Ezra 4:7

Artaxerxes] i.e. Artaxerxes Longimanus (464-424), the successor of Xerxes. Since both Xerxes and Artaxerxes lived after Darius Hystaspis, to whom Ezra 4:24 probably refers, and to whose reign the contents of Ezra 5 belong, the section, Ezra 4:6, departs from the chronological succession of events either in consequence of some accidental misplacement, or because the writer has in view a comprehensive summary of the several occasions when opposition was offered to the Jews by their enemies. The charge made in this section against the Jews is not the building of the Temple (the subject of which is resumed in Ezra 4:24 and Ezra 5), but the fortification of Jerusalem (Ezra 4:12), either by Nehemiah (as related in the book of Neh) or by a body of Jews who came from Babylon before him, perhaps those who accompanied Ezra (see Ezra 7). Some, who consider the chronological sequence in this chapter to be unbroken, identify the 'Darius' of Ezra 4:24 with Darius Nothus (423-405); whilst others, who take Ezra 4:6 to be a detailed explanation of the opposition summarised in Ezra 4:5, identify Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes with Cambyses and Gomates, the two kings who came between Cyrus and Darius Hystaspis.

In the Syrian tongue, etc.] RV 'written in the Syrian (Aramean) character, and set forth in the Syrian (Aramean) tongue.'Aramean was the chief medium of communication between the different peoples of the East: cp. 2 Kings 18:26.