Esdras 4:2

2 fueron a ver a Zorobabel y a los otros líderes, y les dijeron:
—Déjennos participar en la construcción junto con ustedes, porque nosotros también adoramos a su Dios. Le venimos haciendo sacrificios desde que el rey Esar-hadón, de Asiria, nos trajo a estas tierras.

Esdras 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 ) .

Esdras 4:2 In-Context

1 Los enemigos se oponen a la reconstrucción
Cuando los enemigos de Judá y de Benjamín oyeron que los desterrados estaban reconstruyendo un templo al Señor
, Dios de Israel,

2 fueron a ver a Zorobabel y a los otros líderes, y les dijeron:
—Déjennos participar en la construcción junto con ustedes, porque nosotros también adoramos a su Dios. Le venimos haciendo sacrificios desde que el rey Esar-hadón, de Asiria, nos trajo a estas tierras.

3 Zorobabel, Jesúa y los otros líderes de Israel respondieron:
—De ninguna manera pueden tomar parte en esta obra. Nosotros solos construiremos el templo para el Señor
, Dios de Israel, tal como nos ordenó Ciro, rey de Persia.

4 Entonces los habitantes del lugar intentaron desalentar e intimidar al pueblo de Judá para impedirle que siguiera trabajando.

5 Sobornaron a algunos funcionarios para que actuaran en contra de ellos y frustraran sus planes. Esta situación continuó durante todo el reinado de Ciro, rey de Persia, y duró hasta que Darío subió al trono de Persia.