Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 4:6 - 4:6

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Ezra 4:6 - 4:6


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Complaints against the Jews to Kings Ahashverosh and Artachshasta. - The right understanding of this section depends upon the question, What kings of Persia are meant by Ahashverosh and Artachshasta? while the answer to this question is, in part at least, determined by the contents of the letter, Ezr 4:8-16, sent by the enemies of the Jews to the latter monarch.

Ezr 4:6-7

And in the reign of Ahashverosh, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. שִׂטְנָה, not to mention the name of the well, Gen 26:21, occurs here only, and means, according to its derivation from שָׂטַן, to bear enmity, the enmity; hence here, the accusation. יֹשְׁבֵי עַל belongs to שִׂטְנָה, not to כָּֽתְבוּ; the letter was sent, not to the inhabitants of Judah, but to the king against the Jews. The contents of this letter are not given, but may be inferred from the designation שִׂטְנָה. The letter to Artachshasta then follows, Ezr 4:7-16. In his days, i.e., during his reign, wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions. כְּנֹותָו, for which the Keri offers the ordinary form כְּנָותָיו mrof yra, occurs only here in the Hebrew sections, but more frequently in the Chaldee (comp. Ezr 4:9, Ezr 4:17, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:3, and elsewhere), in the sense of companions or fellow-citizens; according to Gesenius, it means those who bear the same surname (Kunje) together with another, though Ewald is of a different opinion; see §117, b, note. The singular would be written כְּנָת (Ewald, §187, d). And the writing of the letter was written in Aramaean (i.e., with Aramaean characters), and interpreted in (i.e., translated into) Aramaean. נִשְׁתְּוָן is of Aryan origin, and connected with the modern Persian nuwishten, to write together; it signifies in Hebrew and Chaldee a letter: comp. Ezr 4:18, where נֹשְׁתְּוָנָא is used for אִגַּרְתָּא of Ezr 4:11. Bertheau translates הַנִּשְׁתְּוָן כְּתָב, copy of the letter, and regards it as quite identical with the Chaldee אִגַּרְתָּא פַּרְשֶׁגֶן, Ezr 4:11; he can hardly, however, be in the right. כְּתָב does not mean a transcript or copy, but only a writing (comp. Est 4:8). This, too, does away with the inference “that the writer of this statement had before him only an Aramaean translation of the letter contained in the state-papers or chronicles which he made use of.” It is not כְּתָב, the copy or writing, but הַנִּשְׁתְּוָן, the letter, that is the subject of אֲרָמִית מְתֻרְגָּם, interpreted in Aramaean. This was translated into the Aramaean or Syrian tongue. The passage is not to be understood as stating that the letter was drawn up in the Hebrew or Samaritan tongue, and then translated into Aramaean, but simply that the letter was not composed in the native language of the writers, but in Aramaean. Thus Gesenius rightly asserts, in his Thes. p. 1264, et lingua aramaea scripta erat; in saying which תרגם does not receive the meaning concepit, expressit, but retains its own signification, to interpret, to translate into another language. The writers of the letter were Samaritans, who, having sprung from the intermingling of the Babylonian settlers brought in by Esarhaddon and the remnants of the Israelitish population, spoke a language more nearly akin to Hebrew than to Aramaean, which was spoken at the Babylonian court, and was the official language of the Persian kings and the Persian authorities in Western Asia. This Aramaean tongue had also its own characters, differing from those of the Hebrew and Samaritan. This is stated by the words אֲרָמִית כָּתוּב, whence Bertheau erroneously infers that this Aramaean writing was written in other than the ordinary Aramaean, and perhaps in Hebrew characters.

