English · KJV

Ezra 4:10

“Administrative Opposition Through Letters”Ezra 4:6–10

King James Version
And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river, and at such a time.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
And the rest H7606 of the nations H524 whom H1768 the great H7229 and noble H3358 Asnappar H620 brought over H1541, and set H3488 H1994 in the cities H7149 of Samaria H8115, and the rest H7606 that are on this side H5675 the river H5103, and at such a time H3706.

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
and the rest of the peoples whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and elsewhere west of the Euphrates.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar brought over, and set in the city of Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the River, and so forth.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar brought over, and set in the city of Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the River, and so forth, wrote.

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
And the rest of the people whom the great and noble Asnappar brought ouer, and set in the cities of Samaria, and other that are beyonde the Riuer and Cheeneth.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
and the rest of the nations that the great and honourable Asnapper removed and set in the city of Samaria, and the rest beyond the river, and at such a time:

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
16 Hebrew words
  1. וּשְׁאָרu·she·'Arand [the] rest ofH7606Conj-w ¦ N-cscNoun Singular common gender Constructוּandשְׁאָר[the] rest of
  2. אֻמַּיָּא'u·mai·Ya'nations theH524N-mp ¦ ArtNoun Plural Masculine Definiteאֻמַּיָּnationsאthe
  3. דִּיdiwhichH1768ConjConjunction
  4. הַגְלִיhag·Lihe took into exileH1541V-Haphel-Perf-3msVerb Haphel Perfect 3rd Singular Masculine
  5. אָסְנַפַּר'a·se·na·ParOsnapparH620N-proper-mNoun Proper Masculine
  6. רַבָּאra·Ba'[the] greatH7229Adj-cs ¦ ArtAdjective Singular common gender Definiteרַבָּ[the]אgreat
  7. וְיַקִּירָאve·ya·ki·Ra'and [the] honorableH3358Conj-w ¦ Adj-cs ¦ ArtAdjective Singular common gender Definiteוְandיַקִּירָ[the]אhonorable
  8. וְהוֹתֵבve·ho·Tevand he caused to dwellH3488Conj-w ¦ V-Hiphil-Perf-3msVerb Hiphil Perfect 3rd Singular Masculineוְandהוֹתֵבhe caused to dwell
  9. הִמּוֹhi·MothemH1994Pro-3mpPronoun Personal 3rd Plural Masculine
  10. בְּקִרְיָהbe·kir·Yahin [the] cityH7149Prep-b ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteבְּinקִרְיָה[the] city
  11. דִּיdiofH1768ConjConjunction
  12. שָׁמְרָיִןsha·me·Ra·yinSamariaH8115N-properNoun Proper Location
  13. וּשְׁאָרu·she·'Arand [the] rest ofH7606Conj-w ¦ N-cscNoun Singular common gender Constructוּandשְׁאָר[the] rest of
  14. עֲבַר'a·var[the] region beyondH5675N-cscNoun Singular common gender Construct
  15. נַהֲרָהna·ha·Rah'river theH5103N-cs ¦ ArtNoun Singular common gender Definiteנַהֲרָriverהthe
  16. וּכְעֶנֶתu·khe·'E·netand nowH3706Conj-w ¦ AdvAdverbוּandכְעֶנֶתnow
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

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The senders add the rest of the nations that Asnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria, and all the others living west of the Euphrates.

“And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over,”

ʼOçnappar, named only here in Scripture, is widely identified with the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Gᵉlâh means that he carried these nations away from their homelands by force.

“and set in the cities of Samaria,”

Samaria had been the capital of the Northern Kingdom and was now an administrative centre. The settlers placed there became the forebears of the Samaritans.

“and the rest that are on this side the river,”

The river is the Euphrates, and ʻăbar belongs to the name of the Persian province west of it. The senders claim the support of the whole province.

“and at such a time.”

A formal phrase of the letter’s opening, most likely pointing to the time of writing.

Passage studyEzra 4:6–10

Letters of Accusation Against Jerusalem

6And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. 7And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue. 8Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort: 9Then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions; the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elamites, 10And the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over, and set in the cities of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river, and at such a time.

Summary

The people who opposed the returned exiles in Judah took their hostility to the Persian court in writing. Verse 6 records an accusation sent to Ahasuerus at the very start of his reign. Verse 7 records a letter sent to Artaxerxes by Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and their companions, written in Aramaic. Verses 8 to 10 introduce the letter of Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe, and list the many peoples who stood behind it. These verses show an opposition that lasted through several reigns and used the empire’s own offices, and the chapters that follow show God bringing his work to completion all the same.

