Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort: Rehum the chancellor - With this verse the Chaldee part of the chapter begins; and the same language continues to the end of Ezra 6:18.
These men wrote to Darius in their own language; and the king in the same dialect returns an answer, chap. 5. This circumstance adds authenticity to what is written: so scrupulous was the inspired penman, that he not only gave the words which each spoke and wrote, but he gave them also in the very language in which they were conceived and in the character peculiar to that language.