5:1 Then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied concerning the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.
The Samaritans convinced King Darius to stop the construction project of the temple for 15 years (535 to 520 B.C.). God sent the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to deal with the problem. Ezra recorded that one of the problems was the Samaritans. The two prophets recorded that the problem was the Jewish people. The Jewish people were more concerned with building their nice homes than they were in building the temple. The temple was essential for the Israelites, because the sacrifices gave a daily graphic object lesson of the coming atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
5:2 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak began to rebuild the temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were with them, supporting them.
Zerubbabel was the governor of Jerusalem. He was the last leader of Israel from the messianic Davidic line, except for Jesus. Jeshua was the High Priest. The prophets encouraged these two men to become the civil and religious leaders of the temple reconstruction period.
5:3 At that time Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their colleagues came to them and asked, “Who gave you authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?”
Archaeologists have excavated a Babylonian record dated at 502 B.C. which designates the name of Tattenai as the governor of the Trans-Euphrates area. All of Syria-Palestine was under him. This area included and was much larger than Israel. Shethar-Bozenai was probably an assistant to Tattenai. There was some major political unrest taking place at the beginning of the Darius reign. Tattenai may have thought that the temple construction would grow into a full-scale rebellion against the empire.
5:4 They also asked them, “What are the names of the men who are building this edifice?”
These Persian officials wanted the names of the leaders. They were attempting to intimidate Zerubbabel and Jeshua.
5:5 But God was watching over the elders of Judah, and they were not stopped until a report could be dispatched to Darius and a letter could be sent back concerning this.
This incident in history was a spiritual battle between God and Satan. God was working quietly behind the scenes.
5:6 This is a copy of the letter that Tattenai governor of Trans-Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and his colleagues who were the officials of Trans-Euphrates sent to King Darius.
Tattenai and his men were enemies of God. They were men of the world. The Jews were not about to cast their pearls before swine. If the Jews told Tattenai that God told them to build the temple, then the message would not be understood. “The natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, because they are foolish to them.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) The Jews answered these skeptics with silence.
5:7 The report they sent to him was written as follows:
“To King Darius: All greetings!
Tattenai and his men responded by writing a letter to King Darius.
5:8 Let it be known to the king that we have gone to the province of Judah, to the temple of the great God. It is being built with large stones, and timbers are being placed in the walls. This work is being done with all diligence and is prospering in their hands.
The gist of the letter is as follows: The Persian officials just happened to be in the neighborhood and they noticed that the Jews were building the temple. They wanted to help out their king and let him know what was going on in Jerusalem. A temple was being built. It would become a threat to the King of Persia. These Jewish people would rebel and pay the Persian King no more taxes. We just thought that you should know.
5:9 We inquired of those elders, asking them, ‘Who gave you the authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?’
The authority came from God, but the Persian leaders would not understand this answer.
5:10 We also inquired of their names in order to inform you, so that we might write the names of the men who were their leaders.
Notice that the Persian leaders did not know the names of the leaders. The Jews did not tell their enemies the names of the two prophets (Haggai and Zechariah) who gave them a direct message from God. The Persian leaders would not have understood this kind of prophetic message.
5:11 They responded to us in the following way: ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth. We are rebuilding the temple which was previously built many years ago. A great king of Israel built it and completed it.
The message given to the Persian leaders was that the Jews did not serve Persia, but they served the God of heaven and earth. In other words, Jehovah was the one true God. He was superior to Darius’ god, Ahura Mazda, whom Darius called “the god of heaven.” Also, the great king who built the temple was not Persian, but Jewish (Solomon).
5:12 But after our ancestors angered the God of heaven, he delivered them into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this temple and exiled the people to Babylon.
The Jews must have sounded arrogant to the Persian leaders. The Jews answered the Persian charges by stating that the greatest king of the ancient Near East (Nebuchadnezzar) was merely a petty official in the administration of the Jewish God. The truth of the Word of God will be accepted as arrogance by the satanic world system.
5:13 But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon, King Cyrus enacted a decree to rebuild this temple of God.
The Persian leaders were given concrete evidence that King Cyrus had commanded the Jews to rebuild the temple.
5:14 Even the gold and silver vessels of the temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and had brought to the palace of Babylon—even those things King Cyrus brought from the palace of Babylon and presented to a man by the name of Sheshbazzar whom he had appointed as governor.
Cyrus even sent the temple vessels back with the returning Jews.
5:15 He said to him, “Take these vessels and go deposit them in the temple in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt in its proper location.”
All of these records could be checked.
5:16 Then this Sheshbazzar went and laid the foundations of the temple of God in Jerusalem. From that time to the present moment it has been in the process of being rebuilt, although it is not yet finished.’
Sheshbazzar could have been another name for Zerubbabel, or he could have been a different man who was in charge of laying the foundation of the temple.
5:17 “Now if the king is so inclined, let a search be conducted in the royal archives there in Babylon in order to determine whether King Cyrus did in fact issue orders for this temple of God to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us a decision concerning this matter.”
These enemies did not believe that a decree had ever been made by Cyrus. They were actually helping the cause of the Jews by insisting that the document be produced.