Ezra 3

3:1 AND when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. And they set the altar upon its base; for fear was upon them because of the people of the countries: and they offered burnt offerings

4 thereon unto the LORD, even burnt offerings morning and evening. And they kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required; and afterward the continual burnt offering, and the offerings of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the LORD. From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the LORD: but the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid. They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, unto Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia. 8 Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem; and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of the house of the LORD. Then stood Jeshua with his sons and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together, to have the oversight of the workmen in the house of God: the sons of Henadad, with their sons and their brethren the Levites. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise the LORD, after the order of David king of Israel. And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD, saying, For he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, the old men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.

4:1 Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded a temple unto the LORD, the God of Israel; then they drew near to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of fathers’ houses, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD, the God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us. Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. 7 And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian character, and set forth in the Syrian tongue. Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort: then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions; the Dinaites, and the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Shushanchites, the Dehaites, the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar brought over, and set in the city of Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the river, and so forth. This is the copy of the letter that they sent unto Artaxerxes the king; Thy servants the men beyond the river, and so forth. Be it known unto the king, that the Jews which came up from thee are come to us unto Jerusalem; they are building the rebellious and the bad city, and have finished the walls, and repaired the foundations. Be it known now unto the king, that, if this city be built, and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toil, and in the end it will endamage the kings. Now because we eat the salt of the palace, and it is not meet for us to see the king’s dishonour, therefore have we sent and certified the king; that search may be made in the book of the records of thy fathers: so shalt thou find in the book of the records, and know that this city is a rebellious city, and hurtful unto kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition within the same of old time; for which cause was this city laid waste. We certify the king that, if this city be built, and the walls finished, by this means thou shalt have no portion beyond the river. Then sent the king an answer unto Rehum the chancellor and to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their companions that dwell in Samaria, and in the rest of the country beyond the river, Peace, and so forth. The letter which ye sent unto us hath been plainly read before me. And I decreed, and search hath been made, and it is found that this city of old time hath made insurrection against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have 20 been made therein. There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, which have ruled over all the country beyond the river; and tribute, custom, and toll, was paid unto them. 21 Make ye now a decree to cause these men to cease, and that this city be not builded, until a 22 decree shall be made by me. And take heed that ye be not slack herein: why should 23 damage grow to the hurt of the kings? Then when the copy of king Artaxerxes’ letter was read before Rehum, and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went in haste to 24 Jerusalem unto the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power. Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

3:1-4. Before the rebuilding of the Temple itself was set about, in the second year after the Return, in the seventh month of the first year, at the general assembly for Divine service, the altar for the burnt offering was re-erected, in order to offer thereon the daily morning and evening sacrifice. The Feast of Tabernacles also was reinstituted. The returned captives acted wisely in so doing. The worship of God Himself, and the obtaining of His blessing thereby, are the chief matter. Besides, the Feast of Tabernacles was especially a joyful solemnity, the cheerfulness of which took its peculiar character from the new, earnest task which the people had then in hand. C. G. B. —The site was the old one, where the first Temple had stood. Gathering at Jerusalem, probably at the end of the sixth month (end of August or beginning of September), the first and in some sense the most important part of the work was accomplished on the first day of the seventh month. The ruins and rubbish having been cleared away, the altar of burnt offering was once more reared on the old foundations (Ezra 3:3). Thenceforward the daily morn- ing and evening and the festive sacrifices were duly and regularly offered. A. E.

1. The seventh month.** It was still the first year of Cyrus; for it was before the founding of the Temple, the second month of his second year (verses 6, 8). It follows that the proclamation of Cyrus must have been is- sued early in the year, and then the start for Judea very promptly made. This has no force against the view that the biblical first year of Cyrus is 538 n.c.; for Cyrus had been on the throne at Babylon several months of the year preceding his “first year,” so that there was time enough for all these transactions. In the cities. Doubtless the cities they occu- pied were largely those named in the list in chap. 2. As the land had been lying desolate, the cities must have been in an uninhabited and ruinous condition. But it would not take long for the settlers who went to each city to estab- lish dwellings of some sort. W. J. B.

