But the eye of their God was upon the elders of the Jews, and they did not make them cease till the matter came to Darius; and then they returned answer by letter concerning it.
Officials come to the builders at Jerusalem. They demand to know who authorised the work, and they ask for the names of every man involved. The building carries on anyway. The reason has nothing to do with the strength of the workers.
This watching is not neutral. One writer sees God taking in the whole danger His people stood in, and giving them what they needed to keep going.
The eye of God was upon His beloved people, seeing their danger. He watched so that He might give them the courage they needed in front of the enemy. He would make them aware of His presence and shelter, and so stir them up to keep on with their work. And it really is a wonderful thing for our souls when we realise, even a little, that the eye of God is upon us. It produces in us that holy fear which makes us fearless of man. It also gives us the sweet sense of His presence and protection covering us. In His grace He has bound us to Himself by ties that cannot perish.
The trouble started the moment the building restarted. Commentators trace this to a pattern: the enemy attacks what is done for God.
Suppose believers settle down in the world, set their minds on earthly things, and become "dwellers on earth" — the phrase is meant in a moral sense. Then Satan will leave them alone. But the Spirit of God may move them to grasp His mind and go out in living testimony. The moment they do, the adversary will try to turn them aside by any trick or device likely to succeed.
The officials named in this chapter are not the ones who blocked the work earlier. Later, new names appear again. The faces change; the resistance does not.
One group of men succeeds another in their hatred against the work of God, some more violent, some less. But the opposition remains, because the enemy who uses all these instruments has not changed. If only faith would never let the obstacles raised by Satan's agents stop it! If only we understood well that no one can destroy the work of God, because God remains over and above it all!
The verse says the enemies "did not stop them." One writer names who held them back, and who kept the builders going.
These enemies did not reckon with the Keeper of Israel who neither sleeps nor slumbers. They did not know it, but what they were doing would lead to victory for God's people. It would end in the finishing of the house of God. The eye of God was upon the elders of the Jews. He gave them strength, courage and assurance, so that they could persevere in the work.
The builders did not wait for fresh permission from Persia before picking up their tools. Two prophets had spoken, and that was enough. The authority to build had been theirs all along.
Grace working through the word is what called them back to His work, not the decree of the Persian power. They were not acting against authority. Cyrus had given them that authority at the start, in line with prophecy spoken before he was born and before Judah went to Babylon. But their enemies frightened them, and they turned to their own affairs and neglected God's house. That encouraged the effort to stop them by the world's authority... Then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah roused them from their laziness and their fears, and they took up the work again in the face of opposition and threats. But it was all in vain.
The work goes on "until the report should reach Darius." That report was meant to shut the project down. It did the opposite.
Faith could see God at work behind the scenes. He used the power of the enemy to carry out His own purposes. Here is another instance of how He causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. When their adversaries interfered, Darius confirmed the decree of Cyrus. He also issued a second decree: he himself would pay for everything the house of God needed.
- Eye — God watched over the elders to protect them, not to inspect them from a distance. His eye gave them courage, shelter, and the sense of His presence while the enemy stood in front of them.
- Enemy — the attack came because the work was for God. The names of the opponents keep changing, but the one behind them does not.
- Restraint — the enemies could not make them stop. God held back the hand that wanted to halt the building, and the work went on through the whole investigation.
- Faith — the builders started again at the word of two prophets, not at a new permit from Persia. Faith took away their fear.
- Result — the hostile letter reached Darius, and back came both confirmation and funding. God turned the power aimed at them into their supply.
The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shethar-boznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, who were on this side the river, sent to Darius the king.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
They sent a report to him in which was written thus To Darius the king, all peace!
Work on the temple had restarted. The Persian officials who came to inspect it now put the question to King Darius in writing. This verse is the letter's opening line. Its polite greeting of peace comes from men who had the power to stop everything — yet their report would serve the very work they questioned.
The letter reports what the officials found in Jerusalem, and it repeats the answer the builders gave them:
Then Tatnai and his associates sent a letter to King Darius. It gives details of their visit to Jerusalem that we are not told elsewhere. Zerubbabel and his companions had answered Tatnai's questions like this: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth." So they bore witness to who they were. Then they told what had happened, and how Cyrus had made the decree to build the house of God… The builders must have had perfect peace about this letter, knowing that the LORD was with them.
An earlier letter about Jerusalem had already gone to a Persian king in a hostile tone. This one is different:
Tattenai then wrote a letter to King Darius. It was not hostile, like the one Rehum and his companions had written to Artaxerxes (ch. 4:12-16). He was simply asking whether what the Jews had told him was true. The message came from the governor of the region beyond the river (Tattenai), Shethar Boznai and their companions, the Persians beyond the River.
The men writing had every interest in halting the building. Yet what they set down was accurate, and their own words praise the workers:
They were clearly impressed with the work of the weak Jews, for they tell the king, "We went into the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is being built with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls, and this work goes on fast, and prospers in their hands." Unlike the letter in the earlier chapter, this one at least reports the facts faithfully. Both letters aimed to stop the work. Yet here the enemy testifies to the hard work and devotion of the builders.
Even the way these officials named Israel's God carries weight:
They did not consider the God of Israel as similar to one of the idols of the nations, but recognized Him as the great God. They put the whole matter in a restrained and fair way. They did not demand that the work be stopped. They only asked whether the king of Persia had permitted it.
The Jews had started building again before any new royal permission arrived. Their ground was the earlier decree of Cyrus:
How bold faith is! And God justifies the faith that He gives. This looked like a lack of respect for the royal authority. But in fact they had at least as good an authority for going on with the work. If Artaxerxes stops the building of the house here, Cyrus had already authorized the building of it… They go back to what Cyrus had commanded. They knew one of the great rules of the Persian kingdom well: the laws of the Medes and Persians did not change. It was Artaxerxes that had changed.
The opponents' plan failed completely:
So the adversaries were fully refuted and stopped in their evil work. The house of God received — I will not say a push forward, but — its completion. For the beautiful fact, as we have already seen, is that the Jews had faith to start building the house again before they got this fresh decree. "And the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered [not through the commandment of the king, but they prospered] through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo."
- Inquiry. The letter to Darius was measured and truthful, unlike the hostile complaint sent to Artaxerxes earlier.
- Testimony. It was written to question the work. Instead it recorded how hard the builders worked, and it called Israel's God "the great God."
- Authority. The Jews stood on the older decree of Cyrus. Persian law did not change, so their boldness was also their defence.
- Peace. The letter opens by wishing the king peace. The builders had the real thing, because the Lord was with them.
- Power. The work prospered through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, not through the king's permission. The decree only confirmed what faith had already begun.