case, perhaps he would have recalled his order; but, for aught I know, some of the builders were almost as willing it should cease as the adversaries themselves were. At some periods the church has suffered more by the coldness of its friends than by the heat of its enemies; but both together commonly make church-work slow work.

Peace, and at such a time - The word וכעת ucheeth is like that which we have already considered on Ezr 4:10, and probably has the same meaning.

The letter which ye sent unto us,.... The plural number is used, being now become courtly for kings thus to speak of themselves:

hath been plainly before me; by such that understood both the Syrian and Persian languages; the letter was written in the Syrian language, and the king being a Persian, it was necessary it should be interpreted and explained to him.

Complaints against the Jews to Kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta. - The right understanding of this section depends upon the question, What kings of Persia are meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta? while the answer to this question is, in part at least, determined by the contents of the letter, Ezr 4:8-16, sent by the enemies of the Jews to the latter monarch.
Ezr 4:6-7
And in the reign of Ahashverosh, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. שׂטנה, not to mention the name of the well, Gen 26:21, occurs here only, and means, according to its derivation from שׂטן, to bear enmity, the enmity; hence here, the accusation. ישׁבי על belongs to שׂטנה, not to כּתבוּ; the letter was sent, not to the inhabitants of Judah, but to the king against the Jews. The contents of this letter are not given, but may be inferred from the designation שׂטנה. The letter to Artachshasta then follows, Ezr 4:7-16. In his days, i.e., during his reign, wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions. כּנותו, for which the Keri offers the ordinary form כּנותיו mrof yra, occurs only here in the Hebrew sections, but more frequently in the Chaldee (comp. Ezr 4:9, Ezr 4:17, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:3, and elsewhere), in the sense of companions or fellow-citizens; according to Gesenius, it means those who bear the same surname (Kunje) together with another, though Ewald is of a different opinion; see 117, b, note. The singular would be written כּנת (Ewald, 187, d). And the writing of the letter was written in Aramaean (i.e., with Aramaean characters), and interpreted in (i.e., translated into) Aramaean. נשׁתּון is of Aryan origin, and connected with the modern Persian nuwishten, to write together; it signifies in Hebrew and Chaldee a letter: comp. Ezr 4:18, where נשׁתּונא is used for אגּרתּא of Ezr 4:11. Bertheau translates הנּשׁתּון כּתב, copy of the letter, and regards it as quite identical with the Chaldee אגּרתּא פּרשׁגן, Ezr 4:11; he can hardly, however, be in the right. כּתב does not mean a transcript or copy, but only a writing (comp. Est 4:8). This, too, does away with the inference "that the writer of this statement had before him only an Aramaean translation of the letter contained in the state-papers or chronicles which he made use of." It is not כּתב, the copy or writing, but הנּשׁתּון, the letter, that is the subject of ארמית מתרגּם, interpreted in Aramaean. This was translated into the Aramaean or Syrian tongue. The passage is not to be understood as stating that the letter was drawn up in the Hebrew or Samaritan tongue, and then translated into Aramaean, but simply that the letter was not composed in the native language of the writers, but in Aramaean. Thus Gesenius rightly asserts, in his Thes. p. 1264, et lingua aramaea scripta erat; in saying which תרגם does not receive the meaning concepit, expressit, but retains its own signification, to interpret, to translate into another language. The writers of the letter were Samaritans, who, having sprung from the intermingling of the Babylonian settlers brought in by Esarhaddon and the remnants of the Israelitish population, spoke a language more nearly akin to Hebrew than to Aramaean, which was spoken at the Babylonian court, and was the official language of the Persian kings and the Persian authorities in Western Asia. This Aramaean tongue had also its own characters, differing from those of the Hebrew and Samaritan. This is stated by the words ארמית כּתוּב, whence Bertheau erroneously infers that this Aramaean writing was written in other than the ordinary Aramaean, and perhaps in Hebrew characters.
