Ezra 4:13

4:13 Let the king also be aware that if this city is built and its walls are completed, no more tax, custom, or toll will be paid, and the royal treasury ¹  will suffer loss.

Ezra 4:10

4:10 and the rest of nations whom the great and noble Ashurbanipal ²  deported and settled in the cities ³  of Samaria and other places in Trans-Euphrates. ⁴ 

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¹ tn Aram “the treasury of kings.” The plural “kings” is Hebrew, not Aramaic. If the plural is intended in a numerical sense the reference is not just to Artaxerxes but to his successors as well. Some scholars understand this to be the plural of majesty, referring to Artaxerxes. See F. C. Fensham, Ezra and Nehemiah (NICOT), 74.

² 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.

³ 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.

⁴ tn Aram “beyond the river.” In Ezra this term is a technical designation for the region west of the Euphrates river.