Ezra 4:1

4:1-5 Every attempt to revive true religion will stir up the opposition of Satan, and of those in whom he works. The adversaries were the Samaritans, who had been planted in the land of Israel, 2Ki 17. It was plain that they did not mean to unite in the worship of the Lord, according to his word. Let those who discourage a good work, and weaken them that are employed in it, see whose pattern they follow.

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin,.... The Samaritans, as appears from Ezra 4:2 , heard that the children of the captivity; the Jews, who had been in captivity seventy years, and were just come out of it, and still were not quite free, but under the jurisdiction and control of the king of Persia: builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; that they were going about it, and had laid the foundation of it, which might soon come to their ears, the distance not being very great. Josephus (c) says they heard the sound of the trumpets, and came to know the meaning of it. (c) Antiqu. l. 11. c. 4. sect. 3.

Ezra BUILDING IN TROUBLOUS TIMESEzra 4:1 - Ezra 4:5 . Opposition began as soon as the foundations were laid, as is usually the case with all great attempts to build God’s house. It came from the Samaritans, the mingled people who were partly descendants of the ancient remnant of the northern kingdom, left behind after the removal by deportation of the bulk of its population, and partly the descendants of successive layers of immigrants, planted in the empty territory by successive Assyrian and Babylonian kings. Esar-haddon was the first who had sent colonists, about one hundred and thirty years before the return. The writer calls the Samaritans ‘the adversaries,’ though they began by offers of friendship and alliance. The name implies that these offers were perfidious, and a move in the struggle. One can easily understand that the Samaritans looked with suspicion on the new arrivals, the ancient possessors of the land, coming under the auspices of the new dynasty, and likely to interfere with their position if not reduced to inferiority or neutralised somehow. The proposal to unite in building the Temple was a political move; for, in old-world ideas, co-operation in Temple-building was incorporation in national unity. The calculation, no doubt, was that if the returning exiles could be united with the much more numerous Samaritans, they would soon be absorbed in them. The only chance for the smaller body was to keep itself apart, and to run the risk of its isolation.

The insincere request was based on an untruth, for the Samaritans did not worship Jehovah as the Jews, but along with their own gods { 2 Kings 17:25 - 2 Kings 17:41 }. To divide His dominion with others was to dethrone Him altogether. It therefore became an act of faithfulness to Jehovah to reject the entangling alliance. To have accepted it would have been tantamount to frustrating the very purpose of the return, and consenting to be muzzled about the sin of idolatry. But the chief lesson which exile had burned in on the Jewish mind was a loathing of idolatry, which is in remarkable contrast to the inclination to it that had marked their previous history. So one answer only was possible, and it was given with unwelcome plainness of speech, which might have been more courteous, and not less firm. It flatly denied any common ground; it claimed exclusive relation to ‘our God,’ which meant, ‘not yours’; it underscored the claim by reiterating that Jehovah was the ‘God of Israel’; it put forward the decree of Cyrus, as leaving no option but to confine the builders to the people whom it had empowered to build. Now, it is easy to represent this as a piece of impolitic narrowness, and to say that its surly bigotry was rightly punished by the evils that it brought down on the returning exiles.

Ezra 4:1 . Now when the adversaries of Judah, &c. — The Samaritans, the relics of the ten tribes, and foreigners that had joined themselves to them, and patched up that mongrel religion of which we had an account 2 Kings 17:33 , where it is said, They feared the Lord, and served their own gods. They are called the people of the land, Ezra 4:4 . Thus, the worst enemies that Judah and Benjamin had were those that said they were Jews, and were not.

Verse 1. - The adversaries . Notwithstanding the friendly guise in which they came, the historian sees from the first that the Samaritans are in reality "adversaries," or "persecutors" ( tsazey ), identical in spirit with Sanballat and his followers, whom Nehemiah designates by the same word ( Ezra 4:11 ). Ezra 4:1

Now when {a} the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel; (a) Meaning, the inhabitants of Samaria, whom the king of Assyria had placed in the place of the ten tribes, 2Ki 17:24,19:37. They professed God but worshipped idols and therefore were the greatest enemies to the true servants of God.

CHAPTER 4 Ezr 4:1-6. The Building Hindered. 1. the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin—that is, strangers settled in the land of Israel.The adversaries, being not accepted in the building of the temple with the Jews, endeavour to hinder it, Ezra 4:1-6. Their false and malicious letter to Artaxerxes, Ezra 4:7-16. Artexerxes’s decree: the building is hindered, Ezra 4:17-24. The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin; the Samaritans, as appears from Ezra 4:2,10.