The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, Tr. by S. Taylor (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: -jiJL-V js CHAP. IV. HINDRANCES TO BUILDING THE TEMPLE. ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE JEWS CONCERNING THE BUILDING OF THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM. Vers. 1-5. The adversaries of the Jews prevent the building of the temple till the reign of Darius (vers. 1, 2). When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the community which had returned from captivity were beginning to rebuild the temple, they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chiefs of the people, and desired to take part in this work, because they also sacrificed to the God of Israel. These adversaries were, according to ver. 2, the people whom Esar- haddon king of Assyria had settled in the neighbourhood of Benjamin and Judah. If we compare with this verse the information (2 Kings xvii. 24) that the kings of Assyria brought men from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria, and that they took possession of the depopulated kingdom of the ten tribes, and dwelt therein; then these adversaries of Judah and Benjamin are the inhabitants of the former kingdom of Israel, who were called Samaritans after the central-point of their settlement. rpian '33, sons of the captivity (vi. 19, etc., viii. 35, x. 7, 16), also shortly into Wfon, e.g. . 11, are the Israelites returned from the Babylonian captivity, who composed the new community in Judah and Jerusalem. Those who returned with Zerubbabel, and took possession of the dwelling-places of their ancestors, being, exclusive of priests and Levites, chiefly members of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, are called, especially when named in distinction from the other inhabitants of the land, Judah and Benjamin. The adversaries give the reason of their request to share in the building of the temple in the words: " For we seek y...