This letter, too, of Bishlam and his companions seems to be omitted. There follows, indeed, in Ezr 4:8, etc., a letter to King Artachshasta, of which a copy is given in Ezr 4:11-16; but the names of the writers are different from those mentioned in Ezr 4:7. The three names, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel (Ezr 4:7), cannot be identified with the two names Rehum and Shimshai (Ezr 4:8). When we consider, however, that the writers named in Ezr 4:8 were high officials of the Persian king, sending to the monarch a written accusation against the Jews in their own and their associates' names, it requires but little stretch of the imagination to suppose that these personages were acting at the instance of the adversaries named in Ezr 4:7, the Samaritans Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and merely inditing the complaints raised by these opponents against the Jews. This view, which is not opposed by the כּתב of Ezr 4:7, - this word not necessarily implying an autograph, - commends itself to our acceptance, first, because the notion that the contents of this letter are not given finds no analogy in Ezr 4:6, where the contents of the letter to Ahashverosh are sufficiently hinted at by the word שׂטנה; while, with regard to the letter of Ezr 4:7, we should have not a notion of its purport in case it were not the same which is given in Ezr 4:8, etc.
(Note: The weight of this argument is indirectly admitted by Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 119) and Bertheau, inasmuch as both suppose that there is a long gap in the narrative, and regard the Aramaean letter mentioned in Ezr 4:7 to have been a petition, on the part of persons of consideration in the community at Jerusalem, to the new king, - two notions which immediately betray themselves to be the expedients of perplexity. The supposed "long gaps, which the chronicler might well leave even in transcribing from his documents" (Ew.), do not explain the abrupt commencement of Ezr 4:8. If a petition from the Jewish community to the king were spoken of in Ezr 4:7, the accusation against the Jews in Ezr 4:8 would certainly have been alluded to by at least a ו adversative, or some other adversative particle.)
Besides, the statement concerning the Aramaean composition of this letter would have been utterly purposeless if the Aramaean letter following in Ezr 4:8 had been an entirely different one. The information concerning the language in which the letter was written has obviously no other motive than to introduce its transcription in the original Aramaean. This conjecture becomes a certainty through the fact that the Aramaean letter follows in Ezr 4:8 without a copula of any kind. If any other had been intended, the ו copulative would not more have been omitted here than in Ezr 4:7. The letter itself, indeed, does not begin till Ezr 4:9, while Ezr 4:8 contains yet another announcement of it. This circumstance, however, is explained by the fact that the writers of the letters are other individuals than those named in Ezr 4:7, but chiefly by the consideration that the letter, together with the king's answer, being derived from an Aramaean account of the building of the temple, the introduction to the letter found therein was also transcribed.
Ezr 4:8
The writers of the letter are designated by titles which show them to have been among the higher functionaries of Artachshasta. Rehum is called טעם בּעל, dominus consilii v. decreti, by others consiliarius, royal counsellor, probably the title of the Persian civil governor (erroneously taken for a proper name in lxx, Syr., Arab.); Shimshai, ספרא, the Hebrew סופר, scribe, secretary. כּנמא is interpreted by Rashi and Aben Ezra by כּאשׁר נאמר, as we shall say; נמא is in the Talmud frequently an abbreviation of נאמר or נימר, of like signification with לאמר: as follows.
