Ezra 4:4














Whatever drops of neighbourly kindness there may have been in the cup of friendship offered by the Samaritans to "the children of the captivity," these, on the refusal of Zerubbabel to enter into alliance with them, turned into bitterest animosity. Thenceforward they "breathed threatening" and made opposition to those whom they had courted. We have illustration or suggestion here of the character and outworkings of human hatred.

I. ITS BLINDNESS. Like all cruelty, and indeed like all sin, "it knew not what it did." It thought it was only indulging in a natural and proper resentment; in truth it was lifting up its hand against the people of God, and was doing its best (which was indeed its worst) to undermine and bring to nought the good work of God. Anger is always blind. It does not see its own hideousness; nor does it perceive the end of its doing. Its eye is darkened or discoloured, and its hand is a suicidal, a self-injuring hand.

II. ITS DELIBERATENESS. These men deliberately set themselves to undo what their neighbours had begun. No mere outflash of indignation theirs, but deep, steady, well-cherished purpose to be avenged. Nothing was left undone, no stone unturned, that these new-comers might feel the full weight of their wrath. They found means to hinder them in their work, and they got up all the evidence they could collect of past excitements and disturbances in Jerusalem, and "hired counsellors" to represent them at the court of Babylon (ver. 5), that they might frustrate and overthrow the purpose of Israel. There is no more painful-sight in this world, and no more saddening evidence and consequence of sin, than the fact of men cherishing and nursing a rancorous hatred in their hearts against their fellows, and plotting and scheming, month after month, to do them injury, to break their schemes, to disappoint their hopes.

III. THE MISCHIEF WHICH IT WORKS (ver. 4). These angry interferers had all too much success. They did weaken the hands of those whom they sought to hinder; "they troubled them in building;" they succeeded in gaining the ear and winning the support of Cyrus, and ultimately they caused the work of building the temple to cease. There is a prevalent belief that persecution defeats its own ends - and this is true. We say that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" - and often it is. The fires it lights are often, if not always, purifying, cleansing the gold of its dross, and making the vessels of the Lord more "meet for the Master's use." Yet, on the other hand, it often works most serious mischief to the Church and the world, from which they painfully and only gradually recover. History shows that human rage against the truth and cause of God has done injury on a large scale, and doubtless it is continually making its evil power felt on a small one: it is "weakening the hands" (ver. 4) of the people of God; it is troubling them in building up his kingdom; it is causing "the work to cease; it is "hindering the gospel." This instance of unrighteous anger, like all other illustrations of it, reminds us of -

IV. ITS ESSENTIAL UNNATURALNESS. No doubt it seemed natural enough to these Samaritans to indulge in this bitter wrath and to take these vindictive measures. One of the greatest of the Romans, writing only a few years before Christ, declared that "war was the natural relation between neighbouring nations." But how really and essentially unnatural it is for one human heart, made to be the home of love and kindness and compassion, made to be the spring and source of beneficence and generosity, to be harbouring hatreds, to be finding pleasure in another's pain, to be rejoicing in the humiliation and disappointment of another human heart! What blank contradiction to the will of our Creator! What a wretched departure from his design! How utterly unbeautiful, how infinitely repugnant to his eye! - C.

Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah.
I. THE TACTICS OF THE WICKED. If they cannot bend the good to their wishes and aims by plausible pretences, they alter their tactics and betake themselves to unscrupulous opposition in various forms.

II. THE VENALITY OF THE WICKED. The Samaritans "hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purposes." It is reasonable to infer that these counsellors were men of some skill and resource and power of persuasion who deliberately exercised their abilities in an evil cause for gain.

III. THE TEMPORARY TRIUMPH OF THE WICKED.

IV. THE FREEDOM ALLOWED BY GOD TO THE WICKED.

(William Jones.)

This antagonism as here illustrated is —

I.PERSISTENT.

II.AUTHORITATIVE.

III.COMBINED.

IV.UNSCRUPULOUS.

V.PLAUSIBLE.

