Ezra 4:6–10

An example of the enemies’ lobbying

At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.

7 And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. The letter was written in Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language.

8 Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows:

9 Rehum the commanding officer and Shimshai the secretary, together with the rest of their associates—the judges and officials over the men from Tripolis, Persia, Erech and Babylon, the Elamites of Susa, 10and other people whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the city of Samaria and elsewhere in Trans-Euphrates.

The identities of the two Persian kings in this section have troubled commentators. Ezra chapter 4 clearly describes events that began in the reign of Cyrus. Ezra chapters 5 and 6 report events from the time of Darius I, around 520 B.C., when the building of the temple was completed. We know of no Persian kings named Xerxes or Artaxerxes who reigned between Cyrus and Darius, during the time of Zerubbabel.

Some commentators have tried to explain this difficulty by suggesting that Xerxes and Artaxerxes were alternate names for Cambyses and Pseudo-Smerdis, the kings who ruled between Cyrus and Darius. It is more likely that Ezra here introduces correspondence from a later time, which is nevertheless relevant here because it displays the same hostility shown by the earlier lobbyists in the time of Zerubbabel. Xerxes I was the husband of Esther, who ruled Persia from 486 to 465 B.C. Artaxerxes I (464–423 B.C.) was the king who authorized the returns led by Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra here uses a letter from his own time, which he had been able to obtain through his connections with the Persian court, as an example of the kind of tactics that had been used by Judah’s enemies from the days of Zerubbabel to his own time 60 years later. This interpretation is supported by the fact that this letter refers to the building of the city walls, which was the issue during Ezra’s day, rather than to the building of the temple, which was the issue in the time of Zerubbabel.