Why these verses run ahead of the story

Ezra 1–3 tells of the return from Babylon and the laying of the Temple’s foundation (Ezra 3:8–10). Ezra 4:1–5 then tells how the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin offered to join the building, were refused by Zerubbabel and Jeshua, and afterwards discouraged the people and hired counsellors against them through the reigns of Cyrus and Darius.

At verse 6 the book steps forward in time. Ahasuerus is Xerxes I, who ruled Persia from 486 to 465 BC, and Artaxerxes is Artaxerxes I Longimanus, who ruled from 465 to 424 BC. Both reigns come after the Temple was finished under Darius I in 516 BC (Ezra 6:15). So Ezra 4:6–23 is a deliberate aside, placed here by subject. Having described the first opposition, the writer gathers up the later opposition as well, which was aimed at the city of Jerusalem and its walls. Then, at Ezra 4:24, the account returns to the Temple and the second year of Darius, and the story of its rebuilding goes on through Ezra 5 and Ezra 6.

People ask why the book of Ezra is out of order here. The order is the writer’s choice, and it serves his point. Read together, the whole of Ezra 4 shows that the hostility was a long campaign, carried on under one king after another and against every part of the restoration: the Temple, the city and the people themselves.

The accusation written to Ahasuerus

The name ʼĂchashvêrôwsh is of Persian origin. It is the title of a Persian king, and the king meant is Xerxes. His reign falls between the completion of the Temple (Ezra 6) and the later missions of Ezra and Nehemiah under Artaxerxes (Ezra 7–10, Nehemiah 1–13). The Temple was already standing, and the adversaries were still writing.

They wrote “in the beginning of his reign”. The word for reign, malkûwth, means rule, dominion or kingdom. A new king was a fresh opportunity for local parties to win favour or lodge a grievance, while he was still establishing his control and weighing the loyalty of his subjects. The adversaries lost no time in using it. “They” are the same adversaries introduced in Ezra 4:1, the people of the land who had been weakening the hands of the builders since Ezra 4:4. They were probably Samaritans and other groups of the region who saw the Jewish restoration as a threat to their own standing.

The target is “the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem”. The charge is laid against the people themselves and their presence in the land, a small and vulnerable community of returned exiles living under Persian rule. The Persian empire was run through letters, petitions and reports, and a written charge sent up to the king was an effective way for a rival party to shape royal policy.

The word for “accusation”

The Hebrew word is siṭnâh, which means opposition, and here opposition by letter, a formal written charge. It comes from the root śāṭan, to oppose or act as an adversary, the root behind the name Satan. That kinship is worth noticing. Scripture shows Satan standing to resist Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1), and it calls him “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10). The charge sent to Ahasuerus was a hostile act meant to hinder what God was doing in Jerusalem, and it painted his people as rebels against the crown. Nehemiah later met the same weapon, when Sanballat sent him a letter reporting that the Jews planned to rebel (Nehemiah 6:6–7).

The letter in the days of Artaxerxes

The name ʼArtachshashtâʼ belongs to Artaxerxes I Longimanus. He matters a great deal in the history of the returned exiles, because under him both Ezra (Ezra 7) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2) received royal permission to go to Jerusalem, Ezra to teach the Law and Nehemiah to rebuild the walls. Ezra himself arrived in the king’s seventh year (Ezra 7:7). The letter of verse 7 comes from the same reign, and it shows the king being approached from the other side.

Three writers are named. Bishlâm is a name of foreign derivation, and he stands with Mithredath and Tabeel at the head of “the rest of their companions”. The word for companions, kᵉnâth, means a colleague or associate. Naming them shows an organised effort by men of standing, likely officials or leading citizens of the Samaritan region, who addressed themselves straight to “Artaxerxes king of Persia”, the highest authority in the empire.

Why is the Syrian tongue named twice?

The “Syrian tongue”, ʼĂrâmîyth, is Aramaic, and it stands twice in this verse because the letter was both composed and presented in it. By the Persian period Aramaic had become the common language of the empire’s administration, diplomacy and trade, especially in the western provinces, which included Judah and Samaria. The letter was “written” (kâthab) in Aramaic, and it was “interpreted” (tirgam, to translate or transfer) in Aramaic as well, which is to say that it was set out or read to the court in the proper official language. The king’s officials could take it in at once, and it carried the full weight of an official document.

The book of Ezra itself changes language at this point. Ezra 4:8–6:18 and Ezra 7:12–26 are written in Aramaic, the language of the official documents those sections quote.

Who were Rehum and Shimshai?

