Text -- Ezra 5:1-13 (NET)

Tattenai Appeals to Darius

5:1 Then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied concerning the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. 5:2 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak began to rebuild the temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were with them, supporting them. 5:3 At that time Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues came to them and asked, “Who gave you authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?” 5:4 They also asked them, “What are the names of the men who are building this edifice?” 5:5 But God was watching over the elders of Judah, and they were not stopped until a report could be dispatched to Darius and a letter could be sent back concerning this. 5:6 This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and his colleagues who were the officials of Trans-Euphrates sent to King Darius. 5:7 The report they sent to him was written as follows: “To King Darius: All greetings! 5:8 Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the temple of the great God. It is being built with large stones, and timbers are being placed in the walls. This work is being done with all diligence and is prospering in their hands. 5:9 We inquired of those elders, asking them, ‘Who gave you the authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?’ 5:10 We also inquired of their names in order to inform you, so that we might write the names of the men who were their leaders. 5:11 They responded to us in the following way: ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the temple which was previously built many years ago. A great king of Israel built it and completed it. 5:12 But after our ancestors angered the God of heaven, he delivered them into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon. 5:13 But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon, King Cyrus enacted a decree to rebuild this temple of God.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Ezr 5:1

¹ tn Aram “son.” According to Zech 1:1 he was actually the grandson of Iddo.

² tn Aram “and Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo the prophet.”

³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:2

¹ tn Aram “arose and began.” For stylistic reasons this has been translated as a single concept.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:3

¹ tn Aram “who placed to you a command?” So also v. 9.

² tn The exact meaning of the Aramaic word אֻשַּׁרְנָא (’ussarna’) here and in v. 9 is uncertain (BDB 1083 s.v.). The LXX and Vulgate understand it to mean “wall.” Here it is used in collocation with בַּיְתָא (bayta’, “house” as the temple of God), while in 5:3, 9 it is used in parallelism with this term. It might be related to the Assyrian noun ashurru (“wall”) or ashru (“sanctuary”; so BDB). F. Rosenthal, who translates the word “furnishings,” thinks that it probably enters Aramaic from Persian (Grammar, 62-63, §189).

NET Notes: Ezr 5:4

¹ tc The translation reads with one medieval Hebrew MS, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta אֲמַרוּ (’amaru, “they said”) rather than the reading אֲמַרְנָא (’amarna’, “we said”) of the MT.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:5

¹ tn Aram “the eye of their God was on.” The idiom describes the attentive care that one exercises in behalf of the object of his concern.

² tn Aram “they did not stop them.”

³ tn Aram “[could] go.” On this form see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 58, §169.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:7

¹ tn Aram “and it was written in its midst.”

² tn Aram “all peace.”

NET Notes: Ezr 5:8

¹ tn Aram “stones of rolling.” The reference is apparently to stones too large to carry.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:11

¹ sn This great king of Israel would, of course, be Solomon.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:12

¹ tn Aram “fathers.”

² tn Aram “hand” (singular).

³ sn A reference to the catastrophic events of 586 b.c.

NET Notes: Ezr 5:13

¹ sn Cyrus was actually a Persian king, but when he conquered Babylon in 539 b.c. he apparently appropriated to himself the additional title “king of Babylon.” The Syriac Peshitta substitutes “Persia” for “Babylon” here, but this is probably a hyper-correction.