Ezra 4:24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then ceased the work of the house of God For they neither could nor might proceed in that work against their king's prohibition, without a special command from the King of heaven, which, however, they afterward received. But even then they were cold and indifferent about it, and were accordingly reproved by the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah 5:1, compared with Haggai 1:2. So that the work, in a great measure, stood still until the second year of the reign of Darius This, as was intimated on Ezra 4:6, was Darius the son of Hystaspis, successor of Cambyses; not, as some would have it, Darius Nothus, the son of Artaxerxes Longimanus: for he was not emperor till above one hundred years after Cyrus, and, if he had been the Darius here intended, there must consequently have been about one hundred and thirty years from the beginning of the building of the temple to the finishing of it; which is not credible to any one that considers, 1st, That the same Zerubbabel did both lay the foundation, and finish the work, Zechariah 4:9. 2d, That some of the same persons who saw the finishing of this second house; had seen the glory of the first house, Haggai 2:3.