Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity built the temple unto the LORD God of Israel;
All Commentaries on Ezra 4:1 Go To Ezra 4
Bede
AD 735
For the king gave permission to all those who had been freed from the injustice of captivity that whoever wished might, with the Lord's guidance, go up to build the temple. Yet he did not order everyone to go up there, for if there were any among the same people of God whom it pleased more to make use of the liberty given to them in any other places, he ordered that these people, each one from his own place, should assist those who were going up, namely by giving them money and livestock for their needs on such a long journey. But he desired that they also give and entrust other gifts to them that they should offer in the Lord's temple when they arrived there in memory of those who sent them. Therefore, all were freed from the Babylonian captivity, all dedicated themselves to acts of devotion, but only the more perfect went up to build a temple for the Lord. The rest aided those who went up, because even if all the elect, after being freed from the power of darkness, attain the freedom of the glory of the children of God? and all rejoice that they are counted among the fellowship of the holy city (i.e. the Church), yet even so it is not the duty of everyone but only of the perfect to labor in the building up of this Church even by preaching to others. Consequently, such people, more than the rest of the faithful, are thought by the Apostle to be worthy of twofold honour, as also the angel says to Daniel: Those who are learned shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who instruct many to righteousness, like stars for everlasting eternities? And evidently the more the instructors of the multitude train their hearers to seek and love the things of heaven, the less they themselves care about acquiring or possessing earthly things. Rather, very often they abandon all the temporal things they have acquired for the hope of things eternal. Thus, in order that they may continue to preach, their needs must be sustained by the generosity of richer persons who are unable to preach. In this way, even rich people themselves can be participants in this preaching. From the viewpoint of these people, John says to Gaius: It was for the sake of the name that they went out, receiving no help from the Gentiles. We ought therefore to receive such people so that we may work together for the truth. For this reason it is now said that those who were going up to build the Lord's house should be assisted by generous gifts of money from their friends wherever they were residing, i.e. whether in Chaldea or in other places to which they had fled from fear of the Chaldeans. In addition to, he said, voluntary offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem, because it behoves those who abound in temporal riches not only to give from these what is necessary to the poor of Christ but also themselves willingly to do what good works /300/ they can on their own behalf, in order that by the merit of these, as of a voluntary offering, they may themselves deserve to have a place in God's temple, which is the Church. Let it suffice to have said this much about King Cyrus' letter.
