Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 4:5 - 4:5

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 4:5 - 4:5


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

And they hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose (of building the temple). וְסֹכְרִים still depends on the וַיְהִי of Ezr 4:4. סָכַר is a later orthography of שָׂכַר, to hire, to bribe. Whether by the hiring of יועֲצִיט we are to understand the corruption of royal counsellors or ministers, or the appointment of legal agents to act against the Jewish community at the Persian court, and to endeavour to obtain an inhibition against the erection of the temple, does not appear. Thus much only is evident from the text, that the adversaries succeeded in frustrating the continuance of the building “all the days of Koresh,” i.e., the yet remaining five years of Cyrus, who was for the space of seven years sole ruler of Babylon; while the machinations against the building, begun immediately after the laying of its foundations in the second year of the return, had the effect, in the beginning of the third year of Cyrus (judging from Dan 10:2), of putting a stop to the work until the reign of Darius, - in all, fourteen years, viz., five years of Cyrus, seven and a half of Cambyses, seven months of the Pseudo-Smerdis, and one year of Darius (till the second year of his reign).