Ezra 4 Word: Weakened by Deceitful Alliances

As I have been praying about the merging of religions happening in the world now: "We all pray to the same God" as well as politicians claiming faith in God,

I was led to Ezra 4 this morning, a book I am not at all familiar with. I found these notes illuminating and disturbing.  Things are moving so quickly now that I find it so hard to keep up with it all. The Lord certainly expounds on things that we are searching out, if we will only go to Him expectantly. His gifts are for the asking.

These quotes are taken from Bible hub commentaries from Ezra 4. They are a stark warning and parallel current events-we do well to heed their warning.  These commentary remarks are in regard to godless nations claiming to worship Israel's God, and asking to help in building the temple.

Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.

 The insincere request was based on an untruth, for the Samaritans did not worship Jehovah as the Jews, but along with their own gods {2 Kings 17:25 - 2 Kings 17:41}. To divide His dominion with others was to dethrone Him altogether. It therefore became an act of faithfulness to Jehovah to reject the entangling alliance. To have accepted it would have been tantamount to frustrating the very purpose of the return, and consenting to be muzzled about the sin of idolatry. But the chief lesson which exile had burned in on the Jewish mind was a loathing of idolatry, which is in remarkable contrast to the inclination to it that had marked their previous history. 

So one answer only was possible, and it was given with unwelcome plainness of speech, which might have been more courteous, and not less firm. It flatly denied any common ground; it claimed exclusive relation to ‘our God,’ which meant, ‘not yours’; it underscored the claim by reiterating that Jehovah was the ‘God of Israel’; it put forward the decree of Cyrus, as leaving no option but to confine the builders to the people whom it had empowered to build.

Now, it is easy to represent this as a piece of impolitic narrowness, and to say that its surly bigotry was rightly punished by the evils that it brought down on the returning exiles. The temper of much flaccid Christianity at present delights to expand in a lazy and foolish ‘liberality,’ which will welcome anybody to come and take a hand at the building, and accepts any profession of unity in worship. But there is no surer way of taking the earnestness out of Christian work and workers than drafting into it a mass of non-Christians, whatever their motives may be. Cold water poured into a boiling pot will soon stop its bubbling, and bring down its temperature. The churches are clogged and impeded, and their whole tone lowered and chilled, by a mass of worldly men and women. Nothing is gained, and much is in danger of being lost, by obliterating the lines between the church and the world. The Jew who thought little of the difference between the Samaritan worship with its polytheism, and his own monotheism, was in peril ofdropping to the Samaritan level. The Samaritan who was accepted as a true worshipper of Jehovah, though he had a bevy of other gods in addition, would have been confirmed in his belief that the differences were unimportant. So both would have been harmed by what called itself ‘liberality,’ and was in reality indifference.

No doubt, Zerubbabel had counted the cost of faithfulness, and he soon had to pay it. The would-be friends threw off the mask, and, as they could not hinder by pretending to help, took a plainer way to stop progress.

More from Bensen commentary that should give us pause when joining forces with those who claim to seek the same God, but really worship a mixture of gods, or not at all. It was said best up above, that to do so brings God down. This has happened with the joining of the cross of Christ, that which is most holy, to wed him with mere men with political ambitions, however noble, yet pursued with sinful, idolatrous, loathsome means! It breaks my heart! But looking at this passage, we see it is a tale as old as time. Hey! We serve your God and want to help you. No, you want to weaken us.

Hearing that the temple was in building, they were presently aware that it would be a fatal blow to their superstition, and therefore set themselves to oppose it. But as they had not power to do it openly and by force, they endeavoured to do it secretly and by wiles. They offer their service to build with them, but only that by this conjunction with them they might pry into their counsels, find some matter of accusation against them, and thereby retard the work, while they pretended to further it. For we seek your God, as ye do — This was false; for though they sought the same God, they did not seek him only, nor seek him in the way he had appointed, as the true Jews did. And we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon — Son of Sennacherib, and after him king of Assyria, who brought or sent these persons thither, either, 1st, in the days of Shalmaneser, who reigned in Assyria but

Benson v. 3

Ye have nothing to do with us — The chief of the fathers were soon aware that they meant them no kindness, whatever they might pretend, but really designed to do them an injury; and therefore, (though they had need enough of help, if it had been such as they could confide in,) they told them plainly they could not accept it, nor unite with them, as being of another nation and religion, and therefore not concerned in Cyrus’s grant, which was confined to the Israelites. But we ourselves will build — For you are none of those with whom we dare hold communion. Thus we ought to take heed with whom we go partners, and on whose hand we lean. While we trust God with an absolute confidence, we must trust men with a prudent caution. They do not plead to them the law of their God, which forbade them to mingle themselves with strangers, though they especially had an eye to that, but they urge what they knew would have greater weight with them, the king’s commission, which was directed to themselves only. In doing good we have need of the wisdom of the serpent, as well as of the innocence of the dove.

Ye have nothing to do with us - Because the Samaritans had united idolatrous rites with the worship of Yahweh 2 Kings 17:29-41. To have allowed them a share in restoring the temple would have been destructive of all purity of religion.

Oh that we were so wise! Let's say it again. "To have allowed them a share in restoring the temple would have been destructive of all purity of religion."

As king Cyrus ... commanded us - The exact words of the edict gave the right of building exclusively to those who should "go up" from Babylonia to Judaea Ezra 1:3.

The irony of this involving King Cyrus is not lost on me, but the principle in God's word is all about alliances, and refraining from the defilement of worldly alliances that weaken the true faith and worship of the One True God.

Zerubbabel and the other chiefs of Israel answer, "It is not for you and for us to build a house to our God;" i.e., You and we cannot together build a house to the God who is our God; "but we alone will build it to Jahve the God of Israel, as King Cyrus commanded us."