This letter, too, of Bishlam and his companions seems to be omitted. There follows, indeed, in Ezr 4:8, etc., a letter to King Artachshasta, of which a copy is given in Ezr 4:11-16; but the names of the writers are different from those mentioned in Ezr 4:7. The three names, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel (Ezr 4:7), cannot be identified with the two names Rehum and Shimshai (Ezr 4:8). When we consider, however, that the writers named in Ezr 4:8 were high officials of the Persian king, sending to the monarch a written accusation against the Jews in their own and their associates' names, it requires but little stretch of the imagination to suppose that these personages were acting at the instance of the adversaries named in Ezr 4:7, the Samaritans Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and merely inditing the complaints raised by these opponents against the Jews. This view, which is not opposed by the כָּתַב of Ezr 4:7, - this word not necessarily implying an autograph, - commends itself to our acceptance, first, because the notion that the contents of this letter are not given finds no analogy in Ezr 4:6, where the contents of the letter to Ahashverosh are sufficiently hinted at by the word שִׂטְנָה; while, with regard to the letter of Ezr 4:7, we should have not a notion of its purport in case it were not the same which is given in Ezr 4:8, etc.

(Note: The weight of this argument is indirectly admitted by Ewald (Gesch. iv. p. 119) and Bertheau, inasmuch as both suppose that there is a long gap in the narrative, and regard the Aramaean letter mentioned in Ezr 4:7 to have been a petition, on the part of persons of consideration in the community at Jerusalem, to the new king, - two notions which immediately betray themselves to be the expedients of perplexity. The supposed “long gaps, which the chronicler might well leave even in transcribing from his documents” (Ew.), do not explain the abrupt commencement of Ezr 4:8. If a petition from the Jewish community to the king were spoken of in Ezr 4:7, the accusation against the Jews in Ezr 4:8 would certainly have been alluded to by at least a ו adversative, or some other adversative particle.)

Besides, the statement concerning the Aramaean composition of this letter would have been utterly purposeless if the Aramaean letter following in Ezr 4:8 had been an entirely different one. The information concerning the language in which the letter was written has obviously no other motive than to introduce its transcription in the original Aramaean. This conjecture becomes a certainty through the fact that the Aramaean letter follows in Ezr 4:8 without a copula of any kind. If any other had been intended, the ו copulative would not more have been omitted here than in Ezr 4:7. The letter itself, indeed, does not begin till Ezr 4:9, while Ezr 4:8 contains yet another announcement of it. This circumstance, however, is explained by the fact that the writers of the letters are other individuals than those named in Ezr 4:7, but chiefly by the consideration that the letter, together with the king's answer, being derived from an Aramaean account of the building of the temple, the introduction to the letter found therein was also transcribed.

Ezr 4:8

The writers of the letter are designated by titles which show them to have been among the higher functionaries of Artachshasta. Rehum is called טְעֵם בְּעֵל, dominus consilii v. decreti, by others consiliarius, royal counsellor, probably the title of the Persian civil governor (erroneously taken for a proper name in lxx, Syr., Arab.); Shimshai, סָֽפְרָא, the Hebrew סֹופֵר, scribe, secretary. כְּנֵמָא is interpreted by Rashi and Aben Ezra by כַּאֲשֶׁר נֶאֱמַר, as we shall say; נֵמָא is in the Talmud frequently an abbreviation of נֶאֱמַר or נִימַר, of like signification with לֵאמֹר: as follows.

