Ezra 4:1

Resistance to Rebuilding the House of God

1 Now the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the {returned exiles} [were] building a temple for Yahweh the God of Israel.

Ezra 4:1 Meaning and Commentary

Ezra 4:1

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin
The Samaritans, as appears from ( Ezra 4:2 Ezra 4:10 ) ,

heard that the children of the captivity;
the Jews, who had been in captivity seventy years, and were just come out of it, and still were not quite free, but under the jurisdiction and control of the king of Persia:

builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel;
that they were going about it, and had laid the foundation of it, which might soon come to their ears, the distance not being very great. Josephus ^F3 says they heard the sound of the trumpets, and came to know the meaning of it.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 Antiqu. l. 11. c. 4. sect. 3.

Ezra 4:1 In-Context

1 Now the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the {returned exiles} [were] building a temple for Yahweh the God of Israel.

2 And they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the {families}, and they said to them, "Let us build with you. Like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing [to him] from the days of Esarhaddon the king of Assyria who brought us up here.

3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of the {families} of Israel said to them, "[It is] not for you but for us to build a house for our God. For we ourselves alone will build [it] for Yahweh the God of Israel, just as Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us."

4 Then the people of the land discouraged {the people of Judah} and made them afraid to build

5 and bribed officials against them to frustrate their plan for all the days of Cyrus king of Persia until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "the sons of the exile"