Ezra 4:11

4:11 (This is a copy of the letter they sent to him:)

“To King Artaxerxes, ¹  from your servants in ²  Trans-Euphrates:

Ezra 4:14

4:14 In light of the fact that we are loyal to the king, ³  and since it does not seem appropriate to us that the king should sustain damage, ⁴  we are sending the king this information ⁵ 

Ezra 4:16

4:16 We therefore are informing the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, you will not retain control ⁶  of this portion of Trans-Euphrates.”

Ezra 5:5

5:5 But God was watching over ⁷  the elders of Judah, and they were not stopped ⁸  until a report could be dispatched ⁹  to Darius and a letter could be sent back concerning this.

Ezra 5:13

5:13 But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon, ¹⁰  King Cyrus enacted a decree to rebuild this temple of God.

Ezra 6:15-16

6:15 They finished this temple on the third day of the month Adar, which is the sixth ¹¹  year of the reign of King Darius.

6:16 The people ¹²  of Israel – the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles ¹³  – observed the dedication of this temple of God with joy.

¹ tn The Masoretic accents indicate that the phrase “to Artaxerxes the king” goes with what precedes and that the letter begins with the words “from your servants.” But it seems better to understand the letter to begin by identifying the addressee.

² tn Aram “men of.”

³ tn Aram “we eat the salt of the palace.”

⁴ tn Aram “the dishonor of the king is not fitting for us to see.”

⁵ tn Aram “and we have made known.”

⁵ tn Aram “will not be to you.”

⁷ 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.

⁸ tn Aram “they did not stop them.”

⁹ tn Aram “[could] go.” On this form see F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 58, §169.

⁹ 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.

¹¹ sn The sixth year of the reign of Darius would be ca. 516 B.C.

¹³ tn Aram “sons of.”

¹⁴ tn Aram “sons of the exile.”