Ezrachapter 5
17 verses · KJVEzra book hub →
Key verse
At the same time came to them Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar–boznai, and their companions, and said thus unto them, Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall?
It stands in Two prophets speak and the building begins again, verses 1 to 5.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Haggai and Zechariah prophesy, and Zerubbabel and Jeshua rise and begin to build: 'and the prophets of God were with them, helping them.' Tattenai, governor beyond the River, comes asking who gave them a decree and demands the builders' names; 'but the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews,' and the work was not stopped while the case went up to Darius. Tattenai's letter preserves the Jews' own answer: 'We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth,' rebuilding a house a great king of Israel built long ago, torn down when the fathers provoked God, and Cyrus himself decreed its rebuilding. Let search be made in the king's treasure-house.
Context
History · Ezra · Ezra overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezra 5 falls in First return under Zerubbabel (chapters 1–6). Cyrus's decree (538 BC); the altar restored; temple foundation laid amid weeping and shouting; Samaritan opposition; Haggai and Zechariah's prodding; the temple finished in 515 BC.
After it: Ezra's return and covenant reform, chapters 7–10.
The whole shape of Ezra→The world behind this chapter
Ezra 5The history
Haggai and Zechariah preach, and Zerubbabel and Joshua start building, without waiting for authorization. "The prophets of God helping them" is how the chapter describes the support they had.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Then the government shows up. Tattenai, governor "beyond the river," comes to ask who authorized this. That title is real and precise: Beyond the River was the Persian administrative region covering Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, west of the Euphrates. Babylonian business tablets have turned up naming a Tattannu as an official in that region under Darius, which places the man and the office in exactly the right decade.
What happens next says a lot about Persian administration. Tattenai does not shut the site down. He asks for names, takes a statement, and writes to the king to check the record, due process rather than a raid. The text notes that the eye of God was on the elders, so they were not made to stop while the letter traveled.
The Jews' answer is a summary of their whole history in a sentence: we are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we build the house that was built many years ago by a great king of Israel, and then, unprompted, they confess why it was destroyed. "Our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath." They did not blame Babylon.
They also give the decisive legal fact: Cyrus made a decree, and the vessels were handed over to Sheshbazzar, and the work has been going on since.
What it meant to them
This was the community learning that obedience sometimes has to move before permission arrives. They started on a prophet's word and dealt with the paperwork afterward.
And the delay while the letter traveled to Persia and back, a round trip of months, was itself the protection. Nothing stopped. The eye of their God was on them, and it looked like an ordinary administrative pause.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Two prophets speak and the building begins again
1. (vv. 1-2)
Ezra 5:1
“Haggai and Zechariah stirred up Zerubbabel and Joshua Ezr 5:2; Hag 1:14, and warned the people against neglecting the building of the temple, in order to give themselves to the beautifying of their own houses (see Hag 1:4, Hag 1:9). Zechariah was the son of Berechiah, and grandson of Iddo (see the marginal reference; Mat 23:35).”
Read the whole quotation
Compare a similar application of “son” in the case of Jehu (see the 2Ki 9:20 note).
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Ezra 5:1evangelical
Ezra 5:1, 1 more voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezra 5:1
“For fifteen years the work was completely suspended. These two prophets upbraided them with severe reproaches for their sloth, negligence, and worldly selfishness (Hag 1:4), threatened them with severe judgments if they continued backward, and promised that they would be blessed with great national prosperity if they resumed and prosecuted the work with alacrity and vigor.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)· Ezra 5:1reformed
Ezra 5:2
“Then rose up Zerubbabel - Here we find three classes of men joining in the sacred work: Zerubbabel the civil governor; Jeshua the high priest or ecclesiastical governor; and Haggai and Zechariah the prophets. How glorious it is when we see the civil government joining with the sacerdotal and prophetic for the establishment and extension of true religion!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Ezra 5:2evangelical
a.the prophets, Haggai the prophet: The stoppage of the chapter before breaks here: the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo prophesy to Judah and Jerusalem, and the work restarts through their preaching before any new royal word arrives. Zerubbabel and Jeshua rise and build again, and the text adds that the prophets of God were with them, helping, preaching and building as one labor. This verse and 6:14 are the narrative anchor for both prophetic books, planted here for their own exposition. Haggai's short book supplies the content behind the bare word prophesied, rebuking a people who paneled their own houses while the Lord's house lay waste.
2. (vv. 3-4)
Ezra 5:3
“Governor on this side the river - Compare Ezr 4:10 note. Tatnai was apparently satrap of Syria, which included the whole tract west of the Euphrates from Cilicia to the borders of Egypt. Zerubbabel must have been, to some extent, under his authority. Who hath commanded you to build?”
