Ezra 4:6 - Meaning and Application

Cyrus firmly stood by the Jews and supported the grant he had made them. It was useless to try to win him over against it. What he did came from a good heart and from fear of God, so he held to it. Yet, although his whole reign lasted thirty years, some think he ruled only three years after Babylon was conquered and the decree was given for the Jews’ release. Others think it was seven years, and then he either died or gave up that part of his rule to his successor, Ahasuerus (Ezra 4:6), also called Artaxerxes (Ezra 4:7). Many suppose this was the same ruler heathen writers call Cambyses. He had no special concern for the despised Jews, and he did not know the God of Israel as Cyrus had.

These Samaritans sent a letter to him asking for an order to stop the temple building. They acted at the very start of his reign, because they were eager to move as soon as they thought they had a king who would support them. See how ready the enemies of the church are to seize the first chance to do harm. Its friends should be just as ready to do good.

The letter’s general purpose was to inform the king about this matter. Ezra calls it an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem (Ezra 4:6). The devil is the accuser of the brothers (Revelation 12:10). He works against God’s people not only by accusing them before God, as he did with Job, but also by putting lies into the mouths of his agents. He uses them to accuse believers before rulers and kings, to make them hateful to the crowd and dangerous in the eyes of the powerful. We should not be surprised if the same tricks are still used to weaken sincere faith.

The people involved in writing the letter are also identified. The planners are named, then the writers who put it into letter form, and then the signers who agreed with it and joined in this false report. I call it a false report, because that is what it was. See how the rulers join together against the Lord and his temple, along with their allies. Building the temple would do them no harm, yet they oppose it with strong anger. Perhaps this was because the prophets of the God of Israel had foretold that the gods of the nations would waste away and perish (Zephaniah 2:11; Jeremiah 10:11).

The people also joined in this empty scheme. They followed the loud complaint, even though they did not know the facts of the case. All the separate colonies of that settlement, nine of them listed here, and named after the cities or lands of Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, and others, put their hands to the letter through their representatives. Perhaps they were angry with the returned Jews because many of the ten tribes were among them, and those colonists had taken their property. They may have feared that the Jews would later try to recover what had been taken from them.

Ezra then gives a copy of the letter itself from the records of the Persian kingdom, where it had been entered. It is good that we have it, because it shows where later methods of stirring up trouble against good people and blocking good work come from. In the letter, they first present themselves as very loyal to the government and deeply concerned for its honor and success. They want the king to think that no subjects in his whole kingdom were more faithful or more grateful than they were (Ezra 4:14).

The phrase about being salted with the salt of the palace may mean that they received their pay from the court, so they depended on it as food depends on salt. Others think they were paid in salt. Or it may mean they had been educated in the palace and raised at the king’s table, as Daniel and others were (Daniel 1:5). These were people the king meant to promote, and they ate portions from his table. Because of that, they say, it is not right for them to stand by and watch the king’s honor suffer. So they urge him to stop the temple building, claiming it would damage the king’s honor more than anything else. Secret hatred of Christ and his gospel is often dressed up as concern for Caesar and his power.

The Jews once did the same kind of thing in another setting. They hated Roman rule, yet to serve their purpose they could cry out, We have no king but Caesar. Still, if these men who lived from the king’s support felt bound by gratitude to defend his interests, how much more should we let ourselves be moved to care for God’s honor. We live from the God of heaven, are salted with his salt, and depend on his kindness and care. So it is not right for us to see his honor ignored without feeling it and doing what we can to stop it.

They also portray the Jews as disloyal and dangerous to the government, calling Jerusalem a rebellious and wicked city (Ezra 4:12), harmful to kings and provinces (Ezra 4:15). See how Jerusalem, once called the joy of the whole earth (Psalm 48:2), is slandered here as the disgrace of the whole earth. The enemies of the church cannot carry out their evil plans unless they first give God’s people a bad name. Jerusalem had actually been loyal to its rightful rulers, and its present inhabitants were as well disposed toward the king and his government as anyone else in his provinces. Daniel, who was a Jew, had recently shown such faithfulness to his ruler that even his enemies could find no fault in how he handled public affairs (Daniel 6:4). Yet Elijah was wrongly blamed for troubling Israel, the apostles were accused of turning the world upside down, and Christ himself was charged with misleading the nation and forbidding tribute to Caesar. We should not think it strange if the same pattern continues.

Their account of the past was slanted and hostile. They said sedition had long ago been stirred up in that city and that, for that reason, it had been destroyed (Ezra 4:15). There was some color for this claim, since Jehoiakim and Zedekiah had tried to shake off the king of Babylon’s rule. If they had stayed close to their religion and to the temple they were then rebuilding, they would never have fallen into that trouble. But two things must be remembered. First, they and their ancestors had been sovereign princes, and if they had not broken an oath, their efforts to recover their rights would, as far as I can see, have been fair and perhaps even successful, if they had taken the right path and first made peace with God. Second, even if those Jews and their princes had once been guilty of rebellion, it was still unjust to stamp that forever on the city, as though it must always be known as the rebellious and wicked city.

The Jews, even in their captivity, had shown enough good conduct, if judged fairly, to remove that shame from them. They had been told, and we have reason to hope they obeyed, to seek the peace of the city where they lived as captives and to pray to the Lord for it (Jeremiah 29:7). So it was very unfair, though sadly common, to blame the children for their fathers’ sin.

Their report about what was happening was also plainly false. They told the king, very carefully, that the Jews had already raised the walls of the city, or, as the margin says, had finished them and laid the foundations, when that was far from true (Ezra 4:12). The Jews had only begun to rebuild the temple, as Cyrus had ordered, but nothing had been done, or even planned, about repairing the walls. Many years later, the walls were still in ruins (Nehemiah 1:3). What should be said, and what should be done, to such false tongues, and even worse, false writers? Surely the sharp arrows of the mighty and the coals of juniper (Psalm 120:3-4). If they had not been completely stripped of virtue and honor, they would not have written such a lie. And if they had not been sure the king would support them, they would not have dared.

Their predictions about the outcome were also groundless and foolish. They were very sure, and wanted the king to accept it on their word, that if this city were rebuilt, the Jews would not pay toll, tribute, or duty (Ezra 4:13). They went even farther, as one lie often leads to another, and claimed that the king would have no share at all on this side of the river, meaning the region west of Euphrates (Ezra 4:16). They said all the lands west of Euphrates would quickly revolt, pulled along by Jerusalem’s example, and that if the ruler now allowed this, he would harm not only himself but also his future heirs: “You will damage the royal revenue.” See how every line in this letter shows both the slyness and the malice of the old serpent.