Let it now be known to the king that if that city is rebuilt and its walls are restored, they will not pay tribute, duty, or toll, and the royal treasury will suffer.
Cyrus stedfastly adhered to the Jews' interest, and supported his own grant. It was to no purpose to offer any thing to him in prejudice of it. What he did was from a good principle, and in the fear of God, and therefore he adhered to it.
Commenting on Ezra 4:6-16
Now because we have maintenance from the king's palace,.... Have posts under the king, to which salaries were annexed, by which they were supported, and which they had from the king's exchequer; or "salt" (o), as in the original, some places of honour and trust formerly being paid in salt; hence, as Pliny (p) observes, such honours and rewards were called "salaries": and it was...
LETTER TO ARTAXERXES. (Ezra 4:7-24) in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, &c.--The three officers named are supposed to have been deputy governors appointed by the king of Persia over all the provinces subject to his empire west of the Euphrates. the Syrian tongue--or AramÃ&brvbran language, called sometimes in our version, Chaldee.
Commenting on Ezra 4:7-24