Read the whole quotation
- There was no doubt a formal illegality in the conduct of Zerubbabel and Jeshua: since all edicts of Persian kings continued in force unless revoked by their successors.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Ezra 5:3evangelical
Ezra 5:4
“What are the names - It is most evident that this is the answer of the Jews to the inquiry of Tatnai, Ezr 5:3, and the verse should be read thus: Then said we unto them after this manner: These are the names of the men who make this building.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Ezra 5:4evangelical
a.Who hath commanded you to build this house: Tatnai the governor beyond the river and his companions come to the site and ask a plain question of jurisdiction, who hath commanded you to build this house and make up this wall. The challenge is a formal audit, not an assault, and the elders answer it by giving the names of the builders rather than hiding them. Adam Clarke reads their openness as the confidence of men building under a real grant, willing to be checked. The exchange sets up the letter that follows, a fair record rather than an accusation dressed as fact.
3. (v. 5)
Ezra 5:5
“The eye of their God was upon the elders - The watchful care of God was upon the elders. They were assured of his favor; and they found his especial providence working in their behalf.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Ezra 5:5evangelical
a.the eye of their God: But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews: the chapter's one line of open theology sits inside an otherwise administrative Aramaic report. The clause explains what a plain reading of events would miss, that Tatnai could not stop the work though he had the standing to try, and the matter runs its course to Darius by letter rather than by force. John Gill reads the eye of God as his watchful providence resting on the elders through the whole exchange. The verse answers in advance the question the letter itself will raise, whether this building has real authority behind it.
B. Tattenai's report: who commanded you to build this house?
1. (vv. 6-8)
Ezra 5:6
“The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river,....”
Read the whole quotation
Which is thought by some to be one of the nations mentioned, Ezr 4:9 the name being pretty near alike to two of them; but perhaps might be a distinct colony in those parts Tatnai was governor of: these sent unto Darius the king; and is as follows.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:6reformed
Ezra 5:6, 1 more voice
Ezra 5:6
“Apharsachites, like Apharsites, and Apharsathchites Ezr 4:9, are thought by some to be forms of the word “Persians,” which is applied here generally to the foreign settlers in Samaria. (Others identify the first and the third names with the “Paretaceni,” a people on the Medo-Persian border.)”
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Ezra 5:6evangelical
Ezra 5:7
“And it pleased them that the matter should be referred to Darius, etc., until the end of the letter. This letter that Thathannai writes to Darius is very different from the letter that Rehum and Samsai wrote to Artaxerxes. For that letter was filled with …”
Bede· written before 735· Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah· Ezra 5:7patristic
Ezra 5:8
Great stones - literally, as in the margin; i. e., stones so large that they were rolled along, not carried. Others translate “polished stones.”
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Ezra 5:8evangelical
Ezra 5:8, 1 more voice
Ezra 5:8
"It is the house of the great God, and therefore we dare not oppose the building of it without orders from thee." (2.) They told him truly what was done, not stating, as their predecessors did, that they were fortifying the city as if they intended war, but only that they were rearing the temple as those that intended worship,
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)· Ezra 5:8puritan
a.The copy of the letter: that Tatnai and his companions send to Darius is filed here in full, the book's habit of keeping its own documents rather than summarizing them. This section runs in Aramaic, the empire's own language, the correspondence quoted as it was filed. Their report to the king is fair: they name the house of the great God, note that it is built with great stones and timber, and add plainly that the work goes on fast and prospers in their hands. Matthew Henry points out that a hostile governor could have written otherwise, framing the project as rebellion the way the letter in the chapter before had done.
2. (vv. 9-10)
Ezra 5:9
“Then asked we those elders,.... The elders of the province of Judea; the chief men of it: who commanded you to build this house, and to make up these walls? see Ezr 5:3.”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:9reformed
Ezra 5:10
“We asked their names also,....”
Read the whole quotation
The names of the elders, those that set men about this work: to certify that we might write the names of the men that were the chief of them; take the names of them in writing, that they might with certainty acquaint the king who they were, and that if it was necessary they might be called to an account for what they were doing.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:10reformed
a.Then asked we those elders: , and said unto them thus, who commanded you to build this house: the letter now gives its own account of the interrogation on site. Tatnai's men take names as well as an answer, so the king can verify who stands behind the work rather than judge a rumor. John Gill notes the request is procedural, meant to let the king call the builders to account if the claim proves false. The letter's care to record both question and answer keeps Darius from ruling on hearsay.
