Ezra 4:23

Here there is a considerable gap. Several kings reigned between Cyrus and Darius, and they appear in the rest of the chapter. That part is an insert (verses 6-23), explaining what took place between those two points.

The adversaries were successful, and having received the letter, they went up as fast as they could, armed with royal authority, and effectively made sure no attempt could be made to continue the work of building the Lord's house. "They made them cease," it says, "by force and power."

The adversaries of those days present the king with political reasons for preventing the reuniting of the people. Such motives had great weight with this crafty, usurping monarch and, in fact, were the only motives that might draw his concern. The king notes that Jerusalem once had powerful kings. They would overshadow him if their throne were re-established. He also notes that the city had always shown itself rebellious against any foreign rule. This is enough to stir him to put a stop to the work.

Their last king, Zedekiah, had "sworn by God" to be faithful to Nebuchadnezzar, but he broke his oath and rebelled against the king of Babylon. So there was truth in the accusation that Jerusalem had been a rebellious city. The returned exiles were under God's favour and protection, and no one could harm them as long as they went forward in confidence in Him. Yet they now suffered, in His government in this world, the consequence of the sins of their fathers.

And so these four hostile forces unite here to ruin the work of God: trickery, intimidation, accusation, and violence. Only faith could have resisted them. But the people had no faith at all, and so the building of the house stopped for fifteen years.

But notice this — it is very important. God does not attribute the stopping of the work to the king's command. The king did give in at last, and did yield to their persistent begging to stop the Israelites. The Israelites began to stop before the king's authority arrived. It was lack of faith, not the king's authority, that stopped the work; and, beloved friends, as a rule, is it not always so? The ceasing of blessing among God's people is really never the work of the enemy outside, but lack of faith, and therefore of faithfulness, within.

These adversaries could have had no power against the people of God if the people themselves had not lost faith in God and heart for their work. The apostle wrote, "For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries" (1 Cor. 16:9); but not one of his opponents could have hindered his work, because he was counting on Him who "opens and no one will shut."

We can well imagine the scene when the letter was read before Rehum and Shimshai and their companions. They must have rushed up to Jerusalem in a fever of haste, and made them stop the work by force and power. "Then the work on the house of God that is in Jerusalem stopped, and it stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia." The returned exiles faced a hard test, and a decline set in at that time. Their former energy seems to have left them, as we find when we consider Haggai's message. Nor do we read anything at the close of this chapter about turning to the LORD in prayer.

Altogether it is a sad chapter — the account of Satan's activity. The only bright gleam in it is the faithfulness of the leaders of Israel in refusing an alliance with the world. The rest of the chapter is darkness. God does not appear in it; and, looked at with human eyes, it would seem as if the enemy had completely conquered. Yet while God does not step in, He is no uninterested spectator of what is taking place. Whatever His people are, He remains faithful. He will have His people thoroughly tested. But we shall see that He only waits for the right moment to raise up a power the enemy will not be able to withstand.