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In Ezra, officials warn Artaxerxes that the Jews are rebuilding the walls and foundations of Jerusalem. 1 Esdras places this letter before the temple is built and adds the temple's foundations to the charge, so the complaint now targets the temple.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ezra 4:12
Hebrew Bible
11 (This is a copy of the letter they sent to him.) “To King Artaxerxes, from your servants in Trans-Euphrates: 12 Now let the king be aware that the Jews who came up to us from you have gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and odious city. They are completing its walls and repairing its foundations. 13 Let the king also be aware that if this city is built and its walls are completed, no more tax, custom, or toll will be paid, and the royal treasury will suffer loss. 14 In light of the fact that we eat the salt of the palace,36 and since it does not seem appropriate to us that the king should sustain damage, we are sending the king this information 15 so that he may initiate a search of the records of his predecessors and discover in those records that this city is rebellious and injurious to both kings and provinces, producing internal revolts from long ago. It is for this very reason that this city was destroyed. 16 We therefore are informing the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are completed, you will not retain control of this portion of Trans-Euphrates.”
1 Esdras 2:18
Esdras A, 3 Esdras
Deuterocanon
16 But in the time of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Bishlam, Mithridates, Tabeel, Rehum, Beltethmus, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates, living in Samaria and other places, wrote him the following letter, against those who were living in Judea and Jerusalem: 17 “To King Artaxerxes our lord, Your servants Rehum the recorder and Shimshai the scribe and the other judges of their council in Coelesyria and Phoenicia: 18 Now be it known to our lord the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have gone to Jerusalem and are building that rebellious and wicked city, repairing its market places and walls and laying the foundations for a temple. 19 Now if this city is built and the walls finished, they will not only refuse to pay tribute but will even resist kings. 20 And since the building of the temple is now going on, we think it best not to neglect such a matter,
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Notes and References
“... Another point which has attracted text-critical interest is 1 Esdras’s alternative to the (apparently) anachronistic reference to Artaxerxes (and Xerxes) in Ezra 4.6–23. As is well known, Ezra 4.6-23 places Xerxes and Artaxerxes between Cyrus and Darius, though both reigned after Darius. In 1 Esdras, the material concerning Xerxes and Artaxerxes appears at 1 Esd. 2.15-25, in a shorter form in which Xerxes has disappeared and the names of the authors are conflated. This resolves the interrupted sequence in the Ezra text (so that Ezra 4.5 = 1 Esd. 5.70 is followed directly by Ezra 5.1 = 1 Esd. 6.1), but its new position in 1 Esdras makes the chronological situation no better. The letter of complaint to Artaxerxes is still placed between Cyrus and Darius. Furthermore in 1 Esdras it now halts the building of the temple (i.e. before it has even begun, 1 Esd. 2.17), whereas in Ezra the letter relates only to the rebuilding of the city (Ezra 4.12). Even if the priority of 1 Esdras is accepted, the value of 1 Esdras in this instance is questionable. ...”
Patmore, Hector M.
"1 Esdras" in Aitken, James K. (ed.) 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint
(p. 189) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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