The people gathered themselves together as one man. Work to be well done must be done by one man, or as if it were done by one man. Whether there be one man or many men, there must be one heart and one mind to the work in hand, or that work will not go forward as it ought to. There is no safety in divided counsels, in disagreement in action. All must come together in opinion, and finally act together—as one man. This is as true now as in the days of Ezra. H. C. T.

2. Jeshua the son of Jozadak.** Jeshua was now high-priest (Hag. 1:1; Zech. 3:1). He was the son of Jehozadak, Jozadak, or Josedech, who was carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar (1 Chron. 6:15). Zerub- babel the son of Shealtiel. Zerubbabel was really the son of Podaiah, Shealtiel’s (or Salathiel’s) younger brother. But Shealtiel having no sons, and the royal line being con- tinued in the person of his nephew, Zerubbabel, the latter was accounted Shealtiel’s son. B. C. —Jeshua, or Joshua, and Zerubbabel. In verse 2 the ecclesiastical dignitary comes first, but in verse 8 the civil. Similarly, in Ezra 2:2 Zerubbabel precedes Jeshua. In Haggai, the priest is pre-eminent; in Zechariah, the prince. The truth seems to be that each was supreme in his own department, and that they understood each other cordially, or, Zechariah says, “the counsel of peace” was “between them both.” A. M.

Zerubbabel and the “Book of Moses,” verses 2, 4.

Did Zerubbabel promulgate, as binding upon the nation, all the multitudinous precepts con- stituting “the Mosaic laws,” which occupy eleven chapters of Exodus, and almost the whole of Leviticus and Numbers? It is main- tained that he did not. It is maintained, in- deed, that the greater part of these precepts, of these books, was not yet in existence. The Babylonian priests, we are told, and especially Ezra, composed them in Babylon, between the time of Zerubbabel’s departure and Ezra’s ar- rival in Palestine. But then, we ask, what is meant by the statement that Zerubbabel “build- ed the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God” (Ezra 3:2)—what, again, by the declaration, that “they kept the Feast of Tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required” (ibid., verse 4)? What is this but an allusion to Num. 28:11-15, and a statement that Zerubbabel followed exactly the directions therein contained? Further, what is meant by the assertion, that “they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses?” Does not this allude to Num. 8:9-15? Clearly we are intended to understand that Zerubbabel guided himself in religious matters by a “book,” a book which he regarded as containing “the law of Moses”—and this book comprised directions which are only found in Numbers. But this is exactly the part of the law which it is said was not yet written. Thus Kuenen’s view contradicts at least two passages of Ezra, and is consequently untenable. We must regard Zerubbabel as in possession of a book of the law, which certainly comprised Numbers, and if so, probably all the “priestly ordinances;” and which therefore probably was the Pentateuch. G. R.

5. 6. Permanent establishment of the daily sacrifice, the set feasts, and the offering of free-will offerings. Having set up the altar and celebrated the particular festival which the revolving year happened to have brought round, and which it would have been wrong to neglect, the exiles re-established permanently three things—(1) the daily sacrifice; (2) the celebration of the new moons and other regular feasts; and (3) the practice of allowing the people to bring offerings whenever they pleased, to be offered on the great altar by the priest or priests in attendance. The first of these was for atonement; the second for public thanksgiving and acknowledgment of God’s mercies; the third for private devotion, the payment of vows and the like. P. C.

5. Every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the Lord.** What a man gives under pressure of fear, or of desire for popular applause, or in the hope of return, cannot fairly be set to his charity account. He deserves no credit for its giving. It may, indeed, help forward Temple-building, or mission work, or aid in paying church expenses; it may clothe the naked, or feed the hungry, or shelter the homeless; but no thanks to him for that. He would have held back the money if he had dared to. What the Lord wants is a freewill offering willingly offered.

Unless a man can give that, his giving is no giving. “God loveth a cheerful giver.” No other giver has any smile of approval from Him. H. C. T.

