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John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Ezra 4 The contents of this chapter are the offer the Samaritans made to the Jews, to assist them in building the temple, which having refused, they gave them all the trouble they could, Ezra 4:1 and a letter of theirs to Artaxerxes, king of Persia, full of accusations of them, Ezra 4:7 and the answer of Artaxerxes to it, giving orders to command the Jews to cease building the...
John Gill
Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin,.... The Samaritans, as appears from Ezra 4:2, heard that the children of the captivity; the Jews, who had been in captivity seventy years, and were just come out of it, and still were not quite free, but under the jurisdiction and control of the king of Persia: builded the temple unto the Lord God of Israel; that they were going about it, and had...
Matthew Henry
The good work of rebuilding the temple was no sooner begun than it met with opposition from those that bore ill will to it; the Samaritans were enemies to the Jews and their religion, and they set themselves to obstruct it. I. They offered to be partners in the building of it, that they might have it in their power to retard it; but they were refused, ver. 1-3. II. They discouraged them in it,...