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Key: khaki:verbs.
Note: Automatic aligning of the OET-RV to the LV is done by some temporary software, hence the OET-RV alignments are incomplete (and may occasionally be wrong).
K ומבלהים
ULTAnd it happened that the people of the land were making the hands of the people of Judah weak, and making them afraid to build,
USTThen the people who had been living in that land before the Israelites returned there started doing things to make the Jews discouraged and afraid to continue building the temple.
BSB § Then the people of the land set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to build.
NETThen the local people began to discourage the people of Judah and to dishearten them from building.
LSVAnd it comes to pass, the people of the land are making the hands of the people of Judah feeble, and troubling them in building,
FBVThen the local people set out to intimidate the people of Judah and make them too scared to go on building.
T4TThen the people who had been living in that land before the Israelis returned tried to cause the Jews to become discouraged and become afraid, and to cause them to stop building the temple.
LEBThen the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah[fn] and made them afraid to build
JPSThen the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and harried them while they were building,
ASVThen the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
DRAThen the people of the land hindered the hands of the people of Juda, and troubled them in building.
YLTAnd it cometh to pass, the people of the land are making the hands of the people of Judah feeble, and troubling them in building,
DrbyAnd the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building;
RVThen the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
WbstrThen the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building,
KJB-1769Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, (Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Yudah, and troubled them in building, )
KJB-1611Then the people of the land weakened the handes of the people of Iudah, and troubled them in building, (Modernised spelling is same as from KJB-1769 above)
BshpsAnd it came to passe, that the folke of the lande discouraged the people of Iuda, & troubled them as they were building: (And it came to pass, that the folke of the land discouraged the people of Yudah, and troubled them as they were building:)
GnvaWherefore the people of the land discouraged the people of Iudah, and troubled them in buylding, (Wherefore the people of the land discouraged the people of Yudah, and troubled them in buylding, )
CvdlThen the folke of the londe hyndered the people of Iuda, and made them afrayed to buylde, (Then the folke of the land hyndered the people of Yudah, and made them afraid to buylde,)
WycForsothe it was doon, that the puple of the lond lettide the hondis of the puple of Juda, and trobliden hem in bildyng. (Forsothe it was doon, that the people of the land lettide the hands of the people of Yudah, and trobliden them in bildyng.)
LuthDa hinderte das Volk im Lande die Hand des Volks Juda und schreckten sie ab im Bauen. (So hinderte the people in_the land the hand the peoples Yuda and schreckten they/she/them ab in_the Bauen.)
ClVgFactum est igitur ut populus terræ impediret manus populi Judæ, et turbaret eos in ædificando.[fn] (Done it_is igitur as populus terræ impediret hands of_the_people Yudæ, and turbaret them in ædificando. )
4.4Populi Judæ. Populum Juda, id est confidentem et glorificantem, dicit eum qui integramente Domino ædificare, id est ad voluntatem ejus faciendam et gloriam quærendam omnium quos potest animos et ora convertere quærit.
4.4Populi Yudæ. Populum Yuda, id it_is confidentem and glorificantem, dicit him who integramente Master ædificare, id it_is to voluntatem his faciendam and gloriam quærendam omnium which potest animos and ora convertere quærit.
BrTrAnd the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Juda, and hindered them in building,
BrLXXΚαὶ ἦν ὁ λαὸς τῆς γῆς ἐκλύων τὰς χεῖρας τοῦ λαοῦ Ἰούδα, καὶ ἐνεπόδιζον αὐτοὺς οἰκοδομεῖν, (Kai aʸn ho laos taʸs gaʸs ekluōn tas ⱪeiras tou laou Youda, kai enepodizon autous oikodomein, )
4:4 Realizing that they would have no way to influence an established Jewish community (4:1-3), the foreigners took hostile measures to neutralize the growing political power of the Israelites.
God is holy, and he made a covenant with Israel to establish a holy nation (Exod 19:4-6; Lev 19:2). Israel’s identity as God’s people required purity in worship and in social relationships. God knew that if his people mingled with their pagan neighbors, they would be drawn into their detestable worship practices (see Num 25:1-9). Their failure to maintain purity and their assimilation to the surrounding cultures ultimately led to their destruction and exile (2 Kgs 17:5-23).