Principles of Giving. We may find seven principles laid down in Scripture: 1. The willing mind. 2. The covenant with God as the basis (Ps. 50). 3. The altar sanctifying the gift. 4. Giving as unto the Lord—not men. 5. Self-denial as the measure of gifts. 6. Stewardship—all inalienably the Lord’s. 7. Prayer and privilege. Pierson.

God guides the willing-hearted as with His eye. They are co-workers with Him in all the affairs of His kingdom. To some extent they see what He sees, and feel what He feels. They give liberally, and grudge not when they give. They covet earnestly, each generation of them, to be doing something for Him in their day. They have a faith that they can do anything if He commands it. The very living substance of things hoped for is already in them. And the evidence of things as large as kingdoms, and that lie beyond sight, is of them, just as sight itself is of the person that sees, and faith itself is identical with the person that believes, and hope is of the person that hopes. The kingdom of God, and even God Himself in His kingdom, lies pictured in the heart of all the heirs of eternal life. They covet earnestly to be doing something in their day for Him, the great Being in whom their forefathers trusted. All God’s service, in all its kinds and in all its ages and dispensations, is a work of faith and a labor of love. A. D. Pollock.

6. From the first day.** The altar was built and the daily sacrifice restored on the first day of the seventh month. The Feast of Tabernacles was not kept till the fifteenth day (Lev. 23:34). B. C.

7. Preparation of materials for the rebuilding of the Temple.** When the restoration of religion had progressed thus far, the civil and ecclesiastical rulers turned their attention to that object which had been specially mentioned in the “decree of Cyrus” (chap. 1:2, 3), the rebuilding of the Temple. And first of all, it was necessary to collect building materials, wood and stone, which were the chief materials of the first Temple, and which Cyrus had particularized in a supplementary decree (chap. 6:4) as those to be employed in the construction of the second. P. C.

They gave money. It was necessary to prepare materials for the construction of the Temple first of all. Masons, therefore, were at once set to work to cut stone, and carpenters to new timber. Arrangements were entered into with the Tyrians and Sidonians, by which, in return for supplies of food, they were to furnish cedar-wood from Lebanon to their neighbors. B. C.—The cedars of Lebanon were once more, by royal permission, cut down in the northern mountains, and conveyed by the Phoenician navigators along their coast to Joppa, whence Zerubbabel’s workmen transported them to Jerusalem. In the short space of seven months—from the seventh month of the first year, or that of the Return (3:1), to the second month of the second year (verse 8), or that which followed—sufficient material was collected for the work to begin. Then, on a set day, the foundations of the second Temple were laid, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem took part in the ceremony. G. R.

8-12. Laying of the foundation of the Temple and ceremonial on the occasion. Seven months were occupied with preparations. The winter was past, and the spring had arrived. It was the second month, Zif, the month of “blossom” corresponding to our May—the same month in which Solomon had laid the foundation of the first Temple (1 K. 6:1)—when Zerubbabel judged that the time had come for commencing the foundation of the second. The correspondence of the month was no doubt intentional, like the correspondence of the foundations of the altar (verse 3), and was to mark that all was to be as before, that nothing was to be wantonly changed. Zerubbabel and Jeshua presided; but to Zerubbabel is assigned the chief part of the work. “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house” are the words of God Himself to Zechariah (Zech. 4:9). It was arranged that the work should commence with a religious ceremonial, natural piety here suggesting what was not recorded of the “first house,” though it may have occurred and not have been put on record. The ceremonial consisted chiefly of praise, and was accompanied with sacred music, according to the pattern set by David and Solomon in their sacred processions and ceremonies (1 Chron. 15:19, 24; 16:5; 2 Chron. 5:12, etc.). Their special parts in it were assigned beforehand to the priests, the Levites and the people. P. C.

