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Journey of a Passage

Ezra 4:4–24

The time leap: from Cyrus to Artaxerxes and back to Darius

Ezra 4:6–23 describes opposition under Xerxes and Artaxerxes, decades after the temple was finished, and about the city walls. Verse 24 returns to the temple and to Darius I. All witnesses agree on the order; the issue is how to read it.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew / Aramaic
  1. Original Ezra–NehemiahComposed c. 5th–4th century BC (debated)
  2. 4Q117 (4QEzra), Qumran Cave 41st century BC (reported)Descends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah
  3. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah
Greek
  1. Septuagint, Esdras B (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd–1st century BCTranslated from a Hebrew–Aramaic text of Ezra
Latin
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew
    2. 1 Esdras 2:16–30 in the King James Apocrypha1611Translated from printed Greek of 1 Esdras

    Narrative order and historical order

    4:1–5
    Cyrus to Darius I (538–520 BC): the temple
    4:6
    Xerxes I (486–465): accusation
    4:7–23
    Artaxerxes I (465–424): the walls
    4:24 → 5:1
    Back to Darius I, 520 BC: the temple

    Every witness, in order

    1. Composed c. 5th–4th century BC (debated)

      Original Ezra–Nehemiah

      – No copy survives

      No original survives.

    2. Translated c. 2nd–1st century BC

      Septuagint, Esdras B (library text: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew–Aramaic text of Ezra

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Ainsi, la reconstruction du temple de Dieu fut suspendue à Jérusalem, et on ne la reprit qu'à la seconde année du règne de Darius.

      4:24. One Greek text via Giguet's French; not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.

    3. 1st century BC (reported)

      4Q117 (4QEzra), Qumran Cave 4

      ◐ Contains part of itDescends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah

      How the site knows this: Reported in scholarship; not checked by the site.

      Reported to preserve parts of 4:2–6 and 4:9–11. Not collated by the site.

      Source: Qumran Digital Reader, 4Q117 (4QEzra), transcription ↗

    4. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Ezra–Nehemiah

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      וַהֲוָת בָּטְלָא עַד שְׁנַת תַּרְתֵּין לְמַלְכוּת דָּרְיָוֶשׁ מֶלֶךְ־פָּרָס

      and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia

      4:24 (Aramaic).

    5. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

    6. 1611

      1 Esdras 2:16–30 in the King James Apocrypha

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Greek of 1 Esdras

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      But in the time of Artexerxes king of the Persians Belemus, and Mithridates, and Tabellius… wrote unto him… until the second year of the reign of Darius

      1 Esdras places the Artaxerxes letter before the return under Zerubbabel (1 Esdras 5), making a different, also non-chronological, order.

    What changed, and why

    The usual reading: Ezra groups the opposition thematically, then resumes. An older harmonizing reading took "Ahasuerus" and "Artaxerxes" here as Cambyses and the usurper Gaumata (Bardiya), keeping the order chronological; Persian records give those kings other names, and this view is now rarely held. Darius in 4:24 is Darius I, not Darius II.

    What the evidence shows

    Sources

    Related lessons

    • Opposition, Letters and a Leap in Time →"The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin" offer to help build, saying they have worshiped Israel's God since Esarhaddon brought them. Zerubbabel and Jeshua refuse. The people of the land then weaken the builders through Cyrus' reign to Darius'. The chapter then leaps forward: accusations under Xerxes, and under Artaxerxes an Aramaic letter about the city's walls and the king's order to stop. Verse 24 returns to the temple and Darius' second year.
    • Investigation: The Persian Empire, Yehud and the Second Temple →Ezra's story is set inside the largest empire the world had yet seen. This investigation gathers the outside evidence: the Cyrus Cylinder, the chronology of the Persian kings, the province of Yehud and its stamped jars and coins, the Jewish community at Elephantine with its own temple, the Aramaic of the imperial chancery, and the question of Persian religious influence. Each item is shown with what it establishes and what it does not.