When Ezra wrote to the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem, one of his main purposes was to remind them of their need to remain pure in their beliefs and commitments. After arriving in Jerusalem, Ezra found that the people had intermarried with pagan foreigners, even though doing so was not permitted in God’s law (see Deut 7:3-4; Josh 23:12-13). As a result, their identity as God’s holy nation was in danger of disintegrating once again (Ezra 9:1-2).
To impress on his readers the need for separation from these foreigners, Ezra recounts how those who first returned to Jerusalem refused to cooperate with the pagan people living around them (4:1-5). These people claimed to worship the same God, but they actually worshiped several gods in addition to Israel’s God. If the Jews had joined with these people, they soon would have compromised their beliefs and become ungodly, just as Israel had done before the Exile (see Exod 34:15-16; 1 Kgs 11:1-5; 2 Kgs 16:3). Those early leaders of the Jews in Judea understood the danger of accommodating these foreigners. They learned from their ancestors’ experience and refused to compromise the purity of their faith for the sake of peace. They carefully followed God’s instructions in everything they did (Ezra 3:2, 9; 6:18). If they were going to identify themselves as “the servants of the God of heaven and earth” (5:11), they would need to please and serve him and no other gods.
Believers today are identified as God’s holy people (1 Pet 2:9), a title that speaks of purity. Paul admonished the Corinthians to refrain from marrying unbelievers—for Christ and Satan have no fellowship (2 Cor 6:14-15). Righteousness and unrighteousness do not mix. The people of God must dissociate themselves from all behavior that defiles, instead clothing themselves with attitudes and actions that befit their holy status (Col 3:5-15).
The phrase and it happened that introduces a new series of events in the story. Use a natural way in your language for introducing something new or different.
This expression refers to the non-Israelite people groups, listed in 4:9, whom the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal had brought to live in the area just north of Judah in the century before the Jews were taken away into exile themselves. When the Jews returned to their homeland, those foreign groups were still living nearby. Alternate translation: “the foreign people groups living nearby”
and=he/it_was & ones_discouraging hands_of people Yehuda (Some words not found in UHB: and=he/it_was people the=earth/land ones_discouraging hands_of people Yehuda and,made_~_afraid DOM,them to,build )
These two phrases mean similar things. If it would be helpful in your language, you could combine them. Alternate translation: “making the people of Judah so intimidated that they stopped working on the temple” However, there is a slight distinction between the phrases. The first one describes how the people felt inwardly, and the second one explains what effect this had on their outward actions. So you could also translate the phrases separately. Alternate translation: “were intimidating the people of Judah so that they were afraid to keep working on the temple”
and=he/it_was & ones_discouraging hands_of people Yehuda
Here, hands represents power and action, so making the hands weak means to make someone so discouraged or intimidated that they do not use their power to act. Alternate translation: “were intimidating the people of Judah”
עַם־יְהוּדָ֑ה
people people Yehuda
In this context, this expression does not refer to all of the inhabitants of the province of Judah, whatever their nationality, but rather it specifically refers to the Jews who returned from exile and settled there. In this book, the people of Judah and “the people of Israel” both refer to the Jewish people and mean the same thing. Alternate translation: “the Jews who had returned from exile and settled in the province of Judah”
The Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, where all Israelite males were commanded to offer sacrifices to the Lord (Exodus 23:14-19; Deuteronomy 16:16-17), underwent several stages of reconstruction and development over hundreds of years. The first Temple was built by King Solomon to replace the aging Tabernacle, and it was constructed on a threshing floor on high ground on the north side of the city (2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21). Hundreds of years later King Hezekiah expanded the platform surrounding the Temple. When Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., the Temple was completely destroyed (2 Kings 25:1-21; 2 Chronicles 36:17-21; Jeremiah 39:1-10; 52:1-30). It was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after a group of Jews returned to Judea from exile in Babylon (Ezra 1:5-6:15; Nehemiah 7:5-65). Herod the Great completely rebuilt and expanded the Temple once again around 20 B.C., making it one of the largest temples in the Roman world. Jesus’ first believers often met together in Solomon’s Colonnade, a columned porch that encircled the Temple Mount, perhaps carrying on a tradition started by Jesus himself (John 10:23; Acts 3:11; 5:12). But Herod’s Temple did not last long: After many Jews revolted against Rome, the Romans eventually recaptured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in A.D. 70.
