Ezra 4:9

thenwrote &c. Although Ezra 4:8 ends with -in this sort", the actual copy of the letter is not given until Ezra 4:11; Ezra 4:9-10 describe more minutely the senders, whose names were perhaps attached to the letter.

Nineof the nationalities from which the Samaritan colonists had been drawn are here mentioned by name; and the existence of many other varieties is implied in Ezra 4:10.

Scholars have been able approximately to identify the names.

the Dinaites are probably the -Dayani", a tribe mentioned in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pilesar and other Assyrian kings as inhabiting Western Armenia. If this identification be correct, it illustrates the very different sources from which Samaria had been colonised.

the Apharsathchites These have not yet been recognized with any certainty in the inscriptions. Rawlinson identifies with the Apharsachites (Ezra 5:6; Ezra 6:6) and considers the -Apharsites", the second name below, to be an accidental repetition of the same word. He understands -the Persians" to be meant in each case. Other scholars deny that any Assyrian king was ever in a position to have obtained colonists from Persia. Frid. Delitzsch suggests the inhabitants of one of the two great Median towns -Partakka" and -Partukka" mentioned in Esarhaddon's inscriptions.

the Tarpelites Rawlinson identifies with -Tuplai", which name appears in the Inscriptions as equivalent to the Greek τιβαρηνοί, a tribe on the coast of Pontus.

Tripolis in Northern Phoenicia is suggested by another scholar (Hitzig).

the Apharsites See above. Identified probably with a Median tribe mentioned in the inscriptions of Sennacherib as dwellers in the district of Parsua.

the Archevites The dwellers in Warka, a town S.E. of Babylon, the same as Erech (Genesis 10:10).

the Babylonians i.e. dwellers in Babylon, in Esarhaddon's days the capital of the subject province of Babylonia, Nineveh being the capital of the Empire. Possibly inhabitants expelled for insurrection.

the Susanchites The dwellers in Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire, mentioned in Nehemiah 1:1; Daniel 8:2, and Esther, the chief town of Elam.

the Dehavites Rawlinson identifies with the Dai (? Daghestan), a Persian tribe mentioned by Herodotus (i. 125); Frid. Delitzsch, with the dwellers in the town called -Du-ua" mentioned in an Assyrian inscription (747 b.c.).

the Elamites dwellers in Elam, -the Highlands" or Elymais, the country lying E. of Babylonia, having Persia on its eastern, Media on its northern frontier.