Week 21 Ezra
Chapter four sneaks up on me.
Cyrus the Great had let the exiles return to Jerusalem.
They started rebuilding the temple but in chapter four got stalled by opponents.
Looks like they were stalled through the time of Cyrus…
Stalled through the time of Darius…
Stalled through the time of Xerxes…
Stalled into the time of Artaxerxes.
So it looks.
The way chapter four is written I get the sense that the writer is going through a story of Four Temple Stalls: Cyrus’ then Darius’ then Xerxes’ then Artaxerxes’. One-after-another. But then in chapter six he says the stalled temple rebuild was restarted. And completed by Darius’ sixth year.
I looked up the four rulers online:
Cyrus 559-530 BC
Darius 522-486 BC
Xerxes 486-465 BC
Artaxerxes 465-424 BC
If the temple was built by Darius’ sixth year it was built by about 516. Long before Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Xerxes and Artaxerxes stalled something but not the temple. It was already built. So if I’m thinking that Cyrus & Darius & Xerxes & Artaxerxes all stalled the temple project I need to rethink that.
I wonder why the writer didn’t make it more obvious for me. I don’t figure he was trying to jerk me around. Maybe he decided to group three similar situations (something like: oh, by the way Darius wasn’t the only oppositional episode). Or maybe he thought he had a smarter reader: no problem if I flash-forward. He’s got a brain…He’ll figure it out for himself.
Note: see the stalls in Ezra 4:5-7