Rehum and Shimshai were officials of the Persian province west of the Euphrates, the province that included Judah. Rehum is called “the chancellor”, in Aramaic bᵉʻêl ṭᵉʻêm, which is literally “master of decree” or “master of judgment”. The title marks a senior civil administrator with authority in legal, administrative and financial matters, perhaps a governor or chief magistrate, a man with power to carry out royal commands.

Shimshai is “the scribe”, çâphêr, an official secretary. Scribes in the royal service were highly educated men who drafted, recorded and kept official documents, laws and correspondence. Shimshai’s skill meant that the letter would be composed in the correct form and worded to persuade.

The word for the letter itself, ʼiggᵉrâʼ, means an official epistle, the kind often carried by a state courier. With a chancellor and a scribe as its authors, the complaint against Jerusalem came to the king as a formal report from his own administration. The verse says it was written “against Jerusalem”, and the city stands here for the whole community and its hopes. The closing words “in this sort” lead into the text of the letter, which follows in Ezra 4:9–16.

Who are the peoples in the list, and who was Asnappar?

The letter was sent in the names of a whole coalition. After Rehum, Shimshai and “the rest of their companions”, verse 9 names nine peoples: the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites and the Elamites. Verse 10 adds “the rest of the nations” settled in Samaria and everyone else in the province. The length of the list was meant to impress the king. It told him that the complaint came from a broad and united part of his western empire.

Most of these peoples had come to the land by force. The empires of Assyria and Babylon moved conquered populations from one country to another, mixing them so that national loyalties would break down and rebellion would be harder. The verb for “brought over”, gᵉlâh, means to exile or carry away, and it describes exactly that kind of forced removal. After the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell in 722 BC, foreign peoples were settled in the cities of Samaria, as 2 Kings 17:24–41 describes at length.

The letter credits a later settlement to “the great and noble Asnappar”. The name ʼOçnappar appears only here in the Bible, and it is widely identified with Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria, who reigned from about 668 to 627 BC. “Great and noble” is an honorific. The writers may have used it to impress Artaxerxes, or it may simply have been the customary style for so powerful a king. By naming him they showed that they held their place in the land by imperial decree.

Over the generations these settlers intermarried and formed a mixed people with a mixed religion, the beginnings of the Samaritans. Their descendants felt threatened by a restored Jewish community with its claims to ancestral land, and the rivalry lasted for centuries. It is still there when Jesus meets the woman at the well in John 4.

“On this side the river”

The river is the Euphrates. The Aramaic word ʻăbar means “beyond” or “across”, and the phrase is the name of a Persian province, Abar Nahara, “Beyond the River”, so called from the point of view of the Persian capital to the east. It covered the lands west of the Euphrates: Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, with Judah and Samaria among them. By including “the rest that are on this side the river”, the senders claimed to speak for the whole province.

The last words of verse 10, “and at such a time”, are obscure in English. They most likely refer to the time of writing, as part of the formal opening of the letter.

What the letter said and what came of it

The charges were shaped to touch what a Persian king cared about most, which was the stability, control and revenue of his empire. The letter called Jerusalem “the rebellious and the bad city” (Ezra 4:12). It warned that once the walls were finished the Jews would stop paying toll, tribute and custom (Ezra 4:13), and that the king would lose his hold on the province beyond the river (Ezra 4:16). Jerusalem was a modest city, but it lay in a sensitive border region, and a report of rebellion there was taken seriously.

The king was persuaded. His reply (Ezra 4:17–22) ordered the building of the city to stop, and the closing verses of the chapter record the work being brought to a halt (Ezra 4:21–24). For a time the letter achieved what its writers wanted.

It did not have the last word. The Temple, whose story the book picks up again when Haggai and Zechariah stir the people to build (Ezra 5:1–2), was finished (Ezra 6:15). The wall of Jerusalem was finished too, under Nehemiah (Nehemiah 6:15), although he faced the same alliance of neighbours conspiring to fight against the city (Nehemiah 4:7–8). The psalmist says that the LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing while his own counsel stands for ever (Psalm 33:10–11), and the history of these letters bears it out.

The accuser answered in Christ

The pattern in these verses runs through the whole of Scripture. When God’s people set their hands to his work, opposition rises, and it often comes as an accusation dressed in official form. Behind the human writers stands a spiritual enemy, since our struggle is against spiritual powers of wickedness (Ephesians 6:12), and Peter warns us to be watchful because our adversary the devil goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).

