Ezra 4:7

Artaxerxes. Commentators who have identified the Ahasuerus of Ezra 4:6 with Cambyses have seen in this Artaxerxes the false Smerdis, who ailed for about half a year in 522 B.C. and was killed by Darius I, who then took the throne. Others have identified the Artaxerxes of Ezra 4:7-23 as the king known in history as Artaxerxes I. See Additional Note at the close of this chapter.

Bishlam. This name is not attested elsewhere; it is uncertain whether it is Persian or Semitic. Mithredath is a Persian name (see on Ezra 1:8). Tabeel might be Semitic (cf. the Assyrian name Tab-ilu; see also Isaiah 7:6). The three men here named were probably Samaritan leaders. One at least, Mithredath, was a Persian, perhaps the governor, or possibly a Persian commissioner assisting a native governor by the name of Bishlam.

In the Syrian tongue. Literally, “in Aramaic.” The words translated “interpreted in the Syrian tongue” can be rendered either as “set forth [in] Aramaic,” or “translated [from] Aramaic.” The meaning would be that the letter was written in the Aramaic square script, used for official correspondence throughout the Persian Empire, and either composed in the Aramaic language, or translated from Aramaic into another language, perhaps Persian.