Ezra 4:11
(This is the text of the letter they sent to him.) To King Artaxerxes, From your servants, the men west of the Euphrates:
Sermons
The World's Opposition to the ChurchJ.S. Exell Ezra 4:4-16
The Antagonism of the World to the ChurchJ. Parker, D. DEzra 4:4-24
The Hostility of the Samaritans to the JewsWilliam Jones.Ezra 4:4-24
Three Thoughts from Old DocumentsW. Clarkson Ezra 4:6-24














The determined attempts made by the Samaritans to prevent the Jews from building the temple and the walls of Jerusalem are well illustrated in the correspondence between them and the king of Persia. Documents passed between the two of which we have the superscription and contents in these verses. They remind us -

I. THAT MEN MAY TAKE AN IMMENSITY OF TROUBLE TO DO OTHER PEOPLE HARM AND MAKE THEMSELVES INFAMOUS. These men, "in the days of Artaxerxes" (ver. 7), secured the sympathy and co-operation of the Persian "chancellor" and "scribe" (ver. 8); also of their "companions," various Persian colonists then living in Samaria (ver. 9), with "the rest of the nations" whom "Asnapper brought over and set in their cities" (ver. 10): with their aid and through their medium they gained access to King Artaxerxes, and induced him to listen to a long statement of complaint. They had a momentary success, as the king granted their prayer and arrested the work; but in the end their evil designs were defeated, and those against whom they plotted gained their end. All that these malignant Samaritans did was to annoy and delay without defeating their neighbours, while they have earned for themselves a most unenviable immortality. This document is only read now by those who will condemn their conduct. How often do we see men putting forth patient energy, expending great ingenuity and labour, to compass that in which it is best for them to fail, of which they will live to be ashamed. If there be a sense in which "all labour is profit" (Proverbs 14:23), it is also painfully true that thousands of men are laboriously engaged in doing work which will perish, and had better perish; in making a name and repute which they would be glad afterwards to hide. Well for those who are doing that which really serves, that which will stand, that for which other generations will not rebuke but bless them.

II. THAT A TIME OF SPECIAL ACTIVITY WILL PROBABLY PROVE A TIME OF UNUSUAL ENDURANCE (vers. 12-16). The Jews at this time were actively engaged in building - not merely in erecting stone walls, but in rebuilding a nation, in relaying the foundations of the kingdom and cause of God. Thus employed, they found themselves exposed to bitter hostility and deadly machination. Their nearest neighbours were plotting against them; and now they were doing that which is always found very difficult to endure - they were misrepresenting and maligning them; they were reporting them to the king as a "rebellious and bad city" (ver. 12), bent on refusing to "pay toll, tribute, and custom" (ver. 13), "hurtful unto kings and provinces," intending to break off their allegiance, so that the king "would have no portion on this side the river." Though not incapable of turbulence, and not indisposed to throw off a foreign yoke when that should be possible, the Jews were not cherishing any purpose of this kind; they had been faithful subjects when in Persia, and they had honourable and loyal intentions now. This "accusation" (ver. 6) was essentially false; it was a malignant misrepresentation. When men are actively engaged in building the kingdom of Christ, they may expect Samaritan misrepresentations. Things will be said-by the ill-disposed which, as here, may have a colouring of truth, but which are essentially false. We must not mind misrepresentation when we are doing earnest and faithful work. The very excellency of our effort will bring down the hatred and opposition of those who are enemies of the truth, and our work and ourselves will be slandered; we may find ourselves members of a "sect everywhere spoken against." We shall not, then, forget who it was that was charged with sedition, and so far from being surprised that "the disciple is not above his master," we shall rejoice that we are counted worthy to "partake of the sufferings of Christ." No truly great work has ever been wrought which has not been covered at times with black clouds of misrepresentation.

III. THAT SELFISHNESS AND JUSTICE ARE SELDOM ASSOCIATED TOGETHER. The king listened to those who seemed so desirous of serving him; he was inclined to believe those that were anxious his "revenue should not be endamaged" (ver. 13), who did not wish to "see the king's dishonour" (ver. 14), and who took measures that he should not lose his "portion on one side the river" (ver. 16). And search being made, it was easy to find some incidents which might be construed in the sense of these complainants: the city "of old time had made insurrection," etc. (ver. 19); there had been "mighty kings" to whom "toll, tribute, and custom" had been paid, etc. - there might be some possible danger too in the future; let the work cease for the present (ver. 21), for "why should damage grow to the hurt of the kings?" (ver. 22). Rather send bitter disappointment to the holiest hopes of a province than endanger the prosperity of kings. Thus does self-interest pervert justice. To save themselves from slight, remote, and contingent harm, men will cause much present and certain injury to their fellows. Selfishness is unfair and often cruel. To be true and just one must be disinterested. - C.

Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard.
I. THE PROPOSAL MADE BY THE SAMARITANS

1. Plausible in its form.

2. But evil in itself.(1) They were not Israelites.(2) They did not worship Jehovah as the true God. To have received such a people into community and co-operation with the true people of God would have been an set of utter unfaithfulness and disloyalty to Him.(3) Their design in making this proposal was an unworthy one.(4) The acceptance of their proposal would have been perilous to the Jews.

II. THE PROPOSAL REJECTED BY THE JEWS.

1. An exclusive obligation in relation to the work is asserted.

2. The alleged similarity of worship is indirectly denied.

3. The command of Cyrus is adduced in support of this rejection. This was prudent. "Be ye wise as serpents," etc.

4. The rejection of the proposal was unanimous.

5. The rejection of the proposal was prompt and decided.

(William Jones.)

I. THAT THE WICKED OFTEN PROPOSE TO ENTER INTO ALLIANCE WITH THE GOOD. These alliances are of different kinds.

1. Commercial.

2. Social

3. Matrimonial.

4. Religious.

II. THAT THE PROPOSALS OF THE WICKED FOR ALLIANCE WITH THE GOOD ARE OFTEN SUPPORTED BY PLAUSIBLE REASONS.

III. THAT THE ALLIANCES PROPOSED BY THE WICKED ARE ALWAYS PERILOUS TO THE GOOD.

IV. THAT THE PROPOSALS OF THE WICKED FOR ALLIANCE WITH THE GOOD SHOULD ALWAYS BE FIRMLY REJECTED.

(William Jones.)

1. The having one is proof that you are somebody. Wishy-washy, empty, worthless people, never have enemies. Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man is thoroughly dead and utterly buried, nothing ever runs against him. To be run against, is proof of existence and position; to run against something, is proof of motion.

2. An enemy is, to say the least, not partial to you. He will not flatter. He will not exaggerate your virtues. It is very probable that he will slightly magnify your faults. The benefit of that is twofold. It permits you to know that you have faults; it makes them visible and so manageable. Your enemy does for you this valuable work.

3. In addition, your enemy keeps you wide awake. He does not let you sleep at your post. There are two that always keep wash — namely, the lover and the hater. Your lover watches, that you may sleep. He keeps off noises, excludes light, adjusts surroundings, that nothing may disturb you. Your hater watches that you may not sleep. He stirs you up when you are napping. He keeps your faculties on the alert.

4. He is a detective among your friends. You need to know who your friends are, and who are not, and who are your enemies. The last of these three will discriminate the other two. When your enemy goes to one who is neither friend nor enemy, and assails you, me indifferent one will have nothing to say or chime in, not because he is your enemy, but because it is so much easier to assent than to oppose, and especially than to refute. But your friend will take up cudgels for you on the instant. He will deny everything and insist on proof, and proving is very hard work. Follow your enemy and you will find your friends, for he will have developed them so that they cannot be mistaken. The next best thing to having a hundred real friends, is to have one open enemy.

(C. F. Deems, D. D.)

The adversary is a man who seeks to discover flaws, disadvantages, mistakes; a man who magnifies all that is unworthy until he makes a great sore and wound of it, so as to offend as many as possible; he knows how the work could have been better done; he sees where every mistake has been committed; and under his breath, or above it, as circumstances may suggest, he curses the builders and their building, and thinks that such an edifice built by such men is but an incubus which the earth is doomed to bear. Regard the criticism of adversaries as inevitable. If we think of it only as incidental, occasional, characteristic of a moment's experience, we shall treat it too lightly; the adversary is an abiding quantity in life.

