Ezra 4:4 Commentary and Bible Study

It didn't take long. Friendliness soon turns into cunning and hatred overnight. ’Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and trouble them in building.’ Why, they did all sorts of things to bring things to an end. The children of Israel needed supplies from the nations round about. [Those nations] no doubt obstructed them. They attacked homesteads and looted. Those Jews working in Jerusalem had to return to their smallholdings. Some, every day perhaps; some, at least once a week, and they would waylay them on the journey, and ambush them and attack them. And while they were away from home, they would attack their wives and children out [on] the farms. So the people had to stay at home to defend their properties, and so the building of the temple was obstructed and ruined.