The Pulpit Commentary — Ezra — Section 49

Vers. 4, ~--Human ~red. _Whatever drops of nei~hbourly kindness there may have been m the cup of friendship offered by the Samaritans to "the children of the captivity," these, on the refusal of Zerubbabel to enter into alliance with them turned into bitterest animosity. Thenceforward they "breathed threatening" and 'llade opposition to those whom they had courted. We have illustration or sugges- tion here of the character and outworkings of human hatred. I. ITS BLINDNESS. Like all cruelty, and indeed like all sin, "it knew not what it did.' It thought it was only indulging in a natural and proper resentment ; in truth it was lifting up its hand against the people of God, and was doing its best (which wi:,; indeed its worst) to undermine and bring to nought the good work of God. Anger is always blind. It does not see its own hideousness; nor does it perceive the end of its doing. Its eye is darkened or discoloured, and its hand is a suicidal, a self- injuring hand. II. lTs DELIBERATENESS. These men deliberately set themselves to undo what their neighbours had begun. No mere outflash of indignation theirs, but deep, steady, well-cherished purpose to be avenged. Nothing was left undone, no stone unturned, that these new-comers might feel the full weight of their wrath. They found means to hinder them in their work, and they got up all the evidence they could collect of past excitements and disturbances in Jerusalem, and "hired counsellors" to repre- sent them at the court of Babylon (ver. 5), that they might frustrate and overthrow the purpose of Israel. There is no more painful sight in this world, and no more saddening evidence and consequence of sin, than the fact of men cherishing and nursing a rancorous hatred in their hearts against their fellows, and plotting and scheming, month after month, to do them injury, to break their schemes, to dis- appoint their hopes. III. THE MISCHIEF WHICH IT WORKS (ver. 4). These angry interferers had all too much success. They did weaken the hands of those whom they sought to hinder ; "they troubled them in building;" they succeeded in gaining the ear and winning the support of Cyrus, and ultimately they caused the work of building the temple to cease. There is a prevalent belief that persecution defeats its own ends-and this is true. We say that " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church "-and often it is. The fires it lights are often, if not always, purifying, cleansing the gold of its dross, and making the vessels of the Lord more "meet for the Master's use." Yet, on the other hand, it often works most serious mischief to the Church and the world, from which they painfully and only gradually recover. History shows that human rage against the truth and cause of God has done injury on a large see.le, and doubtless it is continually making its evil power felt on a small one: it is "weaken- ing t~e hands''. (".er. 4) ~f the people of God; it is t~o~bling_ theI? in building ur, his kmgdom ; 1t 1s causmg "the work to cease ; " 1t 1s " hmdermg the gospel This instance of unrighteous anger, like all other illustrations of it, reminds us of- IV. 1TB ESSENTIAL UNNATURALNESS. No doubt it seemed natural enough to these Samaritans to indulge in this bitter wrath and to take these vindictive measures. One of the greatest of the Romans, writing only a few years before Christ, declared that " war was the natural relation between neighbouring nations." But how really and essentially unnatural it is for one human heart, made to be the home of love and kindness and compassion, made to be the spring and source of beneficence and gen- erosity, to be harbouring hatreds, to be finding pleasure in another's pain, to be rejoicing in the humiliation and disappointment of another human heart I Wh~t blank contradiction to the will of our Creator I What a wretched departure from his design I How utterly unbeautiful, how infinitely repugnant to his eye 1-C. OH, IV, 7-16.] TRE BOOK OF EZRA. 53