Ezra 4:10, commentary and pictures

The verse names the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the territory on this side, west of and beyond the Euphrates. Asnappar is an Assyrian ruler and king, identified as Ashurbanipal or Assur-bani-pal. After Sargon carried the ten tribes captive, men from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim were settled in Samaria instead of the children of Israel, and Esar-haddon afterward transported several other peoples there, increasing the mixed foreign population from which the Samaritans came. Those settlers and their descendants became the mixed, semi-idolatrous Samaritan people, hostile neighbors to the north of the returned Jews, who though they claimed in some measure to fear Jehovah were heathen. The verse belongs to the record of those Samaritan and neighboring adversaries opposing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem after the return from Babylon, whose letter to Smerdis the impostor identified as the Artaxerxes of Ezra 4:7-23 succeeded so that the king ordered the work stopped by force.

Peoples Settled in Samaria

The verse names the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Asnappar brought over and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the territory on this side of the river, west of and beyond the Euphrates. These settlers are placed among the king's subjects who opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, as enemies who first sought to join the work and after being refused hindered it. They formed part of the mixed Samaritan people who opposed Israel in rebuilding, and their settlement is placed in the history of the northern kingdom's displacement and the peopling of Samaria. The letter to which the verse belongs was sent during the reign of Artaxerxes, identified as Gomates the false Smerdis, the impostor, whose accession gave the Samaritans opportunity to oppose the rebuilding and whose trouble stopped the work. Asnappar is an Assyrian ruler and king, identified as Ashurbanipal or Assur-bani-pal, called Osnappar in the Revised Version.

The Elamites were among the peoples moved by Asnappar and placed in Samaria after he laid waste the districts of Elam, pouring destruction, servitude and drought over them. He captured the families of the kings of Elam, governors and citizens, commanders, archers, officers and whole army with men and women small and great and horses, mules, asses, oxen and sheep and carried them to Assyria, and swept Elam to its utmost extent. This devastation, deportation and resettlement was the Assyrian idea of conquest, done to prevent future trouble from nationalistic aspirations. To re-people Samaria after Sargon of Assyria carried the ten tribes captive, men from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim were settled in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. Sargon also transported some Arabians there, and Esar-haddon afterward transported several other peoples there, increasing the mixed foreign population from which the Samaritans came.

The settlers and their descendants became the mixed, semi-idolatrous Samaritan people and mixed races. They were hostile neighbors to the north of the returned Jews together with the Edomites on the southeast, surrounding Israel. Though they claimed in some measure to fear Jehovah and offered to help build the temple, they were heathen, and Zerubbabel and the leaders of Israel refused their help. Their descendants became the Samaritans who opposed the Jews when they built the temple under Zerubbabel and Ezra, and whose conflict with the Jews fostered mutual hostility.

Opposition to Rebuilding Temple

Ezra 4:10 belongs to the record of the Samaritan and neighboring adversaries of Judah and Benjamin opposing the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem and the re-establishing of worship after the return from Babylon. The adversaries acted in the name of the king of Persia, and the chapter records their appeal to Persian rulers to stop the work on Jerusalem and its temple. The peoples brought by Asnappar and settled in Samaria and the surrounding territory are identified as these enemies.

The adversaries first sought to join in rebuilding the temple with Zerubbabel and Jeshua or Joshua and the leaders of Israel. Though they claimed in some measure to fear Jehovah, they were heathen, and their offer to help build was refused. After refusal they tried to hinder the work, thwart it, and discourage the people, including slandering the Jews to rulers. The people of the land thus opposed the Jews' work after their offer to help was refused.

After refusal they hired counselors against the Jews at the Persian court all the time of Cyrus and Cambyses, sought influence there, appealed to Persian rulers, and slandered and misrepresented the Jews as rebellious. Enemies complained that the Jews would rebel once the city was walled. The neighboring inhabitants of Palestine joined in writing to the reigning king of Persia, a quite different man from Cyrus, misrepresenting the Jews as rebellious until he sent an order to discontinue the work. Misrepresentations by the Samaritans and others thus secured a royal order halting the work.