(J. Parker, D. D)

Beware of your associates. With some men we ought not to build even God's house. We may spoil the sacred edifice by taking money made by the ruin of men. The Samaritans who thus spoke to Zerubbabel and to the chief of the fathers were not telling an absolute lie. No absolute lie can ever do much in the world; its very nakedness would cause it to be driven out of society; it must wear some rag of truth. The Samaritans in the ancient time did worship God after their fashion, but they did not give up a single idolatrous practice; they wanted to have two religions — to serve in some sort all the gods there were, and then when one failed they could flee to another; so they would build any wall, any altar, any city, any sanctuary; they wanted to be at peace with all the gods, then they would know what to do in the day of adversity. We have spoken of the Samaritans of the ancient time: why not speak of the Samaritans of the present day who wish to do this very thing — men who can bow their heads in prayer, and drink toasts to the devil? "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

(J. Parker, D. D)

How oftentimes are people overcome by manner, by persuasiveness of tone, by assumed gentleness of spirit! The young creature is often so overcome; she says she knows he who has spoken to her is not a bad man; whatever he be he has a guileless tongue; his words are well chosen; he speaks them as a man might speak them who knows the gentleness of pity, all the sympathy of love; it is impossible that he can be simulating such tenderness; it is impossible that he can for selfish reasons be putting himself to such inconvenience and sacrifice. It is to-morrow that she finds out that beneath the velvet there lay the claw of the tiger. Nothing stands but character — real, simple, transparent, solid character. That will bear a thousand blasts of opposition and hostility, and at the end will seem the richer, the chester, for the rude discipline through which it has passed.

(J. Parker, D. D)

That Christian work should be done only by Christians may be supported by the following reasons.

I. THEY ALONE WILL BUILD ON THE TRUE FOUNDATION.

II. THEY ALONE WILL BUILD WITH THE TRUE MATERIALS.

III. THEY ALONE WILL BUILD IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TRUE PLAN.

IV. THEY ALONE WILL BUILD WITH THE TRUE AIM. THIS IS THE GLORY OF GOD.

V. THEY ALONE WILL BUILD IN THE TRUE SPIRIT. That of —

1. Obedience.

2. Humility.

3. Patience.

4. Trust in God.

5. Self-consecration.

(William Jones.)

How strangely history repeats itself. In this early struggle between the Jews and the Samaritans we have a foreshadow of many a struggle in the Christian Church. When Paul and the other apostles went forth preaching the Gospel, the Greeks and the Romans would willingly enough have tolerated Christianity if Christianity would but tolerate their idolatrous systems. They would even have patronised the new religion, and would have offered no opposition to the erection of an image of Jesus amongst the images of other gods. But, when they saw that Christianity demanded the renouncing of idolatry and the exclusive worship of the one living and true God, at once priests, rulers, and people rose in arms against the preachers. Every obstacle was placed in the way of the spread of Christianity. But in spite of all persecution the Church prospered. Idolatry fought for its life and gradually lost every battle, until, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Gospel had conquered the Roman Empire, and Christianity became the nominal religion of all her people. This is the battle, too, that the Church has to fight to-day. We can and we ought to be liberal in many things, but the followers of Jesus dare not be so liberal as to allow men of the world and men of sin to engage hand in hand with them in the Master's work. The Church ought, and she does, invite into her fellowship all classes. However fallen and bad men may be they are welcome to enter the Church. But they must leave the world and their sins behind them. There cannot be two masters. Christ must have the whole heart, the whole strength, and the entire devotion.

(J. Menzies.)

The Church will take money from anybody; the whole Christian Church in all her ramifications and communions cheats herself into the persuasion that she can take the money of bad men and turn it to good uses. Grander would be the Church, more virgin in her beauty and loveliness, more snow-like in her incorruptibleness, if she could say to every bad man who offers her assistance, Ye have nothing to do with us in building the house of our God: the windows shall remain unglazed, and the roof-beams unslated, before we will touch money made by the sale of poison or by practices that are marked by the utmost corruption and evil.

(J. Parker, D. D)

Thus we can learn from the Old Testament a good deal that would bear immediate modern application. This is the right answer to all doubtful Christians as well as to all unbelievers. We should say to them, So long as you are doubtful you are not helpful: your character is gone on one side, and therefore it is ineffective on the other. But would not this class of discipline and scope of criticism shear down the congregations? Certainly. Would God they were shorn down! Every doubtful man amongst us is a loss, a source of weakness, a point of perplexity and vexation. We are only unanimous when we axe one in moral faith and consent. The critic will do us no good; the clever man who sees our metaphysical error will keep us back: only the soul that has given itself to Christ, out-and-out, in an unbargaining surrender, can really stand fire in the great war, end build through all weathers, and hope even in the midst of darkness. We may have too many people round about us; we may be overburdened and obstructed by numbers. The Church owes not a little of its strength to the purity of its discipline.

