Ezra 4:14

4:6-24 It is an old slander, that the prosperity of the church would be hurtful to kings and princes. Nothing can be more false, for true godliness teaches us to honour and obey our sovereign. But where the command of God requires one thing and the law of the land another, we must obey God rather than man, and patiently submit to the consequences. All who love the gospel should avoid all appearance of evil, lest they should encourage the adversaries of the church. The world is ever ready to believe any accusation against the people of God, and refuses to listen to them. The king suffered himself to be imposed upon by these frauds and falsehoods. Princes see and hear with other men's eyes and ears, and judge things as represented to them, which are often done falsely. But God's judgment is just; he sees things as they are.

Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace,.... Have posts under the king, to which salaries were annexed, by which they were supported, and which they had from the king's exchequer; or "salt" (o), as in the original, some places of honour and trust formerly being paid in salt; hence, as Pliny (p) observes, such honours and rewards were called "salaries": and it was not meet for us to see the king's dishonour; to see any thing done injurious to his crown and dignity, to his honour and revenues, when we are supported by him; this would be ungrateful as well as unjust: therefore have we sent and certified the king; of the truth of what is before related; and, for the further confirmation of it, refer him to the ancient records of the kingdom, as follows. (o) "salem vel sale", Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis. (p) Nat. Hist. l. 31. c. 7.

Ezra 4:14 . Now because we have maintenance from the king’s palace — In the Hebrew it is, we are salted with the salt of the palace. That is, are sustained by the king’s munificence, or have a salary from him, as Junius translates it. In ancient times, it appears, it was usual to allow those who had deserved well, and on that account were honourably provided for at the king’s charge, among other things, a daily quantity of salt; it being a thing very necessary in human life. Locke, however, who translates the clause, we have eaten of the king’s salt, understands the meaning to be, “We have engaged ourselves in a covenant of friendship with him.” It was not meet for us to see the king’s dishonour — Thus they represent themselves as very loyal to the government, and mightily concerned for the honour and interest of it; and hence they urge the king to put a stop to the building of the city and temple of Jerusalem, as what would certainly be to his loss and dishonour.

Verse 14. - We have maintenance from the king's palace . The marginal rendering is better, and shows the true sense. "Eating a man's salt" in the East is deriving one's subsistence from him. The man who eats another's salt is bound to look after his interests . It was not meet for us to see the king's dishonour. Rather, "the king's detriment or loss" - it was not meet for us to stand by tamely and see the king stript of his due. Ezra 4:14

We have maintenance - See the margin. The phrase "to eat a man's salt" is common in the East to this day; and is applied not only to those who receive salaries, but to all who obtain their subsistence by means of another. The Persian satraps had no salaries, but taxed their provinces for the support of themselves and their courts.

14 . have maintenance from the king’s palace ] R.V. eat the salt of the palace ; which preserves the metaphor of the original. The LXX. omitted the clause: Vulg. ‘memores salis, quod in palatio comedimus’: 1Es 2:20 , ‘forasmuch as the things pertaining to the Temple are now on hand’, which substitutes a different sentence for one that was not intelligible. The old Jewish translation ‘because we aforetime destroyed the Temple’, adopted by many former commentators (cf. Luther, ‘Nun wir alle dabei sind, die wir den Tempel zerstöret haben’), seems to have been based upon the old symbolical custom of ‘sowing with salt’ the site of a town or place that had been destroyed, e.g. Jdg 9:45 , and upon the idea of unfruitfulness associated with salt (cf. ‘a salt land and not inhabited’, Jeremiah 17:6 ; Deuteronomy 29:23 ; Zephaniah 2:9 ; cf. Heb. Job 39:6 ; Psalm 107:34 ). Others, with the same conception, ‘we have salted (Jerusalem) with the salt of the palace’, i.e. assisted the Imperial armies in its destruction. ‘The palace’ in the original is the same word (‘heycâl’) as that used for ‘the temple’ in Ezra 3:6 , Ezra 5:14 . The ambiguity of this word and the use of a rare metaphor has given rise to the difficulty of translation. Literally, the words mean ‘because we have salted the palace’s salt’.

The explanation then will be not, as has been suggested, ‘because we have been entertained (guest friends, i.e. are the king’s friends), at the palace’, but ‘because we are in the king’s service’. The writers as representatives of colonies and dependent districts were very probably officials, and therefore members of the great network of Persian government. The English word ‘salary’ from salarium or salt-money is generally compared with this phrase. and it was not meet ] R.V. and it is not meet . dishonour ] literally ‘nakedness’. A strong metaphor, which the LXX. ἀσχημοσύνη reproduces. Cf. Leviticus 18:7 , &c. The order is emphatic, ‘and the shame of the king it is not meet for us to see’. The Vulg. ‘læsiones’ gives the technical Latin word for ‘damage’ in a general sense.

"Now, because we eat the salt of the palace, and it does not become us to see the damage of the king, we send (this letter) and make known to the king." מלח מלח, to salt salt equals to eat salt. To eat the salt of the palace is a figurative expression for: to be in the king's pay. See this interpretation vindicated from the Syriac and Persian in Gesen. thes. p. 790. (Note: Luther, in translating "all we who destroyed the temple," follows the Rabbis, who, from the custom of scattering salt upon destroyed places, Judges 9:45, understood these words as an expression figurative of destruction, and היכלא as the temple.) ערוה, deprivation, emptying, here injury to the royal power or revenue. אריך, participle of ארך, answering to the Hebrew ערך, means fitting, becoming.