Ezr 4:9-11

After this introduction we naturally look for the letter itself in Ezr 4:9, instead of which we have (Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10) a full statement of who were the senders; and then, after a parenthetical interpolation, “This is the copy of the letter,” etc., the letter itself in Ezr 4:11. The statement is rather a clumsy one, the construction especially exhibiting a want of sequence. The verb to אֱדַיִן is wanting; this follows in Ezr 4:11, but as an anacoluthon, after an enumeration of the names in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 with שְׁלַחוּ. The sentence ought properly to run thus: “Then (i.e., in the days of Artachshasta) Rehum, etc., sent a letter to King Artachshasta, of which the following is a copy: Thy servants, the men on this side the river,” etc. The names enumerated in Ezr 4:9 and Ezr 4:10 were undoubtedly all inserted in the superscription or preamble of the letter, to give weight to the accusation brought against the Jews. The author of the Chaldee section of the narrative, however, has placed them first, and made the copy of the letter itself begin only with the words, “Thy servants,” etc. First come the names of the superior officials, Rehum and Shimshai, and the rest of their companions. The latter are then separately enumerated: The Dinaites, lxx Δειναῖοι, - so named, according to the conjecture of Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 676), from the Median city long afterwards called Deinaver (Abulf. Geógr. ed. Paris. p. 414); the Apharsathchites, probably the Pharathiakites of Strabo (15:3. 12) (Παρητακηνοί, Herod. i. 101), on the borders of Persia and Media, described as being, together with the Elymaites, a predatory people relying on their mountain fastnesses; the Tarpelites, whom Junius already connects with the Τάπουροι dwelling east of Elymais (Ptol. vi. 2. 6); the Apharsites, probably the Persians (פרסיא with א prosthetic); the Archevites, probably so called from the city אֶרֶךְ, Gen 10:10, upon inscriptions Uruk, the modern Warka; the בַּבְלִיא, Babylonians, inhabitants of Babylon; the Shushanchites, i.e., the Susanites, inhabitants of the city of Susa; דֶּהָוֵא, in the Keri דְּהָיֵא, the Dehavites, the Grecians (Δάοι, Herod. i. 125); and lastly, the Elamites, the people of Elam or Elymais. Full as this enumeration may seem, yet the motive being to name as many races as possible, the addition, “and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnapper brought over and set in the city of Samaria, and the rest that are on this side the river,” etc., is made for the sake of enhancing the statement. Prominence being given both here and Ezr 4:17 to the city of Samaria as the city in which Osnapper had settled the colonists here named, the “nations brought in by Osnapper” must be identical with those who, according to Ezr 4:2, and 2Ki 17:24, had been placed in the cities of Samaria by King Esarhaddon. Hence Osnapper would seem to be merely another name for Esarhaddon. But the names Osnapper (lxx Ἀσσεναφάρ) and Asarhaddon (lxx Ἀσαραδάν) being too different to be identified, and the notion that Osnapper was a second name of Asarhaddon having but little probability, together with the circumstance that Osnapper is not called king, as Asarhaddon is Ezr 4:2, but only “the great and noble,” it is more likely that he was some high functionary of Asarhaddon, who presided over the settlement of eastern races in Samaria and the lands west of the Euphrates. “In the cities,” or at least the preposition בְ, must be supplied from the preceding בְּקִרְיָה before נַהֲרָה עֲבַר שְׁאָר: and in the rest of the territory, or in the cities of the rest of the territory, on this side of Euphrates. עֲבַר, trans, is to be understood of the countries west of Euphrates; matters being regarded from the point of view of the settlers, who had been transported from the territories east, to those west of Euphrates. וּכְעֶנֶת means “and so forth,” and hints that the statement is not complete.

On comparing the names of the nations here mentioned with the names of the cities from which, according to 2Ki 17:24, colonists were brought to Samaria, we find the inhabitants of most of the cities there named - Babylon, Cuthah, and Ava - here comprised under the name of the country as בַּבְלָיֵא, Babylonians; while the people of Hamath and Sepharvaim may fitly be included among “the rest of the nations,” since certainly but few colonists would have been transported from the Syrian Hamath to Samaria. The main divergence between the two passages arises from the mention in our present verse, not only of the nations planted in the cities of Samaria, but of all the nations in the great region on this side of Euphrates (נַהֲרָה עֲבַר). All these tribes had similar interests to defend in opposing the Jewish community, and they desired by united action to give greater force to their representation to the Persian monarch, and thus to hinder the people of Jerusalem from becoming powerful. And certainly they had some grounds for uneasiness lest the remnant of the Israelites in Palestine, and in other regions on this side the Euphrates, should combine with the Jerusalem community, and the thus united Israelites should become sufficiently powerful to oppose an effectual resistance to their heathen adversaries. On the anacoluthistic connection of Ezr 4:11. פַּרְשֶׁגֶן, Ezr 4:11, Ezr 4:23; Ezr 5:6; Ezr 7:11, and frequently in the Targums and the Syriac, written פַּתְשֶׁגֶן Est 3:14 and Est 4:8, is derived from the Zendish paiti (Sanscr. prati) and çenghana (in Old-Persian thanhana), and signifies properly a counterword, i.e., counterpart, copy. The form with ר is either a corruption, or formed from a compound with fra; comp. Gildemeister in the Zeitschr. für die Kunde des Morgenl. iv. p. 210, and Haug in Ewald's bibl. Jahrb. v. p. 163, etc. - The copy of the letter begins with עַבְדָּיךְ, thy servants, the men, etc. The Chethib עבדיךְ is the original form, shortened in the Keri into עַבְדָּךְ. Both forms occur elsewhere; comp. Dan 2:29; Dan 3:12, and other passages. The וכענת, etc., here stands for the full enumeration of the writers already given in Ezr 4:9, and also for the customary form of salutation.

