The king’s reply to the enemies
17 The king sent this reply:
To Rehum the commanding officer, Shimshai the secretary and the rest of their associates living in Samaria and elsewhere in Trans-Euphrates:
Greetings.
18 The letter you sent us has been read and translated in my presence. 19 I issued an order and a search was made, and it was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition. 20 Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them. 21 Now issue an order to these men to stop work, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order. 22 Be careful not to neglect this matter. Why let this threat grow, to the detriment of the royal interests?
23 As soon as the copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum and Shimshai the secretary and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them by force to stop.
24 Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
The letter of Artaxerxes quoted by Ezra indicates that the enemies of Judah were successful in blocking the work of rebuilding Jerusalem in the early years of Artaxerxes before the influence of Ezra and Nehemiah was felt at his court. Ezra uses this letter as an illustration of the methods that had been used by the enemies of Israel to block work on the temple 60 years earlier in the time of Zerubbabel. In the last sentence he alerts the reader that he is now returning to the second year of Darius I (520 B.C.) and resuming the narrative at the point from which he had temporarily digressed in order to introduce the correspondence of Artaxerxes. Ezra 4:6-23 is thus a parenthetical insertion; chronologically verse 24 follows immediately after verse 5.