1 plainly that the anxiety of the Samaritans did not arise so much from a desire to unite in the erection of the temple, as from a wish to participate in the advantages which the peculiar good will of Cyrus would afford the Jews: just as in the time of Alexander they would gladly have been considered as Jews for the same reason, while under Antiochus Epiphanes they denied all connexion with that people, and consecrated their temple on mount Gerizim to Jupiter. II. When Ezra, c. ix. x.. put away from the people those of their wives who were foreigners, and their children by them, his conduct could hardly have originated in a misunderstanding of the plain law of Moses, Exod. xxxiv. 15. s. Deut. vii. 3, upon that subject, but must have proceeded from a conviction that the same cause for which Moses had interdicted marriages with the Canaanites, namely, the danger of seduction to idolatry, was equally strong in his own time for interdicting marriages with other foreigners: and that this was the true motive of his proceeding is expressly remarked in Neh. xiii. 26. Comp. JOSEPHUS Ant. Jud. XVIII. ix. 5. (a) The Samaritans were saved from any part of the expense, and they had the common privilege granted to all foreigners, of offering in the temple if they wished to worship JEHOVAR.] § 60. Character of the text of Ezra. The remaining difficulties arise from errors in the texts, the existence of which, even to some extent, in so many lists of proper names, and in so many numerical statements, is by no means a matter of surprise. Thus the number of names in c. ii. 1-63, does not agree with the sum total in v. 64, nor do the parallel places in Neh. vii. 6-69, and III Esdr. v. 8. ss.,' * where more names are found, afford any assistance, since the number is different in each.[a] So also Ezr. i. 9. s. the number of the vessels is made to amount to 5400, while the sum total of these mentioned does not exceed 2499. Comp. also Ezr. viii. 3. v. 10. The third book of Ezra,* which is not properly apocryphal, but a translation of the canonical book of Ezra, with occasional interpolations,[b] has at the end a long addition, which is also found in Neh. vii. 13-x. 40, and seems formerly to * [The apocryphal book called in our Bibles, the First of Esdras. Tr.] have been written at the end of the book of Ezra itself, since JOSEPHUS, Ant. Jud. XI. v. 5, has subjoined it to Ezra's history. Perhaps it was afterwards left out of Ezra because it was found also in Nehemiah. [a) Thus in Ezra the sum total amounts to only 29,818; in Nehemiah to 31,101; and in Esdras to 33,934: although these three books agree in stating it at 42,360. See Ezr. ii. 64. Neh. vii. 66. Esdr. v. 41.] [b) Table of places in Esdras parallel with II Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esd. i. 1-23. comp. II Chron. xxxv. 1-xxxvi. 21. § 61. Contents of the Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah, cupbearer to Artaxerxes king of the Persians, hearing of the melancholy condition of Jerusalem, obtains permission to fortify the city. Going to Judæa, he executes his commission, notwithstanding the opposition of the Samaritans: he shows himself a friend of the poor by promoting a general remission of debts, and behaves in a very magnanimous manner; i—vi. 19. Afterwards, while prosecuting his design of increasing the number of inhabitants, he discovers a fragment of history of a former age, containing a list of those who had returned to Judæa in the reign of Cyrus; which he inserts in his book entire together with an account of some circumstances of Ezra's time, which he had found in the same or in some other document: vii. 1—x. 41. (39.). One of the Hebrews out of ten is chosen by lot to settle in Jerusalem, c. xi. Then follows a list of priests and Levites who had come to Jerusalem under Cyrus, a genealogical table of the high priests from Joshua to Jaddua, and a catalogue of the chief heads of the priests and Levites: xii. 1-26. These are succeeded by an account of the dedication of the city wall, and of the appointment of officers over the dues of the priests and Levites: xii. 27-47.- -At the expiration of twelve years, Nehe miah returned to Persia, and after some time, comes again to Judæa, and reforms some prevalent abuses, especially the profanation of the Sabbath, the withholding of tithes, and intermarriages with foreigners: c. xiii. $ 62. The Artaxerxes of Nehemiah is Artaxerxes Longimanus. The order of history shows that the Artaxerxes to whom Nehemiah was cupbearer, was Artaxerxes Longimanus, and the contents of the book confirm this opinion. Artaxerxes reigned forty-one years, (464-424 B. C.), and Nehemiah went to Jerusalem in the twentieth year of his reign, (444 B. C.), and therefore thirty-three years after Ezra. During this interval the affairs of Judæa, which had been brought into considerable regularity by Ezra, had fallen again into confusion; particularly as in the years 459 and 458 B. C. two Persian armies had made Syria and Phoenicia their place of rendezvous, and Megabyzes at the head of a great army, had engaged Artaxerxes in Syria, 448 and 447 B. C. DIODORUS SICULUS, Lib. XI. c. 71, 74, 77. Lib. XII. c. 33, 34. CTESIAS in Persicis, § 32. 