1. In their profession of loyalty to the king.

2. In their presentation of proof of their assertions.

(J. Parker, D. D).

People
Ahasuerus, Apharesattechites, Apharesites, Apharsathchites, Apharsites, Archevites, Artaxerxes, Asnapper, Babylonians, Benjamin, Bishlam, Cyrus, Darius, Dehaites, Dehavites, Dehites, Dianites, Dinaites, Dinites, Elamites, Esarhaddon, Jeshua, Mithredath, Persians, Rehum, Shimshai, Shushanchites, Tabeel, Tarpelites, Zerubbabel
Places
Assyria, Beyond the River, Erech, Jerusalem, Persia, Samaria, Susa
Topics
Afraid, Build, Building, Discourage, Discouraged, Fear, Feeble, Frightened, Hands, Harried, Judah, Making, Pass, Troubled, Troubling, Weakened
Outline
1. The adversaries, being not accepted in the building of the temple with the Jews,
4. endeavor to hinder it
7. Their letter to Artaxerxes
17. The answer and decree of Artaxerxes
23. The building is hindered

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezra 4:4

     8713   discouragement
     8754   fear
     8796   persecution, forms of

Ezra 4:1-5

     7560   Samaritans, the

Ezra 4:1-8

     7515   anti-semitism

Ezra 4:4-5

     5917   plans
     8787   opposition, to God

Ezra 4:4-6

     7240   Jerusalem, history
     8728   enemies, of Israel and Judah

Library
Building in Troublous Times
'Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto Him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Original Text and Its History.
1. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, with the exception of certain portions of Ezra and Daniel and a single verse of Jeremiah, (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4, from the middle of the verse to end of chap. 7; Jer. 10:11,) which are written in the cognate Chaldee language. The Hebrew belongs to a stock of related languages commonly called Shemitic, because spoken mainly by the descendants of Shem. Its main divisions are: (1,) the Arabic, having its original seat in the
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Last Days of the Old Eastern World
The Median wars--The last native dynasties of Egypt--The Eastern world on the eve of the Macedonian conquest. [Drawn by Boudier, from one of the sarcophagi of Sidon, now in the Museum of St. Irene. The vignette, which is by Faucher-Gudin, represents the sitting cyno-cephalus of Nectanebo I., now in the Egyptian Museum at the Vatican.] Darius appears to have formed this project of conquest immediately after his first victories, when his initial attempts to institute satrapies had taught him not
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 9

A Reformer's Schooling
'The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, 2. That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 3. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Historical Books.
1. In the Pentateuch we have the establishment of the Theocracy, with the preparatory and accompanying history pertaining to it. The province of the historical books is to unfold its practiced working, and to show how, under the divine superintendence and guidance, it accomplished the end for which it was given. They contain, therefore, primarily, a history of God's dealings with the covenant people under the economy which he had imposed upon them. They look at the course of human events on the
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Travelling in Palestine --Roads, Inns, Hospitality, Custom-House Officers, Taxation, Publicans
It was the very busiest road in Palestine, on which the publican Levi Matthew sat at the receipt of "custom," when our Lord called him to the fellowship of the Gospel, and he then made that great feast to which he invited his fellow-publicans, that they also might see and hear Him in Whom he had found life and peace (Luke 5:29). For, it was the only truly international road of all those which passed through Palestine; indeed, it formed one of the great highways of the world's commerce. At the time
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Influences that Gave Rise to the Priestly Laws and Histories
[Sidenote: Influences in the exile that produced written ceremonial laws] The Babylonian exile gave a great opportunity and incentive to the further development of written law. While the temple stood, the ceremonial rites and customs received constant illustration, and were transmitted directly from father to son in the priestly families. Hence, there was little need of writing them down. But when most of the priests were carried captive to Babylonia, as in 597 B.C., and ten years later the temple
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' Exod 20: 16. THE tongue which at first was made to be an organ of God's praise, is now become an instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good behaviour. God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth and lips; and this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should not break forth into evil. It has a prohibitory and a mandatory part: the first is set down in plain words, the other
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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