With three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the king's house:
All Commentaries on Ezra 6:4 Go To Ezra 6
Bede
AD 735
And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. And in the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, and Tabeel, and the rest that were in their council wrote to Artaxerxes king of the Persians, and so on. Josephus believes that this Artaxerxes, who upon receiving the letter of accusation from the Samaritans forbade that Jerusalem and the temple be rebuilt, is Cyrus's son Cambyses, who after the thirty-year reign of his father himself ruled for eight years. After him, the Magi ruled for one year and they were succeeded by Darius son of Hystaspes, during whose second year, in which he authorized the rebuilding of the temple, the angel interceding on behalf of the people said through the prophet Zechariah: Oh Lord of hosts, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and from the cities of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years? Perhaps the reason that no mention is made of whether Ahasuerus, to whom a letter of accusation is likewise said to have been sent, wrote back or responded in any way is that he either died the very year he began to rule and left the authority to rule and look into these matters to Artaxerxes; or, being a contemporary of Artaxerxes but of lesser power, so to speak, he allowed him to deal with and decide on them.
