Ezra 4
by Pastor Mark Hudson

If this work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem was not hard enough, now the opposition comes. Remember, these 42,000 thousand pioneers had left the land of Babylon that they knew all or most of their lives. They had built homes, started businesses, married their sons and daughters, and sought the welfare of Babylon as Jer. 29:5ff tells them to do. After learning to speak Persian (or Aramaic), setting up homes and businesses they are going on anywhere from a 4 to 12-month journey to a place that was decimated by the Babylonians almost 70 years ago. Leave a house uninhabited for 5 years and see what is living inside that home. Leave the land fallow for almost 70 years and trees will grow and died in that time.

Now that they are beginning to build the temple, with all their internal challenges (3:11-13), they were going to face opposition from those people in Israel who did not like what they were doing at all. So, the enemies of God first ask to help the returning Jews. After the refusal of Zerubbabel, Jeshua, et al, these adversaries actively worked against the Jews who were building the temple. Ezra writing many years later, finds opposition par for the course. In fact, in verse 6, if you begin with a parenthesis there and add the other one at the end of verse 23, you will be better equipped to understand this chapter.

First, watch carefully as sometimes they are building the city and sometimes the temple. In fact, we start with the temple in 4:1-5, but in vs. 7 and following the subject is the city of Jerusalem. Secondly, notice in the first five verses, these rulers are mentioned: Esarhaddon King of Assyria (2); King Cyrus, the king of Persia (3), Darius King of Persia (5). Then Ahasuerus (6) and Artaxerxes (7).

I am attaching a timeline, 2 sheets, from a BibleWorks, an old Bible program that details the kings, events, and especially Ezra and Nehemiah’s timelines. I also added a map to show the extent of the Persian empire. If you take the time to look at that (or some other help you have) every time one of those leaders is mentioned, that will aid your understanding. It is easy to get lost with all these foreign names, but these attachments will help you. These sections are a bit tricky to piece together.

Now, as Ezra is describing this opposition, he is, in a sense, saying that opposition is normal for the people of God to experience. In verse 6, Ezra writes (sorta kinda), “After this present time, in Xerxes or Ahasuerus’s time (485-465), there was opposition. After Xerxes, came his third son, Artaxerxes, the long-handed or Longimanus. (His right hand was supposedly longer than his left hand). There was opposition then. Believers should expect and prepare for opposition.”

So, the building of the temple stops until 520. The work stopped for at least 16 years. The great work God had called them to, when God “stirred up the spirit of Cyrus King of Persia,” was now delayed. If you begin construction and then are forced to leave the building open to the rain, sun, the changes in temperature, that can’t be good for the nascent building. But for a time, God’s enemies succeeded.

Imagine if you were a Jew who travelled 4 months of an arduous journey to arrive in a rundown city without a temple having to sacrifice out in the elements and you had started to build. You might have felt God’s presence and felt excited seeing progress every day. Then, the people of the land made you stop building. They used force to stop you. What must that have felt like? Where was the God who called us to leave our homes and build a temple they might have asked? Why should we be given all the utensils that were stolen only to begin and then be stopped?

This is where Haggai and Zechariah come in. If we remind ourselves of some of Haggai’s themes, we see the encouragement these believers needed. “I am with you” 1:13; 2:4. God will provide the resources they need 2:7ff (the desire of nations is not the Desire of nations, Christ, but silver and gold as v. 8 says). God will bless them 2:19. They needed to be reminded that God will still with them to bless them and provide for them. His goal had not changed. The temple needed to be rebuilt.

Why there is so much opposition I suppose we will never know. But it must serve multiple purpose of God since anyone who lives for God faces it. Why did the prophets have to deal with a lifetime of rejection? Why do God’s people grumble, argue and clamor for their way? Why did Jesus have to see such hatred toward Him. And since they couldn’t shut Him up, they murdered Him.

I wonder why I don’t face more opposition. Am I too passive? Am I not speaking up enough? I have not resolved those questions. But I am eternally grateful for those who have come before me and those who are currently facing terrible persecutions. They are my brothers and sisters even though I can’t speak their language if I could meet them. Thank God for their endurance.

Our dear heavenly and righteous Father. No one is more loved and hated than You. So many people love and worship the Triune God. Yet so many use Your name in vain. So many hate You and revile good and holy things. Yet, You experience eternal joy and at the same time wrath and anger toward Your enemies. We get so confused about unbelievers. We don’t know how to respond to the vile hatred we see in our own country. Give us the mind of Christ. Fill us with power, compassion, gentleness, and love. We need Your Holy Spirit so desperately. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.