Binjamin · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name
heard
וַֽיִּשְׁמְע֔וּvai.yish.me.'U
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
children
בְנֵ֤יve.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
captivity
הַגּוֹלָה֙ha.go.Lah
H1473
exile · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
builded
בּוֹנִ֣יםbo.Nim
H1129
to build (literally and figuratively) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
temple
הֵיכָ֔לhei.Khal
H1964
a large public building · noun, common masculine singular absolute
LORD
לַיהוָ֖הla.Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
God
אֱלֹהֵ֥י'e.lo.Hei
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵֽלYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Chronicles 22:9-10 Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name sha…
Ezra 1:11 All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them of the captivity tha…
1 Kings 5:4-5 But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.
Ezra 4:7-10 And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the w…
Ezra 6:16 And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication of this house o…
Ezra 6:19-20 And the children of the captivity kept the passover upon the fourteenth day of the first month.
Ezra 7:9 For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, acco…
Ezra 10:7 And they made proclamation throughout Judah and Jerusalem unto all the children of the captivity, that they should gather themselves togethe…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezra 4:1-5
We have here an instance of the old enmity that was put between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. God's temple cannot be built, but Satan will rage, and the gates of hell will fight against it. The gospel kingdom was, in like manner, to be set up with much struggling and contention. In this respect the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former, and it was more a figure of the temple of Christ's church, in that Solomon built his temple when there was no adversary nor evil occurrent, (Kg1 5:4); but this second temple was built notwithstanding great opposition, in the removing and conquering of which, and the bringing of the work to perfection at last i…
Now when the adversaries - These were the Samaritans, and the different nations with which the kings of Assyria had peopled Israel, when they had carried the original inhabitants away into captivity, see Ezr 4:9, Ezr 4:10.
John Gill on Ezra 4:1
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 laid the foundation of it, which might soon come to their ears, the distance not being very great. Josephus (c) says they heard the sound of the trumpets, and came to know the meaning of it.
(c) Antiqu. l. 11. c. 4. sect. 3.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Ezra 4:1
Judah and Benjamin: Most of the exiles who had returned were from these two tribes of Israel (1:5).
Rashi on Ezra 4:1
the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin They are the nations whom Sannecherib settled in the land Israel, as it says (II Kings 17:24): “And the king of Assyria brought [people] from Babylonia and from Cuthah and from Avvah and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim, and he settled them in the cities of Samaria instead of the Children of Israel.”
The Church Fathers
The enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard, etc. The history is known; because it speaks of the Samaritans, the enemies of Judah and Benjamin, whom the king of Assyria transported into their cities and lands from various nations of the ten tribes in captivity. These, after receiving the law of God, partially observed it, while still serving the same idols as before. These people, regarding the true worshipers of God with disdain, promised them help with the work, intending to bring about harm once accepted into partnership. It is clear to anyone that such people figuratively represent false brethren, that is, heretics and bad Catholics. They are enemies of Judah, that is, of confession and praise, which the Church offers to the Lord in the present through true faith and worthy works of faith. They are also enemies of Benjamin, that is, the sons of the right hand, while they segregate those who listen to them from the faithful people's lot, who are to receive blessing and the eternal kingdom at the right hand of the Judge in the future. Such people say to Zerubbabel and the elders, "Let us build with you, for we seek your God like you do," as heretics desire the same authority of preaching to be granted to them among Catholics, promising to hold and love the same true faith and actions as them, so that, having gained the power to teach amidst the good seed, from which the Apostle Paul derived the name to be called a 'seed-speaker,' that is, a seed-sower, they may intersperse the tares of secret doctrine. Some did this at the Council of Nicaea, who subscribed to the true faith among Catholic fathers with a non-Catholic mind; so that being more familiarly mixed with the faithful, they might more freely build a place for receiving the Arian perfidy. Likewise, Pelagius in the Palestinian Council anathematized his own heresy, by which he most fiercely attacked the grace of God, in confession and writing, not from the heart, lest he be anathematized himself by Catholic priests, and thus lose the place of teaching in the Church and the ability to sow his error. "Behold," they say, "We offered sacrifices from the days of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, who brought us here." You offered sacrifices, but unclean ones because you did not renounce idols. For what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? Or what communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Jeshua · .Contends with those who — .Contends with those who
Temple, The Second · The Samaritans: Proposed to assist in building — The Samaritans: Proposed to assist in building
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