Ezr 4:9-11
After this introduction we naturally look for the letter itself in Ezr 4:9, instead of which we have (Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10) a full statement of who were the senders; and then, after a parenthetical interpolation, "This is the copy of the letter," etc., the letter itself in Ezr 4:11. The statement is rather a clumsy one, the construction especially exhibiting a want of sequence. The verb to אדין is wanting; this follows in Ezr 4:11, but as an anacoluthon, after an enumeration of the names in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 with שׁלחוּ. The sentence ought properly to run thus: "Then (i.e., in the days of Artachshasta) Rehum, etc., sent a letter to King Artachshasta, of which the following is a copy: Thy servants, the men on this side the river," etc. The names enumerated in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 were undoubtedly all inserted in the superscription or preamble of the letter, to give weight to the accusation brought against the Jews. The author of the Chaldee section of the narrative, however, has placed them first, and made the copy of the letter itself begin only with the words, "Thy servants," etc. First come the names of the superior officials, Rehum and Shimshai, and the rest of their companions. The latter are then separately enumerated: The Dinaites, lxx Δειναῖοι, - so named, according to the conjecture of Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 676), from the Median city long afterwards called Deinaver (Abulf. Gegr. ed. Paris. p. 414); the Apharsathchites, probably the Pharathiakites of Strabo (15:3. 12) (Παρητακηνοί, Herod. i. 101), on the borders of Persia and Media, described as being, together with the Elymaites, a predatory people relying on their mountain fastnesses; the Tarpelites, whom Junius already connects with the Τάπουροι dwelling east of Elymais (Ptol. vi. 2. 6); the Apharsites, probably the Persians (פרסיא with א prosthetic); the Archevites, probably so called from the city ארך, Gen 10:10, upon inscriptions Uruk, the modern Warka; the בּבליא, Babylonians, inhabitants of Babylon; the Shushanchites, i.e., the Susanites, inhabitants of the city of Susa; דּהוא, in the Keri דּהיא, the Dehavites, the Grecians (Δάοι, Herod. i. 125); and lastly, the Elamites, the people of Elam or Elymais. Full as this enumeration may seem, yet the motive being to name as many races as possible, the addition, "and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper brought over and set in the city of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river," etc., is made for the sake of enhancing the statement. Prominence being given both here and Ezr 4:17 to the city of Samaria as the city in which Osnapper had settled the colonists here named, the "nations brought in by Osnapper" must be identical with those who, according to Ezr 4:2, and Kg2 17:24, had been placed in the cities of Samaria by King Esarhaddon. Hence Osnapper would seem to be merely another name for Esarhaddon. But the names Osnapper (lxx Ἀσσεναφάρ) and Asarhaddon (lxx Ἀσαραδάν) being too different to be identified, and the notion that Osnapper was a second name of Asarhaddon having but little probability, together with the circumstance that Osnapper is not called king, as Asarhaddon is Ezr 4:2, but only "the great and noble," it is more likely that he was some high functionary of Asarhaddon, who presided over the settlement of eastern races in Samaria and the lands west of the Euphrates. "In the cities," or at least the preposition ב, must be supplied from the preceding בּקריה before נהרה עבר שׁאר: and in the rest of the territory, or in the cities of the rest of the territory, on this side of Euphrates. עבר, trans, is to be understood of the countries west of Euphrates; matters being regarded from the point of view of the settlers, who had been transported from the territories east, to those west of Euphrates. וּכענת means "and so forth," and hints that the statement is not complete.
On comparing the names of the nations here mentioned with the names of the cities from which, according to Kg2 17:24, colonists were brought to Samaria, we find the inhabitants of most of the cities there named - Babylon, Cuthah, and Ava - here comprised under the name of the country as בּבליא, Babylonians; while the people of Hamath and Sepharvaim may fitly be included among "the rest of the nations," since certainly but few colonists would have been transported from the Syrian Hamath to Samaria. The main divergence between the two passages arises from the mention in our present verse, not only of the nations planted in the cities of Samaria, but of all the nations in the great region on this side of Euphrates (נהרה עבר). All these tribes had similar interests to defend in opposing the Jewish community, and they desired by united action to give greater force to their representation to the Persian monarch, and thus to hinder the people of Jerusalem from becoming powerful. And certainly they had some grounds for uneasiness lest the remnant of the Israelites in Palestine, and in other regions on this side the Euphrates, should combine with the Jerusalem community, and the thus united Israelites should become sufficiently powerful to oppose an effectual resistance to their heathen adversaries. On the anacoluthistic connection of Ezr 4:11. פּרשׁגן, Ezr 4:11, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:6; Ezr 7:11, and frequently in the Targums and the Syriac, written פּתשׁגן Est 3:14 and Est 4:8, is derived from the Zendish paiti (Sanscr. prati) and enghana (in Old-Persian thanhana), and signifies properly a counterword, i.e., counterpart, copy. The form with ר is either a corruption, or formed from a compound with fra; comp. Gildemeister in the Zeitschr. fr die Kunde des Morgenl. iv. p. 210, and Haug in Ewald's bibl. Jahrb. v. p. 163, etc. - The copy of the letter begins with עבדּיך, thy servants, the men, etc. The Chethib עבדיך is the original form, shortened in the Keri into עבדּך. Both forms occur elsewhere; comp. Dan 2:29; Dan 3:12, and other passages. The וכענת, etc., here stands for the full enumeration of the writers already given in Ezr 4:9, and also for the customary form of salutation.
