Ezra 4:2

2 and they came to Zerubbabel, and to the princes of (the) fathers, and said to them, Build we with you, for so as ye do, we seek your God (and they came to Zerubbabel, and to the leaders of the families, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we seek your God, as ye do); lo! we have offered sacrifices (to him) from the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assur, that brought us hither into this land.

Ezra 4:2 Meaning and Commentary

Ezra 4:2

Then they came to Zerubbabel, and the chief of the fathers,
&c.] 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 ( 2 Kings 17:24 ) .

Ezra 4:2 In-Context

1 And the enemies of Judah and of Benjamin heard, that the sons of (the) captivity builded a temple to the Lord God of Israel;

2 and they came to Zerubbabel, and to the princes of (the) fathers, and said to them, Build we with you, for so as ye do, we seek your God (and they came to Zerubbabel, and to the leaders of the families, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we seek your God, as ye do); lo! we have offered sacrifices (to him) from the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assur, that brought us hither into this land.

3 And Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the other princes of the fathers of Israel, said to them, It is not to us and to you, that we build an house to our God; but we us-selves alone shall build an house to the Lord our God, as Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us. (And Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the other leaders of the families of the tribes of Israel, said to them, It is of no concern to thee, that we build a House for our God; yea, we shall build by ourselves the House for the Lord our God, as Cyrus, the king of Persia, commanded us.)

4 And it was done, that the people of the land hindered the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building. (And then it was done, that the people of the land hindered the hands of the people of Judah, and made them afraid to continue building.)

5 And they hired counsellors against the Jews, that they should destroy the counsel, or purpose, of the Jews, in all the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, and unto the realm of Darius, king of Persia. (And they bribed court officials to work against the Jews, in all the days of Cyrus, the king of Persia, and into the reign of Darius, the king of Persia.)