The Costly Faithfulness of Sacred Separation

When the Samaritans approached the returning Jewish exiles with offers of partnership in rebuilding the Temple, they disguised a political calculation as neighborly cooperation. Maclaren penetrates their strategy: the mingled people—descendants of ancient northern kingdom remnants and successive waves of Assyrian and Babylonian colonists—recognized that the Jews, though numerically smaller, possessed legitimate claim to the land under Cyrus's decree. Their proposal to unite in Temple-building was not innocent; in ancient thought, such cooperation meant incorporation into national and religious unity.…