Ezra 4:1 - Meaning and Application

Here we see the old hostility that God put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. God’s temple cannot be built without Satan raging, and the powers of evil fighting against it. In the same way, the kingdom of the gospel was to be set up through much struggle and opposition. In that respect, the glory of the later house was greater than the glory of the former, and it more clearly pointed to the temple of Christ’s church.

Solomon built his temple when there was no enemy and no trouble in sight (1 Kings 5:4). But this second temple was built in spite of strong opposition. When that opposition was overcome and the work was finished at last, God’s wisdom, power, and goodness were shown more clearly. The church was also encouraged to trust him.

I. The people who began the work are here called the children of the captivity (Ezra 4:1), which makes them seem very small and weak. They had only recently come out of exile, and many of them had been born in exile. The marks of captivity were still upon them. Though they were no longer prisoners, they were still under the control of those who had lately held them captive.

Israel had been God’s son, his firstborn. But by their sin, the people sold themselves into slavery, and so became children of the captivity. Yet that condition seems to have stirred them to work. By neglecting the temple, they had lost their freedom, and that memory may have pushed them to rebuild it.

II. The people who opposed the work are called the enemies of Judah and Benjamin, not the Babylonians or Persians, because those rulers did not stop them. The real trouble came from the remnant of the ten tribes and the foreigners who had joined them, the mixed people described earlier (2 Kings 17:33). They feared the Lord, but they also served their own gods. They are called the people of the land (Ezra 4:4). The worst enemies Judah and Benjamin had were those who said they were Jews and were not (Revelation 3:9).

III. Their opposition showed much of the craft of the old serpent. When they heard the temple was being built, they quickly saw that it would strike at their false religion, so they set themselves against it. They did not have the power to stop it by force, so they used every other way they could to slow it down.

1. They first offered to help the Jews build, hoping to get a chance to delay the work while pretending to support it. Their offer sounded friendly enough. “We will build with you,” they said. “We will help plan it and pay for it, for we seek your God as you do” (Ezra 4:2). But that was false. They did not seek God only, or seek him in the way he had appointed, so they did not seek him as the Jews did.

Their goal was to stop the building if they could, or at least keep the people from enjoying it fully. It is almost as bad not to have pure worship at all as to have it mixed and corrupted. An enemy’s kisses are deceitful, and his words are smooth as butter when war is in his heart.

Still, the Jews were right to refuse their offer (Ezra 4:3). The leaders quickly saw that these people meant no good, whatever they claimed. So they told them plainly, “You have nothing to do with us. You have no share in this matter. You are not true Israelites or faithful worshipers of God. You worship what you do not know” (John 4:22). They would not risk fellowship with people they could not trust, so they said, “We ourselves will build the temple.”

They did not argue from God’s law, which forbade mixing with strangers, though that was part of their thinking. Instead, they used an argument their opponents would understand better, the king’s command. “The king of Persia has ordered us to build this house,” they said, “and we would dishonor him if we brought in outside help.” In doing good, we need the wisdom of the serpent as well as the innocence of the dove. We must also beware of people (Matthew 10:16, 17). We should think carefully about who we join ourselves to and whose support we depend on. While we trust God with holy confidence, we must trust people with careful caution.

2. When this plan failed, they tried to pull the builders away from their work and wear them down. They discouraged them by saying the task was pointless, as if they were foolish builders who had started something they could not finish. Their words troubled the people and made the work slow and heavy. Not everyone was equally eager in the work, and these tactics drew the less committed away from it, which hurt the whole effort (Ezra 4:4).

Since their own words might be rejected as hostile, they secretly hired counselors against the Jews. These people would pretend to give wise advice, but their real aim was to keep the work from going forward and so spoil their plans (Ezra 4:5). They may also have tried to keep the men of Tyre and Sidon from supplying timber, which they had promised to do (Ezra 3:7). Or they may have hired people to stand against any requests the Jews made at the Persian court for help or favor under the king’s decree.

We should not be surprised that the enemies of the church are so restless in trying to stop the building of God’s temple. The one they serve is tireless in going to and fro through the earth to do harm. And those who discourage a good work, and weaken the hands of the workers, should consider whose example they are following.