Jesus met this opposition in full. Men tried to entangle him in his talk (Matthew 22:15). He was charged with blasphemy before the high priest (Matthew 26:65) and with stirring up the nation before Pilate, and the legal and political process that followed ended at the cross (Luke 23:1–25). The peoples gathered against Jerusalem in Ezra’s day are a small picture of the nations that rage against the LORD and against his anointed (Psalm 2:1–4). Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he spoke of his own body as the temple that would be raised in three days (John 2:19–21). The opposition could delay the house in Jerusalem for a season. At the cross Christ disarmed the principalities and powers and triumphed over them openly (Colossians 2:15), and the accuser of our brethren is cast down (Revelation 12:10).

So the accusation has lost its power over those who belong to him. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), and when we sin we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). God is building a new temple out of his people (1 Corinthians 3:16), with Christ as the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:19–22), and Jesus has said of it, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

The church has met the same treatment as the builders of Jerusalem. Peter and John were arrested for preaching (Acts 4:1–3), and the council charged the apostles with filling Jerusalem with their doctrine (Acts 5:28). Jesus told his disciples that the world would hate them because it hated him first (John 15:18–20). Paul says that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12), and the dragon still makes war with those who keep the commandments of God (Revelation 12:17). Gamaliel’s counsel to the council holds true through it all: a work that is of God cannot be overthrown (Acts 5:38–39).

God’s work goes on under accusation

These five verses are mostly names, titles and addresses, and that plainness is part of what they give us. Opposition to God’s work often arrives through ordinary channels, such as an office, a form, a report sent to someone in authority, or a damaging story told about his people. Scripture records the names of the men who wrote against Jerusalem and the peoples who signed with them, which tells us that God took careful note of what his people faced.

The passage is also honest about delay. The letter worked for a while, and the builders had to stop. Yet the Temple stood finished within the same book, and the walls rose in Nehemiah’s day. God’s promise to his servants is that no weapon formed against them shall prosper, and that every tongue that rises against them in judgment shall be condemned (Isaiah 54:17). When we are slandered or blocked while doing what he has given us to do, we are walking where the builders of Jerusalem walked, and where our Lord walked before us. He is our advocate, and the work is his.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Ezra 4:6–16. He set out his notes in a four-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 11 verses
Passage under commentEzra 4:6–16
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points(1.) (2.) Details[1.] [2.] Fine details

Cyrus stedfastly adhered to the Jews' interest, and supported his own grant. It was to no purpose to offer any thing to him in prejudice of it. What he did was from a good principle, and in the fear of God, and therefore he adhered to it. But, though his reign in all was thirty years, yet after the conquest of Babylon, and his decree for the release of the Jews, some think that he reigned but three years, others seven, and then either died or gave up that part of his government, in which his successor was Ahasuerus (Ezra 4:6), called also Artaxerxes (Ezra 4:7), supposed to be the same that in heathen authors is called Cambyses, who had never taken such cognizance of the despised Jews as to concern himself for them, nor had he that knowledge of the God of Israel which his predecessor had. To him these Samaritans applied by letter for an order to stop the building of the temple; and they did it in the beginning of his reign, being resolved to lose no time when they thought they had a king for their purpose. See how watchful the church's enemies are to take the first opportunity of doing it a mischief; let not its friends be less careful to do it a kindness. Here is,

I.The general purport of the letter which they sent to the king, to inform him of this matter.

It is called (Ezra 4:6) an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. The devil is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10), and he carries on his malicious designs against them, not only by accusing them himself before God, as he did Job, but by acting as a lying spirit in the mouths of his instruments, whom he employs to accuse them before magistrates and kings and to make them odious to the many and obnoxious to the mighty. Marvel not if the same arts be still used to depreciate serious godliness.

II.The persons concerned in writing this letter.

The contrivers are named (Ezra 4:7) that plotted the thing, the writers (Ezra 4:8) that put it into form, and the subscribers (Ezra 4:9) that concurred in it and joined with them in this representation, this misrepresentation I should call it. Now see here,

1.How the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his temple, with their companions. The building of the temple would do them no harm, yet they appear against it with the utmost concern and virulence, perhaps because the prophets of the God of Israel had foretold the famishing and perishing of all the gods of the heathen, Zephaniah 2:11; Jeremiah 10:11.

2.How the people concurred with them in imagining this vain thing. They followed the cry, though ignorant of the merits of the cause. All the several colonies of that plantation (nine are here mentioned), who had their denomination from the cities or countries of Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, etc., whence they came, set their hands, by their representatives, to this letter. Perhaps they were incensed against these returned Jews because many of the ten tribes were among them, whose estates they had got into their possession, and of whom they were therefore jealous, lest they should attempt the recovery of them hereafter.

III.A copy of the letter itself, which Ezra inserts here out of the records of the kingdom of Persia, into which it had been entered; and it is well we have it, that we may see whence the like methods, still taken to expose good people and baffle good designs, are copied.