Ezr 4:12-16
The letter. Ezr 4:12 "Be it known unto the king." On the form להוא for יהוא, peculiar to biblical Chaldee, see remarks on Dan 2:20. "Which are come up from thee," i.e., from the territory where thou art tarrying; in other words, from the country beyond Euphrates. This by no means leads to the inference, as Schrader supposes, that these Jews had been transported from Babylon to Jerusalem by King Artachshasta. מלק answers to the Hebrew עלה, and is used like this of the journey to Jerusalem. "Are come to us, to Jerusalem," עלינא, to us, that is, into the parts where we dwell, is more precisely defined by the words "to Jerusalem." "They are building the rebellious and bad city, and are setting up its walls and digging its foundations." Instead of מרדתּא (with Kamets and Metheg under )ר the edition of J. H. Mich. has מרדתּא, answering to the stat. abs. מרדא, Ezr 4:15; on the other hand, the edition of Norzi and several codices read מרדתּא, the feminine of מרוד. For בּאוּשׁתּא Norzi has באישׁתּא, from בּישׁ, a contraction of בּאישׁ. For אשׁכללוּ must be read, according to the Keri, שׁכללוּ שׁוּריּא. The Shaphel שׁכלל from כּלל, means to complete, to finish. אשּׁין, bases, foundations. יחיטוּ may be the imperf. Aphel of חוּט, formed after the example of יקּים for יקים, omitting the reduplication, יחיט. חוּט means to sew, to sew together, and may, like רפא, be understood of repairing walls or foundations. But it is more likely to be the imperf. Aphel of חטט, in Syriac hat, and in the Talmud, to dig, to dig out, fodit, excavavit - to dig out the foundations for the purpose of erecting new buildings.
Ezr 4:13
"Now be it known unto the king, that if this city be built up and ... they will not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and it (the city) will at last bring damage to the king." The three words מנדּה בלו והלך occur again, Ezr 4:20 and Ezr 7:24, in this combination as designating the different kinds of imposts. מנדּה, with resolved Dagesh forte, for מדּה (Ezr 4:20), signifies measure, then tax or custom measured to every one. בּלו, probably a duty on consumption, excise; הלך, a toll paid upon roads by travellers and their goods. The word אפּהם, which occurs only here, and has not been expressed by old translators, depends upon the Pehlevi word אודום: it is connected with the Sanscrit apa, in the superl. apama, and signifies at last, or in the future; comp. Haug, p. 156. מלכים, a Hebraized form for מלכין, Ezr 4:15, is perhaps only an error of transcription.
Ezr 4:14
"Now, because we eat the salt of the palace, and it does not become us to see the damage of the king, we send (this letter) and make known to the king." מלח מלח, to salt salt = to eat salt. To eat the salt of the palace is a figurative expression for: to be in the king's pay. See this interpretation vindicated from the Syriac and Persian in Gesen. thes. p. 790.
