Ezra 5:3

INTERFERENCE OF TATNAI THE GOVERNOR, Ezra 5:3-17.

3. Tatnai Probably the successor of Rehum “the chancellor.” Chapter Ezra 4:8.

Governor on this side the river Literally, Governor of beyond the river. Compare note on Ezra 4:10, and on beyond Jordan at Joshua 1:14. The country beyond the river in the Persian usus loquendi comprised especially Syria and Palestine, and seems to have been one of the satrapies of the Persian empire. According to Herodotus (iii, 89) Darius Hystaspes “established twenty governments of the kind which the Persians call satrapies, assigning to each its governor, and fixing the tribute which was to be paid him by the several nations. And generally he joined together in one satrapy the nations that were neighbours, but sometimes he passed over the nearer tribes, and put in their stead those that were more remote.” Tatnai seems to have been the governor of one of the subdivisions of the satrapy west of the Euphrates, commonly called beyond the river, as above described. The Hebrew word for governor is פחה , pechah, a term of Persian origin, and kindred to the Sanscrit paksha and Turkish pasha. See note on 2 Kings 18:24.

Shethar-boznai He was probably the secretary or scribe of Tatnai, sustaining to him the same relation that Shimshai did to Rehum. Ezra 4:8.

Their companions Compare Ezra 4:9.