It must have been a happy and a bright spring day in the month Iyar of the year 535 n.c., when the company of returned exiles gathered around Zerubbabel and Jeshua to see the foundations of their glorious Temple once more laid. And yet we scarcely wonder that the sound of weeping should have mingled with the song of psalms and the music of praise (Ezra 3:8-13). It had come, as foretold to the fathers; and they, the younger generation, who had not known the glories of the first Temple, merely the bitterness and reproach of the Exile, could only feel as if once more the old, divinely restored, were to cast the brightness of its glory over the future of Israel. But there were others in that assembly to whom these foundations recalled the past in its contrast with the present. It was not only what had been, but what now was; not only that they had seen “this house in her first glory,” but that what they now took in hand must have been in their “eyes in comparison of it as nothing” (Hag. 2:3). Nor was it only “a day of small things.” The dullest eye must have perceived the difficulties by which their undertaking was surrounded, and which, humanly speaking, must have made it appear most unlikely of realization. The political, as well as the religious, prospect before that small remnant was indeed of the darkest. It seemed as if there were a “great mountain before Zerubbabel.” How could it be made “a plain”? Assuredly “not by might, nor by power”—which were not theirs—but if ever, or at all, only by the Spirit of the Lord (Zech. 4:6, 7). A. E.

8. The language is remarkable. It is not “coming to Jerusalem,” nor “coming to the land of Israel,” but “coming unto the house of God,” which was the real object of their desire and hope. It was their longing for the house of God and His worship, and the consequent sense of His presence and favor, which drew them to Jerusalem to rebuild its ruins. W. H. G.

9. The services when the foundation was laid. The account of these is very graphic. It can hardly be made more so by analysis or explanations. The best way to understand it is to read it several times, fixing attention upon it clause by clause, until in imagination you see and hear the gathered multitudes, the robed priests with their trumpets, the trained Levite musicians, the responsive singing, the great shout, the mingled weeping and rejoicing. Then think of the reasons for weeping and for rejoicing that were in their minds. Those who wept were not weeping merely because the new Temple was so inferior to the old. Along with this was the thought of miseries and disappointments and humiliations passed through since the old house stood in its glory. And the joy of those who rejoiced was that which comes from the realizing of hopes long delayed, that have often almost yielded to despair. W. J. B.

11. The ancient strain which still rings from Christian lips, and bids fair to be as eternal as the mercies which it hymns, rose with strange pathos from the lips of the crowd on the desolate temple mountain, ringed about by the waste solitudes of the city. “For He is good, for His mercy endureth forever toward Israel.” It needed some faith to sing that song then, even with the glow of return upon them. What of all the weary years? What of the empty homesteads and the surrounding enemies and the brethren still in Babylon? No doubt some, at least, of the rejoicing multitude had learned what the Captivity was meant to teach and had come to bless God, both for the long years of exile, which had burned away much dross, and for the incomplete work of restoration, surrounded though they were with foes and little as was their strength to fight. The trustful heart finds occasion for unmingled praise in the most mingled cup of joy and sorrow. A. M.

12. Had seen the first house.** It was now just about fifty years since the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, so that there were yet alive a good many people old enough to remember it distinctly. A few might remember back as far as the times of Josiah.

