Ezra 5 Bible study: Who gave you a decree?

Chapter 4 ended with the building stopped: "Then work stopped on God’s house which is at Jerusalem" (Ezra 4:24). Chapter 5 doesn't begin with a new decree or a new king. It begins with prophets: "Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied to them in the name of the God of Israel" (5:1) (tap prophets). Then the builders move: "Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak rose up and began to build God’s house which is at Jerusalem" (5:2). And the prophets don't only speak and leave: "with them were the prophets of God, helping them" (5:2) (tap helping). The book comes back to it when the house is done: "The elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo" (Ezra 6:14). The book of Haggai tells of building too: "The LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the LORD of Armies, their God" (Haggai 1:14). The verses are set side by side for what they say; these notes don't say whether Haggai's Joshua is Ezra's Jeshua (Ezra 3 leaves that open).

Ezra 5:3→leads toMark 11:30

At God's house in Jerusalem, Tattenai asks the builders, "Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this wall?" (5:3). The elders answer that they are "the servants of the God of heaven and earth" (5:11), and that "Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God" (5:13). In the temple in Jerusalem (Mark 11:27), the chief priests, the scribes and the elders asked Jesus, "By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?" (Mark 11:28). Jesus answered with a question: "The baptism of John—was it from heaven, or from men?" (Mark 11:30). Jesus doesn't cite Ezra 5, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: who gives the right to do a work at God's house. Some read the two together for that shared subject, and set the elders' answer, which names the God of heaven (5:11) and a king's decree (5:13), beside Jesus' question, "from heaven, or from men?" (Mark 11:30). Others keep the two apart: Tattenai asks builders to show a king's permission, while in Mark 11 Jesus' own authority is questioned, and he tells them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things" (Mark 11:33).

טְעֵםte'emsay te-EM

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "taste, judgment, command". Strong's: "properly, flavor; figuratively, judgment (both subjective and objective)". It is the chapter's question and the chapter's answer. Tattenai asks, "Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this wall?" (5:3), and asks it again (5:9); the elders answer, "Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God" (5:13); and the letter asks for a search, "whether it is so that a decree was made by Cyrus the king" (5:17). The WEB's "decree" in all four verses is this word. In 5:5, "until the matter should come to Darius", matter is ta'am (Strong's H2941), which Brown-Driver-Briggs lists under the same entry. When the house is finished, the book uses both: "according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia" (Ezra 6:14), where commandment is ta'am and decree is te'em.