These verses form the superscription or address of the letter (Ezra 4:11, etc.) sent to Artaxerxes.
The Dinaites were probably colonists from Dayan, a country often mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions as bordering on Cilicia and Cappadocia. No satisfactory explanation can be given of the name Apharsathchites (see Ezra 5:6 note). The Tarpelites were colonists from the nation which the Assyrians called Tuplai, the Greeks “Tibareni,” and the Hebrews generally “Tubal.” (It is characteristic of the later Hebrew language to insert the letter “r” (resh) before labials. Compare Darmesek for Dammesek, 2 Chronicles 28:23 margin). The Apharsites were probably “the Persians;” the Archevites, natives of Erech (Warka) Genesis 10:10; the Susanchites, colonists from Shushan or Susa; the Dehavites, colonists from the Persian tribe of the Dai; and the Elamites, colonists from Elam or Elymais, the country of which Susa was the capital.
A snapper was perhaps the official employed by Esar-haddon Ezra 4:2 to settle the colonists in their new country.
On this side the river - literally, “beyond the river,” a phrase used of Palestine by Ezra, Nehemiah, and in the Book of Kings, as designating the region west of the Euphrates.
And at such a time - Rather, “and so forth.” The phrase is vague, nearly equivalent to the modern use of et cetaera. It recurs in marginal references.