Their outlook backward and forward. The account makes much of the connection between the returning exiles and Moses. It specifies that they did according to what is “written in the law of Moses” (verse 2). As we have seen, the Pentateuchal sacred year is recognized in nearly all its particulars. So are burnt offerings and freewill offerings, in their distinctive character, and the distinction between priest and Levite, and the Levitical age of service “from twenty years old and upward.” The ecclesiastical head of the returning exiles is Jeshua, the high-priest, of Aaronic descent. It is hardly open to dispute that the writer of this narrative represents that the Levitical law as a whole was in existence in Zerubbabel’s time, and was regarded as from Moses. Even those scholars who hold that the Levitical law dates from some decades later than Zerubbabel would not claim that this writer agrees with them. Again, the looking back to David’s time is hardly less marked than the looking back to Moses. The musical part of the service, which is the most prominent part, is marked with the names of David and Asaph. The Temple and altar themselves are in succession with those that David planned and Solomon built. Their civil leader is Zerubbabel, grandson of the king of Judah who was carried into exile, the living representative of the lineage of David. In all these particulars they were looking forward, as well as looking backward. The one thought most in the mind of those of them who were spiritually minded was the thought expressed in the song they sang, namely, that Jehovah’s lovingkindness over Israel is to eternity. Thus far it had proved so. Israel was still in existence. Now again the unextinguishable fire burned on the altar. David’s seed had its living representative. The promise to Israel and David would not fail for lack of a claimant. Jehovah had said that this lovingkindness of His should last forever. With a fidelity outlasting the tribulations of the Exile, He had kept His word. This was an earnest that He would always keep it, and all nations should yet be blessed in the seed of Abraham and of David. We are accustomed to look for Messianic forecasts in the prophetic books; but really there are no passages in the Old Testament where the Messianic hope and the Messianic promise are brighter than in historical situations like this. W. J. B.

4:1. The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin. The Samaritans—the people whom Shalmaneser and Esarhaddon, kings of Assyria, had brought from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, and other places, and had settled in parts of the country formerly inhabited by the Ten Tribes of Israel (see verses 2 and 10). They were called Samaritans, from having occupied the city of Samaria and its neighborhood, and were also called Cutheans, from the country which some of them had formerly inhabited. Bp. Patrick.

2. Since the days.** Esarhaddon mounted the Assyrian throne in the year B.C. 681, and reigned till B.C. 668. Thus the Samaritans speak of what had taken place at least a hundred and thirty years previously. Esarhaddon which brought us up. There appear to have been at least three colonizations of Samaria by the Assyrian kings. Sargon, soon after his conquest, replaced the captives whom he had carried off by colonists from Babylonia and from Hamath (2 K. 17: 24). Later in his reign he added to these first settlers an Arabian element (“Ancient Monarchies,” Vol. II., p. 415). Some thirty or forty years afterward Esarhaddon, his grandson, largely augmented the population by colonists drawn from various parts of the empire, but especially from the southeast, Susiana, Elymais and Persia (see below, verse 9). Thus the later Samaritans were an exceedingly mixed race.

3. Ye have nothing to do with us.**

At first sight this rejection seems harsh. But the Samaritans had united idolatrous rites with the worship of Jehovah (2 K. 17 : 29-41); and to have allowed them a share in restoring the Temple would have been destructive of all purity of religion. B. C.—At the cost of turning these would be friends into bitter and persistent enemies, “Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel” saved the nation, for the time at any rate, from the danger of having their religion corrupted and adulterated by intermixture with a form of belief and practice which was altogether of an inferior type, and to a considerable extent tainted with heathenism. G. R.

The Jews steadily rejected the proposal made by the Samaritans, to join with them in rebuilding the Temple of the God of Israel and celebrating His worship; and this rejection appears to have been subservient to the purposes of the Divine economy. The intermixture of the Samaritans with the Jews might have rendered the accomplishment of the prophecies concerning the family and birth of the Messiah less clear; might have introduced again idolatry among the restored Jews, now completely abhorrent from it, and in various ways defeated the grand objects of Providence in selecting and preserving a peculiar people. In consequence of this rejection and the alienation it produced, the Jews probably became more vigilant in preserving the strictness and the Samaritans more zealous in emulating the purity of the Mosaic ritual. They became hostile and therefore unsuspected guardians and vouchers of the integrity of the sacred text, particularly of the Pentateuch. And while the Jews in general, blinded by their national prejudices, could see in the promised Messiah only a national and temporal deliverer, the Samaritans appear to have judged of His pretensions with more justice and success. And though our Lord visited them only as it were incidentally, yet He was able to declare to them His character and avow his dignity, without that mysterious reserve and jealous caution, which the proneness of the Jewish multitude “to take Him by force and make Him a king,” constantly required. And it seems evident that the Samaritans were predisposed and prepared to receive and diffuse the light of the Gospel more than any other description of men, the pious and reflecting part of the Jewish nation only excepted. And thus this circumstance appears in its final result to have materially facilitated the diffusion of true religion in the world, and thus to have been subservient to the general advantage of mankind. Graves.

