When the temple preparations got underway, the locals made what seemed like a reasonable proposition to Zerubbabel and the family leaders: “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esarhaddon of Assyria, who brought us here” (4:1).
The narrator introduces the local people as “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” (Ez. 4:1). How have they already developed an adversarial relationship barely two years after their return to the land? Without knowing exactly what happened in those two years of transition, we only have our imaginations and a few textual clues to try and fill in the gaps.
To be sure, the sudden arrival of a caravan of 50,000 newcomers would be jarring to any local population. Also remember that in the genealogical records given in Ezra 2, many of the returnees still possessed property claims to their ancestral lands. In the half century of their absence, local people surely moved into the evacuated homes and squatted on the unclaimed land. The narrative does not describe evictions but we assume Judeans started an eviction process soon after their arrival.