Ezr 4:12-16

The letter. Ezr 4:12 “Be it known unto the king.” On the form לֶהֱוֵא for יֶהֱוְא, peculiar to biblical Chaldee, see remarks on Dan 2:20. “Which are come up from thee,” i.e., from the territory where thou art tarrying; in other words, from the country beyond Euphrates. This by no means leads to the inference, as Schrader supposes, that these Jews had been transported from Babylon to Jerusalem by King Artachshasta. מְלֵק answers to the Hebrew עָלָה, and is used like this of the journey to Jerusalem. “Are come to us, to Jerusalem,” עֲלֵינָא, to us, that is, into the parts where we dwell, is more precisely defined by the words “to Jerusalem.” “They are building the rebellious and bad city, and are setting up its walls and digging its foundations.” Instead of מָרָֽדְתָּא (with Kamets and Metheg under )ר the edition of J. H. Mich. has מָרַדְתָּא, answering to the stat. abs. מָרָדָא, Ezr 4:15; on the other hand, the edition of Norzi and several codices read מָרָֽדְתָּא, the feminine of מָרֹוד. For בִּאוּשְׁתָּא Norzi has בִאיֹשְׁתָּא, from בִּיֹשׁ, a contraction of בְּאִישׁ. For אשׁכללוּ must be read, according to the Keri, שַׁכְלִלוּ שׁוּרַיָּא. The Shaphel שַׁכְלֵל from כְּלַל, means to complete, to finish. אֻשִּׁין, bases, foundations. יָחִיטוּ may be the imperf. Aphel of חוּט, formed after the example of יַקִּים for יְקִים, omitting the reduplication, יָחִיט. חוּט means to sew, to sew together, and may, like רָפָא, be understood of repairing walls or foundations. But it is more likely to be the imperf. Aphel of חטט, in Syriac hat, and in the Talmud, to dig, to dig out, fodit, excavavit - to dig out the foundations for the purpose of erecting new buildings.

Ezr 4:13

“Now be it known unto the king, that if this city be built up and ... they will not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and it (the city) will at last bring damage to the king.” The three words מִנְדָּה בִלֹו וַהֲלָךְ occur again, Ezr 4:20 and Ezr 7:24, in this combination as designating the different kinds of imposts. מִנְדָּה, with resolved Dagesh forte, for מִדָּה (Ezr 4:20), signifies measure, then tax or custom measured to every one. בְּלֹו, probably a duty on consumption, excise; הֲלָךְ, a toll paid upon roads by travellers and their goods. The word אַפְּהֹם, which occurs only here, and has not been expressed by old translators, depends upon the Pehlevi word אודום: it is connected with the Sanscrit apa, in the superl. apama, and signifies at last, or in the future; comp. Haug, p. 156. מַלְכִים, a Hebraized form for מַלְכִין, Ezr 4:15, is perhaps only an error of transcription.

Ezr 4:14

“Now, because we eat the salt of the palace, and it does not become us to see the damage of the king, we send (this letter) and make known to the king.” מְלַח מְלַח, to salt salt = to eat salt. To eat the salt of the palace is a figurative expression for: to be in the king's pay. See this interpretation vindicated from the Syriac and Persian in Gesen. thes. p. 790.

(Note: Luther, in translating “all we who destroyed the temple,” follows the Rabbis, who, from the custom of scattering salt upon destroyed places, Jdg 9:45, understood these words as an expression figurative of destruction, and הֵיכְלָא as the temple.)