(Note: Luther, in translating "all we who destroyed the temple," follows the Rabbis, who, from the custom of scattering salt upon destroyed places, Jdg 9:45, understood these words as an expression figurative of destruction, and היכלא as the temple.)
ערוה, deprivation, emptying, here injury to the royal power or revenue. אריך, participle of ארך, answering to the Hebrew ערך, means fitting, becoming.
Ezr 4:15
"That search may be made in the book of the chronicles of thy fathers, so shalt thou find in the book of the Chronicles that this city has been a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and countries, and that they have from of old stirred up sedition within it, on which account this city was (also) destroyed." יבקּר is used impersonally: let one seek, let search be made. דּכרניּא ספר, book of records, is the public royal chronicle in which the chief events of the history of the realm were recorded, called Est 6:1 the book of the records of daily events. Thy fathers are the predecessors of the king, i.e., his predecessors in government; therefore not merely the Median and Persian, but the Chaldean and Assyrian kings, to whose dominions the Persian monarchs had succeeded. אשׁתּדּוּר, a verbal noun from the Ithpeal of שׁדר, rebellion. עלמא יומת מן, from the days of eternity, i.e., from time immemorial. יומת is in the constructive state, plural, formed from the singular יומא. This form occurs only here and Ezr 4:19, but is analogous with the Hebrew poetical form ימות for ימים.
Ezr 4:16
After thus casting suspicion upon the Jews as a seditious people, their adversaries bring the accusation, already raised at the beginning of the letter, to a climax, by saying that if Jerusalem is rebuilt and fortified, the king will lose his supremacy over the lands on this side the river. דּנה לקבל, on this account, for this reason, that the present inhabitants of the fortified city Jerusalem are like its former inhabitants, thou wilt have no portion west of Euphrates, i.e., thou wilt have nothing more to do with the countries on this side the river-wilt forfeit thy sway over these districts.
Ezr 4:17-22
The royal answer to this letter. פּתגּמא - a word which has also passed into the Hebrew, Ecc 8:11; Est 1:20 - is the Zend. patigama, properly that which is to take place, the decree, the sentence; see on Dan 3:16. עבר וּשׁאר still depends upon בּ: those dwelling in Samaria and the other towns on this side the river. The royal letter begins with וּכעת שׁלם, "Peace," and so forth. כּעת is abbreviated from כּענת.
Ezr 4:18
"The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me." מפרשׁ part. pass. Peal, corresponds with the Hebrew part. Piel מפרשׁ, made plain, adverbially, plainly, and does not signify "translated into Persian."
Ezr 4:19
"And by me a command has been given, and search has been made; and it has been found that this city from of old hath lifted itself (risen) up against kings," etc. מתנשּׁא, lifted itself up rebelliously, as (in Hebrew) in Kg1 1:5.
Ezr 4:20
"There have been powerful kings in Jerusalem, and (rulers) exercising dominion over the whole region beyond the river" (westward of Euphrates). This applies in its full extent only to David and Solomon, and in a less degree to subsequent kings of Israel and Judah. On Ezr 4:20, comp. Ezr 4:13.
Ezr 4:21
"Give ye now commandment to hinder these people (to keep them from the work), that this city be not built until command (sc. to build) be given from me." יתּשׂם, Ithpeal of שׂוּם.
Ezr 4:22
"And be warned from committing an oversight in this respect," i.e., take heed to overlook nothing in this matter (זהיר, instructed, warned). "Why should the damage become great (i.e., grow), to bring injury to kings?"
Ezr 4:23
The result of this royal command. As soon as the copy of the letter was read before Rehum and his associates, they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and hindered them by violence and force. אדרע with א prosthetic only here, elsewhere דּרע (= זרוע), arm, violence. Bertheau translates, "with forces and a host;" but the rendering of אדרע or זרוע by "force" can neither be shown to be correct from Eze 17:9 and Dan 11:15, Dan 11:31, nor justified by the translation of the lxx, ἐν ἵπποις καὶ δυνάμει.