Ezra 4:10-11

4:10 and the rest of nations whom the great and noble Ashurbanipal ¹  deported and settled in the cities ²  of Samaria and other places in Trans-Euphrates. ³  4:11 (This is a copy of the letter they sent to him:)

“To King Artaxerxes, ⁴  from your servants in ⁵  Trans-Euphrates:

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¹ tn Aram “Osnappar” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), another name for Ashurbanipal.

sn Ashurbanipal succeeded his father Esarhaddon as king of Assyria in 669 B.C. Around 645 B.C. he sacked the city of Susa, capital of Elam, and apparently some of these people were exiled to Samaria and other places.

² tc The translation reads with the ancient versions the plural בְּקֻרְיַהּ (bÿquryah, “in the cities”) rather than the singular (“in the city”) of the MT.

³ tn Aram “beyond the river.” In Ezra this term is a technical designation for the region west of the Euphrates river.

⁴ tn The Masoretic accents indicate that the phrase “to Artaxerxes the king” goes with what precedes and that the letter begins with the words “from your servants.” But it seems better to understand the letter to begin by identifying the addressee.

⁵ tn Aram “men of.”