The letter to which the verse belongs was sent to Smerdis the impostor, identified as the Artaxerxes of Ezra 4:7-23, the pseudo-Smerdis, Gomates the false Smerdis, or Artaxerxes the Magian in 522 B.C. The verse identifies peoples brought into Samaria by Asnappar as part of that account, naming nations Asnappar had brought into the region and settled in the cities of Samaria and elsewhere west of the Euphrates. His accession gave the Samaritans an opportunity to oppose the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple. This interruption followed Cyrus's limited decree for the temple and preceded the later decrees that enabled Jerusalem's fuller restoration.

The accusation succeeded and the king ordered the work stopped, which the Samaritans enforced by force, so the building was halted and the restoration work stopped. An appeal to the Persian king led to a decree stopping it after the Samaritans and other enemies tried to thwart the work and discourage the people. In one account they failed with Cyrus and Cambyses but succeeded under the impostor Smerdis in obtaining a decree stopping the work at Jerusalem, so it ceased about two years until the second year of Darius Hystaspes, B.C. 520, after the return from Babylon in B.C. 535. In another account misrepresentations secured the royal order about fifteen years after the return from Babylon, when the temple was still in the condition of its foundation-laying with its joyous services, delaying the work for fifteen years and leaving it halted until the second year of Darius. In another account the enemies' complaint stopped the work for a time, the decree of Cyrus was later found, and the work was allowed to proceed under Darius II.

At the stirring up of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the Jews began to build again after being urged to return to it. The Samaritans tried again to stop them, but a new and honest governor sent Darius an honest account, a search of government records confirmed the earlier authorization, and Darius decreed not only that the work should go on but that it should be speedily helped with money from the king's tribute and with bullocks, rams and lambs, wheat, salt, wine and oil, all that was needed at Jerusalem. The adversaries had sought influence at the Persian court, causing the Jews to stop until Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to them. The powerful adversaries faced a people with very limited resources, so completing the work seemed impossible by human strength alone. This opposition is identified as one of the powers that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem, and thus began an enmity between the two peoples that never was quenched but grew more bitter with age and fostered mutual hostility.

Prophecy and Practical Lessons

Ezra 4 stands alongside Ezra 7 when the question is which Persian decree began Daniel's seventy weeks. The decree connected with Ezra 4 is the alternative, associated with Cyrus or Darius and with their decrees, while the decree of Artaxerxes in Ezra 7 is the starting point of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24. This letter belongs to the time of trouble in which the Jews were restoring Jerusalem and the temple, and amid that trouble God's promises of protection and peace appeared extraordinary.

The letter carried misrepresentation of the Jews as rebellious until the reigning Persian king, a quite different man from Cyrus, sent an order to discontinue the work when the temple, about fifteen years after the return from Babylon, was still only at its foundation-laying. That royal command looked like an excellent reason and a good excuse, and at first made continuing seem impossible. It was taken as an indication that God did not wish the temple to be built then, but opposing circumstances are not a sure sign from God to relinquish an unpleasant undertaking, for God does not always make the path of duty smooth. No earthly king can prevent work God favors, and the Jews could have written to the king contradicting the slander, so the order was not sufficient reason to stop.

The delay also came because the Jews had become more interested in building beautiful houses for themselves, luxuriously finished, and in cultivating their fields and vineyards. God showed those reasons were not sufficient in His sight by sending Haggai to reprove them and by allowing drought and pestilence to show His displeasure that His house lay in ruins while their own homes were finished. The account belongs to the biblical history of the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, a period considered alongside Babylonian and Assyrian records. Beside those records the archaeological evidence is fragmentary and uncertain, while the Bible's testimony is clearer and more consistent.