Ezra 4:2 Ulasan

The good work of rebuilding the temple was no sooner begun than it met with opposition from those that bore ill will to it; the Samaritans were enemies to the Jews and their religion, and they set themselves to obstruct it. I. They offered to be partners in the building of it, that they might have it in their power to retard it; but they were refused (Ezr 4:1-3). II. They discouraged them in it, and dissuaded them from it (Ezr 4:4, Ezr 4:5). III. They basely misrepresented the undertaking, and the undertakers, to the king of Persia, by a memorial they sent him (Ezr 4:6-16). IV. They obtained from him an order to stop the building (Ezr 4:17-22), which they immediately put in execution (Ezr 4:23, Ezr 4:24).

INTRODUCTION TO EZRA 4 The contents of this chapter are the offer the Samaritans made to the Jews, to assist them in building the temple, which having refused, they gave them all the trouble they could, Ezr 4:1 and a letter of theirs to Artaxerxes, king of Persia, full of accusations of them, Ezr 4:7 and the answer of Artaxerxes to it, giving orders to command the Jews to cease building the temple, Ezr 4:17 which orders were accordingly executed, and the work ceased till the second year of Darius, Ezr 4:23.

Then they came to Zerubbabel, and the chief of the fathers,.... These they addressed, as knowing that if they could not prevail with them, they could never succeed in their design; and these were no doubt the principal of the Samaritans that applied: and said unto them, let us build with you; that is, the temple, they proposed to join with them, and assist them in it; which proposal at first sight might seem very agreeable and welcome, and would have been so had they been sincere, but they were not; they hoped, by getting among them, to have sown discord among them, and disunited them; and so by these or other means to have retarded the building; or if it went forward, that they might have a claim to it as theirs, at least as to set up their own idols in a part of it; the reasons they gave follow: for we seek your God as ye do; which was false, for they did not worship him alone, but with idols, nor in the same manner as the Jews did: and we do sacrifice unto him; but even that could not recommend them to the Jews, since they ought not to sacrifice, even to the Lord himself, but at Jerusalem: there is a various reading here; the textual reading is, "we do not sacrifice"; that is, to idols; the marginal reading is, "we sacrifice to him", which we follow; Aben Ezra takes in both, perhaps most rightly; "we do not sacrifice to any other, but to him"; which was also false: since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assur, who brought us up hither; to Samaria, from Babylon, and other places; see Kg2 17:24.

The Samaritans endeavor to prevent the rebuilding of the temple, Ezr 4:1-5. They send letters to Artaxerxes, against the Jews, Ezr 4:6-9. A copy of the letter, Ezr 4:10-16. He commands the Jews to cease from building the temple, which they do; nor was any thing farther done in the work till the second year of Darius, Ezr 4:17-24.

Let us build with you - We acknowledge the same God, are solicitous for his glory, and will gladly assist you in this work. But that they came with no friendly intention, the context proves.

THE BUILDING HINDERED. (Ezr 4:1-6) the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin--that is, strangers settled in the land of Israel.

we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon . . . which brought us up hither--A very interesting explanation of this passage has been recently obtained from the Assyrian sculptures. On a large cylinder, deposited in the British Museum, there is inscribed a long and perfect copy of the annals of Esar-haddon, in which the details are given of a large deportation of Israelites from Palestine, and a consequent settlement of Babylonian colonists in their place. It is a striking confirmation of the statement made in this passage. Those Assyrian settlers intermarried with the remnant of Israelite women, and their descendants, a mongrel race, went under the name of Samaritans. Though originally idolaters, they were instructed in the knowledge of God, so that they could say, "We seek your God"; but they served Him in a superstitious way of their own (see on Kg2 17:26-34, Kg2 17:41).

The adversaries of the Jews prevent the building of the temple till the reign of Darius (Ezr 4:1, Ezr 4:2). When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the community which had returned from captivity were beginning to rebuild the temple, they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chiefs of the people, and desired to take part in this work, because they also sacrificed to the God of Israel. These adversaries were, according to Ezr 4:2, the people whom Esarhaddon king of Assyria had settled in the neighbourhood of Benjamin and Judah. If we compare with this verse the information (Kg2 17:24) that the kings of Assyria brought men from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, and that they took possession of the depopulated kingdom of the ten tribes, and dwelt therein; then these adversaries of Judah and Benjamin are the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Israel, who were called Samaritans after the central-point of their settlement. הגּולה בּני, sons of the captivity (Ezr 6:19, etc., Ezr 8:35; Ezr 10:7, Ezr 10:16), also shortly into הגּולה, e.g., Ezr 1:11, are the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity, who composed the new community in Judah and Jerusalem. Those who returned with Zerubbabel, and took possession of the dwelling-places of their ancestors, being, exclusive of priests and Levites, chiefly members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, are called, especially when named in distinction from the other inhabitants of the land, Judah and Benjamin. The adversaries give the reason of their request to share in the building of the temple in the words: "For we seek your God as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, which brought us up hither." The words זבחים אנחנוּ ולא are variously explained. Older expositors take the Chethiv ולא as a negative, and make זבחים to mean the offering of sacrifices to idols, both because לא is a negative, and also because the assertion that they had sacrificed to Jahve would not have pleased the Jews, quia deficiente templo non debuerint sacrificare; and sacrifices not offered in Jerusalem were regarded as equivalent to sacrifices to idols. They might, moreover, fitly strengthen their case by the remark: "Since the days of Esarhaddon we offer no sacrifices to idols." On the other hand, however, it is arbitrary to understand זבח, without any further definition, of sacrificing to idols; and the statement, "We already sacrifice to the God of Israel," contains undoubtedly a far stronger reason for granting their request than the circumstance that they do not sacrifice to idols. Hence we incline, with older translators (lxx, Syr., Vulg., 1 Esdras), to regard לא as an unusual form of לו, occurring in several places (see on Exo 21:8), the latter being also substituted in the present instance as Keri. The position also of לא before אנחנוּ points the same way, for the negative would certainly have stood with the verb. On Esarhaddon, see remarks on Kg2 19:37 and Isa 37:38.