What Does Ezra 4:2 Mean?
Then they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the fathers, and said to them, Let us build with you, for we seek your God as you do, and we slaughter to him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, who brought us up here.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.THE KEY
The speakers ground their bid to build together in a shared search and shared sacrifice, making devotion their claimed basis for belonging.
THE MEANING
A request for shared work comes wrapped in shared devotion: “we seek your God, as ye do” and “we do sacrifice unto him.” Seeking and sacrifice are the speakers’ stated grounds for standing beside you; the verse lets you hear those claims without making their inner direction transparent.
THE ROOT
נִדְרֹשׁ
nidrosh
GROWS FROM
דָּרַשׁ
darash
To seek, inquire, or search out.
“seek” in this verse is nidrosh. The form nidrosh names seeking as an active search, not merely a label of belonging. The verse places that search beside sacrifice, so the speakers’ appeal rests on both a stated direction and a stated practice.
ALSO GROWS
doresh: One who seeks or inquires.
דֹּרֵשׁ
The seeker is named by the ongoing direction of their attention, giving “we seek” the sense of an orientation.
midrash: An inquiry or exposition built through searching the text.
מִדְרָשׁ
This branch preserves the root’s sense of seeking through examination, adding depth to the speakers’ claim that they seek God.
זֹבְחִים
zovchim
GROWS FROM
זָבַח
zabach
To slaughter or offer sacrifice.
“slaughter” in this verse is zovchim. The speakers describe sacrifice as an established practice and use it as evidence of shared devotion. The same root names both the act and its offering, showing how their claim joins worship to visible practice.
ALSO GROWS
zebach: A sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
The offering gives a concrete form to the speakers’ stated devotion.
mizbeach: An altar, the place of sacrifice.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar extends the root from the act of offering to the place organized around it.
THE PATTERN
A claim of devotion takes shape in the direction of seeking and the actions joined to it.
And you will seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the governance of the heavens, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens.But someone will say, You have trust, and I have works. Show me your trust without your works, and I will show you my trust by my works.THE THREAD
The young lions go lacking and go hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.“They that seek the LORD” uses the same Hebrew root, darash, as “we seek your God” here. Psalm 34 links that search to what the seekers find, opening the word from a stated claim into an orientation with a consequence.
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