עַרְוָה, deprivation, emptying, here injury to the royal power or revenue. אֲרִיךְ, participle of אֲרַךְ, answering to the Hebrew עָרַךְ, means fitting, becoming.

Ezr 4:15

“That search may be made in the book of the chronicles of thy fathers, so shalt thou find in the book of the Chronicles that this city has been a rebellious city, and hurtful to kings and countries, and that they have from of old stirred up sedition within it, on which account this city was (also) destroyed.” יְבַקַּר is used impersonally: let one seek, let search be made. דָּכְרָנַיָּא סְפַר, book of records, is the public royal chronicle in which the chief events of the history of the realm were recorded, called Est 6:1 the book of the records of daily events. Thy fathers are the predecessors of the king, i.e., his predecessors in government; therefore not merely the Median and Persian, but the Chaldean and Assyrian kings, to whose dominions the Persian monarchs had succeeded. אֶשְׁתַּדּוּר, a verbal noun from the Ithpeal of שְׁדַר, rebellion. עָֽלְמָא יֹומָת מִן, from the days of eternity, i.e., from time immemorial. יֹומָת is in the constructive state, plural, formed from the singular יֹומָא. This form occurs only here and Ezr 4:19, but is analogous with the Hebrew poetical form יְמֹות for יָמִים.

Ezr 4:16

After thus casting suspicion upon the Jews as a seditious people, their adversaries bring the accusation, already raised at the beginning of the letter, to a climax, by saying that if Jerusalem is rebuilt and fortified, the king will lose his supremacy over the lands on this side the river. דְּנָה לָקְבֵל, on this account, for this reason, that the present inhabitants of the fortified city Jerusalem are like its former inhabitants, thou wilt have no portion west of Euphrates, i.e., thou wilt have nothing more to do with the countries on this side the river-wilt forfeit thy sway over these districts.

Ezr 4:17-22

The royal answer to this letter. פִּתְגָּמָא - a word which has also passed into the Hebrew, Ecc 8:11; Est 1:20 - is the Zend. patigama, properly that which is to take place, the decree, the sentence; see on Dan 3:16. עֲבַר וּשְׁאָר still depends upon בְּ: those dwelling in Samaria and the other towns on this side the river. The royal letter begins with וּכְעֶת שְׁלָם, “Peace,” and so forth. כְּעֶת is abbreviated from כְּעֶנֶת.

Ezr 4:18

“The letter which you sent to us has been plainly read before me.” מְפָרַשׁ part. pass. Peal, corresponds with the Hebrew part. Piel מְפֹרָשׁ, made plain, adverbially, plainly, and does not signify “translated into Persian.”

Ezr 4:19

“And by me a command has been given, and search has been made; and it has been found that this city from of old hath lifted itself (risen) up against kings,” etc. מִתְנַשֵּׁא, lifted itself up rebelliously, as (in Hebrew) in 1Ki 1:5.

Ezr 4:20

“There have been powerful kings in Jerusalem, and (rulers) exercising dominion over the whole region beyond the river” (westward of Euphrates). This applies in its full extent only to David and Solomon, and in a less degree to subsequent kings of Israel and Judah. On Ezr 4:20, comp. Ezr 4:13.

Ezr 4:21

“Give ye now commandment to hinder these people (to keep them from the work), that this city be not built until command (sc. to build) be given from me.” יִתְּשָׂם, Ithpeal of שׂוּם.

Ezr 4:22

“And be warned from committing an oversight in this respect,” i.e., take heed to overlook nothing in this matter (זָהִיר, instructed, warned). “Why should the damage become great (i.e., grow), to bring injury to kings?”

Ezr 4:23

The result of this royal command. As soon as the copy of the letter was read before Rehum and his associates, they went up in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and hindered them by violence and force. אֶדְרָע with א prosthetic only here, elsewhere דְּרָע (= זְרֹועַ), arm, violence. Bertheau translates, “with forces and a host;” but the rendering of אֶדְרָע or זְרֹועַ by “force” can neither be shown to be correct from Eze 17:9 and Dan 11:15, Dan 11:31, nor justified by the translation of the lxx, ἐν ἵπποις καὶ δυνάμει.