5. Hired counsellors**—i.e., bribed officials at the Persian court to interpose delays and create difficulties, in order to hinder the work. Until the reign of Darius. (See below, verse 24.) It has been argued that the Darius intended is Darius Nothus, who ascended the Persian throne in B.C. 424, more than a century later than the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus (B.C. 538). The order of the names in verses 5-7 and 24 is in favor of this view; but the fact that Zerubbabel and Jeshua, who came up from Babylon in the first year of Cyrus, are still living and vigorous in the second (chap. 5 : 2) and even in the sixth year of Darius (Zech. 4 : 9) makes it impossible that the king intended can be Darius the Second, since their age would be in his sixth year at least one hundred and fifty. This argument has induced all recent commentators to acquiesce in the hypothesis that the Darius of Ezra is Darius the son of Hystaspes.

6. In the reign of Ahasuerus.** If the Darius of verses 5 and 24 is Darius Hystaspes, the Ahasuerus of the present verse must be Cambyses, the son and successor of Cyrus. That Persian kings had often two names is a well-known fact of history.

7. In the days of Artaxerxes.** By “Artaxerxes” in this place, Gomates, the pseudo-Smerdis, seems to be intended. He succeeded Cambyses in B.C. 521, and reigned seven months, when he was deposed and executed by Darius Hystaspes. B. C.

17-24. This stoppage of the rebuilding of Jerusalem and re-establishment of the Jews as a nation, by one of the early Persian kings, is the more remarkable, because, though similar attempts to check and thwart the Israelites were made by their adversaries in the reigns of all the other early kings, in every other case they failed; in this case only were they successful. No king forbade the building but the second monarch after Cyrus. This monarch issued an edict against the Jews (chap. 4 : 17-22), and brought the building of Jerusalem to a stand. Now, both profane writers and the inscriptions show us that the next king but one after Cyrus held a peculiar position. He was, as Darius himself tells us, a Magian, quite unconnected with the Persian royal family. He persecuted a deceased son of Cyrus, named Smerdis, and was allowed to reign on the supposition that he was really the prince whose name he assumed. He held the throne no more than seven months, but still he reigned long enough to effect a religious revolution in Persia. He put down Zoroastrianism, destroyed the Zoroastrian temples and put a stop to the Zoroastrian worship, substituting Magianism in its place. Now, Magianism was the worship of the elements; it disdained temples and denied a personal God. It is clearly most natural, probable and readily intelligible that a monarch of this stamp should run counter to all the real Achaemenian princes on a religious matter; that, as a Magian, he should interfere to check the building of a magnificent temple, and as a Pantheist, should disallow the worship of Jehovah. Had we been told that any other of the early Persian kings set himself in opposition to the Jews, reversed the policy of Cyrus, and forbade the building of the Temple, we should have found ourselves confronted by a difficulty. The fact that it is the monarch who holds the place of the pseudo-Smerdis, that takes a peculiar line, one opposed to the policy of the Achaemenians generally, turns the difficulty into an evidence. As the religious views of this monarch were wholly opposed to those of both his predecessors and successors, he would be almost certain to treat the Jews differently. If they, as Zoroastrians, sympathized with the people of Israel, he, as an anti-Zoroastrian, would dislike and suspect them. It may be added that his letter, being totally devoid of any religious sentiment, is characteristic, and contrasts remarkably with the decrees of Cyrus and Darius (Ezra 1:2-4; 6:6-12), and with the letter of Artaxerxes (7:12-26). G. R.

24. Unto the second year of Darius.** The second year of Darius was B.C. 520. If the building ceased in the reign of the pseudo-Smerdis and was resumed in the second year of Darius, it was only interrupted for about two years, since the pseudo-Smerdis reigned less than a year. B. C. (See Section 50, closing paper.)