The Costly Faithfulness of Sacred Separation
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.
Ezra 4:1-5Universalfaithful separation from compromiseidolatry and exclusive worship
Alexander Maclaren