The Jews which came up from thee. i.e. from the central provinces—from that part of the empire where thou dwellest. To us. To our part of the world—to Palestine. Are … building the rebellious and the bad city.
The ground of this accusation must be sought in the various revolts of the Jews from the Babylonians recorded in 2 Kings 24:1-20; 2 Kings 25:1-30. There had been one, or perhaps two, previous revolts from Assyria (2 Kings 18:7; 2 Chronicles 33:11); but of these the Samaritans probably knew nothing.
They would, however, be likely to know that before Nebuchadnezzar took the extreme measure of removing the Jews from their own land to Babylon, they had rebelled against him three several times—once under Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:1), once under his son Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:9, 2 Kings 24:10), and once under Zedekiah, the last king (2 Kings 24:20).
Thus they had a basis of truth on which to ground their charge that Jerusalem was "the rebellious and the bad city." And have set up the walls thereof. It appears very clearly from the book of Nehemiah that the walls of Jerusalem were not restored till his time, seventy-five years after this.
The Samaritans, however, would naturally exaggerate, and call the rebuilding of the temple, and of a certain number of dwelling-houses, a fortifying of the place. The exaggeration, however, is not so great in the Chaldee text as in the Authorized Version.
What is said seems to be, that "they are setting up the walls and joining the foundations." That the work was far from complete is admitted in the next verse. We may doubt whether it was really begun.