Reading for April 7th

 Read Ezra 4.6. In 4.6-24: Opposition to rebuilding Jerusalem. The author now moves from the opposition to the Temple rebuilding to opposition to building a wall around Jerusalem. After a brief effort at a chronological transition, there is an exchange of memoranda between several imperial officials and King Artaxerxes I of Persia. As a result, the king orders the suspension of any rebuilding of the city, which the author ties to opposition to the Temple. While these is no way to authenticate these memos, they have the form and general structure of known imperial memos from the Persian empire, although some elements may have been introduced to carry forward the larger purposes of the book. In verse 6: In the reign of Ahasuerus, in his accession year; Ahasuerus is the Hebrew  version of the name of the Persian king the Greeks called Xerxes. The main royal figure in the book of Esther, Xerxes came to the Persian throne late in the year 486 BCE. The contents of the accusation are not specified, nor the consequences of the report. This notice serves to bring the narrative through a chronological sequence of Persian kings (Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes) to the communication of with  Artaxerxes. Comments or Questions..