1.They represent themselves as very loyal to the government, and greatly concerned for the honour and interest of it, and would have it thought that the king had no such loving faithful subjects in all his dominions as they were, none so sensible of their obligations to him, Ezra 4:14. Because we are salted with the salt of the palace (so it is in the margin), "we have our salary from the court, and could no more live without it than flesh could be preserved without salt;" or, as some think, their pay or pension was sent them in salt; or "Because we had our education in the palace, and were brought up at the king's table," as we find, Daniel 1:5. These were those whom he intended to prefer; they did eat their portion of the king's meat. "Now, in consideration of this, it is not meet for us to see the king's dishonour;" and therefore they urge him to stop the building of the temple, which would certainly be the king's dishonour more than any thing else. Note, A secret enmity to Christ and his gospel is often gilded over with a pretended affection to Caesar and his power. The Jews hated the Roman government, and yet, to serve a turn, could cry, We have no king but Caesar. But (to allude to this), if those that lived upon the crown thought themselves bound in gratitude thus to support the interest of it, much more reason have we thus to argue ourselves into a pious concern for God's honour; we have our maintenance from the God of heaven and are salted with his salt, live upon his bounty and are the care of his providence; and therefore it is not meet for us to see his dishonour without resenting it and doing what we can to prevent it.

2.They represent the Jews as disloyal, and dangerous to the government, that Jerusalem was the rebellious and bad city (Ezra 4:12), hurtful to kings and provinces, Ezra 4:15. See how Jerusalem, the joy of the whole earth (Psalm 48:2), is here reproached as the scandal of the whole earth. The enemies of the church could not do the bad things they design against it if they did not first give it a bad name. Jerusalem had been a loyal city to its rightful princes, and its present inhabitants were as well affected to the king and his government as any of his provinces whatsoever. Daniel, who was a Jew, had lately approved himself so faithful to his prince that his worst enemies could find no fault in his management, Daniel 6:4. But thus was Elijah most unjustly charged with troubling Israel, the apostles with turning the world upside down, and Christ himself with perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar; and we must not think it strange if the same game be still played. Now here,

(1.)Their history of what was past was invidious, that within this city sedition had been moved of old time, and, for that cause, it was destroyed, Ezra 4:15. It cannot be denied but that there was some colour given for this suggestion by the attempts of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah to shake off the yoke of the king of Babylon, which, if they had kept close to their religion and the temple they were now rebuilding, they would never have come under. But it must be considered,

[1.]That they were themselves, and their ancestors, sovereign princes, and their efforts to recover their rights, if there had not been in them the violation of an oath, for aught I know, would have been justifiable, and successful too, had they taken the right method and made their peace with God first.

[2.]Though these Jews, and their princes, had been guilty of rebellion, yet it was unjust therefore to fasten this as an indelible brand upon this city, as if that must for ever after go under the name of the rebellious and bad city. The Jews, in their captivity, had given such specimens of good behaviour as were sufficient, with any reasonable men, to roll away that one reproach; for they were instructed (and we have reason to hope that they observed their instructions) to seek the peace of the city where they were captives and pray to the Lord for it, Jeremiah 29:7. It was therefore very unfair, though not uncommon, thus to impute the iniquity of the fathers to the children.

(2.)Their information concerning what was now doing was grossly false in matter of fact. Very careful they were to inform the king that the Jews had set up the walls of this city, nay, had finished them (so it is in the margin) and joined the foundations (Ezra 4:12), when this was far from being the case. They had only begun to build the temple, which Cyrus commanded them to do, but, as for the walls, there was nothing done nor designed towards the repair of them, as appears by the condition they were in many years after (Nehemiah 1:3), all in ruins. What shall be given, and what done, to these false tongues, nay, which is worse, these false pens? sharp arrows, doubtless, of the mighty, and coals of juniper, Psalm 120:3, Psalm 120:4. If they had not been perfectly lost to all virtue and honour they would not, and if they had not been very secure of the king's countenance they durst not, have written that to the king which all their neighbours knew to be a notorious lie. See Proverbs 29:12.

(3.)Their prognostics of the consequences were altogether groundless and absurd. They were very confident, and would have the king believe it upon their word, that if this city should be built, not only the Jews would pay no toll, tribute, or custom (Ezra 4:13), but (since a great lie is as soon spoken as a little one) that the king would have no portion at all on this side the river (Ezra 4:16), that all the countries on this side Euphrates would instantly revolt, drawn in to do so by their example; and, if the prince in possession should connive at this, he would wrong, not only himself, but his successors: Thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings. See how every line in this letter breathes both the subtlety and malice of the old serpent.

Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

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