36—89. Xerxes, whom JOSEPHUS identifies with the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah, reigned only twenty-one years; whereas the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes is mentioned, Neh. xiii. 6. Some suppose Artaxerxes Mnemon to have been the monarch to whom Nehemiah was cupbearer. But in his reign Persian armies were traversing Syria in their way to Egypt, from the year 377 to 374 B. C., i. e. according to the supposition, from the 6th to the 9th of Nehemiah; and surely the author would not have altogether omitted such a fact. Add to this, that in the year 373 B. C., viz. on the same supposition, the 10th of Nehemiah, the death of Joiada the high priest took place; whereas he was alive during the the second visit of Nehemiah. Lastly, at the time referred to, Jonathan the high priest killed his brother in the temple; a deed concerning which Nehemiah would never have been silent, had it taken place in his days. § 63. The year of Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem. year It is the general opinion that Nehemiah went back again to Jerusalem the very next after his return to Artaxerxes, i. e. 431 B. C. But from Neh. xiii., it is clear that an interval of about twenty or twenty-four years must have elapsed before he went back to Jerusa .T lem, that is to say, it was not until 412 or 408 B. C.[a] 1) The abuses which Nehemiah found prevalent on his return, could not have crept in during a single year: such, for instance, as the habitual profanation of the sabbath; the constant withholding of tithes during so long a time that the Levites and priests were obliged to embrace other professions for a maintenance; and marriages with foreigners of such old standing that from them had arisen bearded sons,[b] and therefore at least twenty years of age, Neh. xiii. 24. s. It is indeed said that Nehemiah returned orp; but it is certain that this expression is used not only for a year, but also for a longer space of time- -2) At this second visit of Nehemiah, Joiada was the high priest, Neh. xiii. 28 [c] but, according to the Alexandrine chronicle, he succeeded Eliashib in the year 412 B. C. Nehemiah, therefore, did not revisit Judæa before that year, consequently, not until after the twentieth year from his return to Persia; perhaps about the year 410 or 408 B. C.-3) This considerable interval between the return of Nehemiah to Persia and his second visit to Judæa, agrees well with his age. For when he first left Persia, he was the king's cupbearer, and must therefore have been a young man ; and as Josephus tells us that he lived to a great age, he may well be supposed to have reached his 90th or 100th year, and to have been yet living in the year 380 or 370 B. C.; in which case he could have mentioned not only Darius Nothus, but also Jaddua the high priest. Neh. xii. 22. [d] JOSEPHUS, Ant. Jud. XI. viii. 2, by a lapse of memory has confounded Darius Nothus with Darius Codomannus, and has placed Sanballat, the chief of the Samaritans, in the age of the latter.[e] Hence, by a new er ror, he has made the person who, according to Nehemiah, c. xiii. 28. was the son of Joiada and son-in-law of Sanballat, and whom he calls Manasses, the son of Jaddua. Those writers, therefore, who have placed implicit reliance on Josephus have introduced great confusion into the book of Nehemiah. Comp. Germ. Introd. P. II. Sect. I. § 63. S. 291. f. and Archæol. II Th. I. B. § 64. S. 378. ff. [a) PRIDEAUX, Connex. P. I. B. VI. anno 428, allows five years for Nehemiah's continuance at the Persian court, and fixes his return to Jerusalem in 428 B. C. HALES, Anal. of Chron. II. 530 places the latter in 424 B. C. 'eight years, at the soonest,' after he had lest Jerusalem. Tr.] b) This does not necessarily follow from the passage cited. The persons from whom Nehemiah 'plucked off the hair' were probably the transgressing Jews themselves. Tr.] (c) Not Eliashib, as Michaelis has explained this verse, for such is not the usus loquendi in such cases.] [d) See on the contrary PRID. Conn. P. I. B. V. Vol. I. p. 298. s. ed. 1718. Tr.] [e) See PRID. Conn. P. I. B. V. Vol. I. p. 301. ss. Tr.] § 64. Nehemiah was the author of the book. There can be no doubt that this book was written by Nehemiah, for the author speaks in his person, and preserves throughout a style and mode of narration altogether characteristic of Nehemiah. Comp. c. v. 19. xiii. 14, 22, 31. iii. 6. (5.) vi. 14.[a] That the fragment respecting the return from the captivity, c. vii. 6-x. 40. which, as has been already said, was also annexed to the third book of Ezra, should differ in style from the remainder of the work, is not surprising. For as it is a document which Nehemiah found and incorporated into his own book, it is of course older than the rest. [b] That the name of Nehemiah occurs in c. viii. 9. and x. 2, is no objection; the insertion being plainly the work of some ignorant transcriber, who, not considering that the whole piece is a fragment of an earlier date, supplied what he supposed to be an omission in Nehemiah's own history.As Nehemiah has introduced this document of an earlier age, it is reasonable to conclude that he would not neglect that interval of time which elapsed between his return to Persia and his second visit to Judea. No doubt, therefore, the passage in c. xii. 1–26. was inserted by him. [c] The style indeed is different, but that is easily explained on the supposition that Nehemiah has made his extracts from the annals of that period nearly in their own words (comp. v. 23), and then pursued the thread of his own history It has already been observed that the Jews join the book of Nehemiah to that of Ezra; hence in the Vulgate the book of Nehemiah is entitled the Second Book of Ezra or Esdras.[d] [a) Comp. also c. ii. 3, 12, 18, 20. iii. 36. s. (iv. 4, 5.) v. 6. ss., 9, 14. ss. vi. 9, 16. vii. 5. xii. 40, 45. xiii. 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 15. s. 19, 21, 25, 29. Tr.] [6) De Wette and Bertholdt assert that the document found by Nehemiah extends no further than vii. 73; and that all that follows, as far as |