Ezra 4:8-16
4:9 a Adding greetings from an assortment of key political figures and local ethnic leaders would give credibility to the letter’s accusations and ensure that the message would have maximum political weight.• Judges were trusted court officials who knew the Persian laws.
• Having the support of people from the Mesopotamian cities of Babylon and Erech and the Persian city of Susa would make the case against the Jews more persuasive.
4:10 b Ashurbanipal had deported people from other conquered lands into the lands of Israel and Aram (see 2 Kgs 17:24-41 c).
• The city of Samaria was the former capital of the northern kingdom of Israel.
• The province west of the Euphrates River included Syria, Israel, and Judah.
Summary for Ezra 4:11-22: 4:11-22 d Ezra includes a copy in Aramaic of the letter sent to Artaxerxes and his reply.
4:13 e A tribute was an annual fixed tax, customs were probably sales taxes, and tolls were probably charges for using roads. Previous rulers had collected considerable revenue from the region (4:20 f; cp. 1 Kgs 10:14-15 g).
4:14 h Since we are your loyal subjects: The Aramaic phrase we eat the salt of the palace was a metaphor for taking an oath of loyalty to the king.
• The letter’s authors claimed that their only interest was to preserve the honor of the king, but they were actually grasping for power and political advantage over the Jews.
Summary for Ezra 4:15-16: 4:15-16 i The Persians had access to Babylonian records, which described Jerusalem’s revolts against Nebuchadnezzar (see 2 Kgs 24:1-7 j).
• The claim that the Persians would lose the whole province west of the Euphrates was an exaggeration: The Jews actually comprised a small minority in that province.
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