(J. Parker, D. D)

: — Leaders must be critical. The man who has little responsibility can soon achieve a reputation for energy. Leaders must halt, hesitate, balance, and compare things, and come to conclusions supported by the largest inferences., There are men who would take a short and ready method in accomplishing their purpose: there are men of rude strength, of undisciplined and unsanctified force. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua must look at all the offers of assistance, and ask what their real value is; they must go into the sanctuary of motive, into the arcana of purpose end under-meanings. Zerubbabel and Jeshua — men who could undertake to build a city — were men who had mental penetration; they could see into other men. They saw into the Samaritan adversaries, and said, "Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God."

(J. Parker, D. D).

People
Ahasuerus, Apharesattechites, Apharesites, Apharsathchites, Apharsites, Archevites, Artaxerxes, Asnapper, Babylonians, Benjamin, Bishlam, Cyrus, Darius, Dehaites, Dehavites, Dehites, Dianites, Dinaites, Dinites, Elamites, Esarhaddon, Jeshua, Mithredath, Persians, Rehum, Shimshai, Shushanchites, Tabeel, Tarpelites, Zerubbabel
Places
Assyria, Beyond the River, Erech, Jerusalem, Persia, Samaria, Susa
Topics
Across, Artaxerxes, Ar-ta-xerx'es, Beyond, Copy, Forth, Greeting, Letter, Province, Region, River, Servants, Trans-euphrates
Outline
1. The adversaries, being not accepted in the building of the temple with the Jews,
4. endeavor to hinder it
7. Their letter to Artaxerxes
17. The answer and decree of Artaxerxes
23. The building is hindered

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Ezra 4:11

     8343   servanthood, in society

Ezra 4:6-16

     5202   accusation, false

Ezra 4:6-23

     7560   Samaritans, the

Ezra 4:11-12

     7505   Jews, the

Library
Building in Troublous Times
'Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; 2. Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, 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 Assur, which brought us up hither. 3. But Zerubbabel, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Original Text and Its History.
1. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, with the exception of certain portions of Ezra and Daniel and a single verse of Jeremiah, (Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26; Dan. 2:4, from the middle of the verse to end of chap. 7; Jer. 10:11,) which are written in the cognate Chaldee language. The Hebrew belongs to a stock of related languages commonly called Shemitic, because spoken mainly by the descendants of Shem. Its main divisions are: (1,) the Arabic, having its original seat in the
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

The Last Days of the Old Eastern World
The Median wars--The last native dynasties of Egypt--The Eastern world on the eve of the Macedonian conquest. [Drawn by Boudier, from one of the sarcophagi of Sidon, now in the Museum of St. Irene. The vignette, which is by Faucher-Gudin, represents the sitting cyno-cephalus of Nectanebo I., now in the Egyptian Museum at the Vatican.] Darius appears to have formed this project of conquest immediately after his first victories, when his initial attempts to institute satrapies had taught him not
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 9

A Reformer's Schooling
'The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, 2. That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 3. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Historical Books.
1. In the Pentateuch we have the establishment of the Theocracy, with the preparatory and accompanying history pertaining to it. The province of the historical books is to unfold its practiced working, and to show how, under the divine superintendence and guidance, it accomplished the end for which it was given. They contain, therefore, primarily, a history of God's dealings with the covenant people under the economy which he had imposed upon them. They look at the course of human events on the
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Travelling in Palestine --Roads, Inns, Hospitality, Custom-House Officers, Taxation, Publicans
It was the very busiest road in Palestine, on which the publican Levi Matthew sat at the receipt of "custom," when our Lord called him to the fellowship of the Gospel, and he then made that great feast to which he invited his fellow-publicans, that they also might see and hear Him in Whom he had found life and peace (Luke 5:29). For, it was the only truly international road of all those which passed through Palestine; indeed, it formed one of the great highways of the world's commerce. At the time
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Influences that Gave Rise to the Priestly Laws and Histories
[Sidenote: Influences in the exile that produced written ceremonial laws] The Babylonian exile gave a great opportunity and incentive to the further development of written law. While the temple stood, the ceremonial rites and customs received constant illustration, and were transmitted directly from father to son in the priestly families. Hence, there was little need of writing them down. But when most of the priests were carried captive to Babylonia, as in 597 B.C., and ten years later the temple
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' Exod 20: 16. THE tongue which at first was made to be an organ of God's praise, is now become an instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good behaviour. God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth and lips; and this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should not break forth into evil. It has a prohibitory and a mandatory part: the first is set down in plain words, the other
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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