4:8 Rehum the commander 1 and Shimshai the scribe 2 wrote a letter concerning 3 Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:
“To King Artaxerxes, 4 from your servants in 5 Trans-Euphrates:
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.
1 tn Aram “lord of the command.” So also in vv. 9, 17.
2 sn Like Rehum, Shimshai was apparently a fairly high-ranking official charged with overseeing Persian interests in this part of the empire. His title was “scribe” or “secretary,” but in a more elevated political sense than that word sometimes has elsewhere. American governmental titles such as “Secretary of State” perhaps provide an analogy in that the word “secretary” can have a broad range of meaning.
3 tn Or perhaps “against.”
4 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.
5 tn Aram “men of.”