3. (vv. 11-12)
Ezra 5:11
“We are the servants of the God of heaven - How simple, plain, and ingenuous is this confession! They were the servants of the God of heaven. How came they then into bondage! Why, they provoked the God of heaven - repeatedly sinned against him, and then he gave them into the hands of their enemies.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Ezra 5:11evangelical
Ezra 5:12
“But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath,....”
Read the whole quotation
By their idolatries; which accounts for it how it was that they who were the servants of the great God of heaven and earth, and this temple built for the honour of his name, were not preserved by him; but they were carried captive, and this house left desolate: it was for their sins for which he (God) gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon; see 2Ch 36:19.
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:12reformed
a.We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth: The elders answer with a recital, not a plea: we are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we build the house that a great king of Israel built long ago. The full title, the God of heaven and earth, is the Persian era's own court language for the Lord, the same title the book uses when kings decree by it. Their history does not skip the exile's cause: our fathers provoked the God of heaven unto wrath, and he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed this house and carried the people to Babylon. Adam Clarke calls the confession simple and plain, a people who own their fathers' sin rather than argue their innocence to a foreign court.
4. (vv. 13-15)
Ezra 5:13
“But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon,.... That is, the first year he was king of Babylon, having taken it, otherwise he was king of Persia many years before: the same King Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God; see Ezr 1:1.”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:13reformed
Ezra 5:13, 1 more voice
Ezra 5:13
“Cyrus the king . . . made a decree--The Jews were perfectly warranted according to the principles of the Persian government to proceed with the building in virtue of Cyrus' edict. For everywhere a public decree is considered as remaining in force until it is revoked but the "laws of the Medes and Persians changed not" [Da 6:8, 12, 15].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)· Ezra 5:13reformed
Ezra 5:14
“Of which, and of what is said concerning them, and particularly of the delivery of them to Sheshbazzar, whom Cyrus made governor of Judah, and ordered him to carry them to Jerusalem, and build the temple there, and put them in it, see Ezr 1:7.”
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)· Ezra 5:14reformed
a.the first year of Cyrus: The elders' recital reaches Cyrus: in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, the same king made a decree to build this house of God. This is the Cyrus of the book's opening chapter, the pagan king the Lord stirred to send the exiles home, so the letter to Darius repeats what the book already told. Cyrus also returned the gold and silver vessels Nebuchadnezzar had carried to Babylon, handing them to a governor named Sheshbazzar with the order to carry them to Jerusalem and let the house of God be built in its place. Jamieson Fausset and Brown note this detail could only come from the Jews' own answer, since the vessels and the governor's commission were their history to tell, not Tatnai's to invent.
5. (vv. 16-17)
Ezra 5:16
“Sheshbazzar - Probably the military officer that conducted the people from Babylon, and had the oversight of the work; but some think that Ezra is meant.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)· Ezra 5:16evangelical
Ezra 5:16, 1 more voice
Ezra 5:16
“Shesh-bazzar . . . since that time even until now hath it been in building--This was not a part of the Jews' answer--they could not have said this, knowing the building had long ceased.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)· Ezra 5:16reformed
Ezra 5:17
“Let there be search made ... at Babylon - They perhaps doubted whether proof of the decree of Cyrus remained in the archives. The Pseudo-Smerdis had had the records in his power for seven months; and, when he reversed the policy of his predecessors, might have been expected to destroy their edicts.”
Read the whole quotation
The decree was not found at Babylon, the most natural place for it, but in the provincial capital of Ecbatana, which Tatnai and his friends had not asked Darius to have searched (see Ezr 6:2).
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)· Ezra 5:17evangelical
Ezra 5:17, 1 more voice
Ezra 5:17
“We have reason to think that if Artaxerxes, in the foregoing chapter, had had the Jews' cause as fairly represented to him as it was here to Darius, he would not have ordered the work to be hindered.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)· Ezra 5:17puritan
a.laid the foundation of the house of God: Sheshbazzar came and laid the foundation of the house of God in Jerusalem, and the elders' answer closes with an honest admission, it has been in building ever since, and it is not finished yet. The unfinished house is the whole reason for the letter, the very thing Tatnai found in progress and asked about. His closing request is even-handed rather than hostile: let the king search the treasure house at Babylon and confirm whether Cyrus really made such a decree, then send his pleasure on the matter. Keil reads the request as the turning point of the episode, since a search of the royal archives is the one thing that can settle the question without another stoppage.
This page carries no textual note on Ezra 5. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Bede, Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Matthew Henry and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).