K7.IU. 



government by UM mlat ion of Nehemiah to Jerusalem from Artaxorxes 

 Longimno*, in the twentieth year of hU reign, B.C, 445. As Daniel'.i 

 seventy prophetic weeki commence at the going forth of the edict of 

 Cyrus to Zerubbabel, or that of Artaxerxes to Kara, these events 

 have been the subject of much critical investigation among biblical 

 critics. 



The content) of the first six chapters are briefly si follows : Chap. L 

 (ires an account of the proclamation of Cyrus concerning his release 

 of the captivB Jews, permitting them to go from Babylon to Jerusalem 

 to rebuild the temple ; of the restoration of their property, sacred 

 T satis and utensils ; and of presents made by the Chaldseans of money 

 and Tarions provisions. Chap. ii. state* the numbers of each of the 

 families composing the multitude which returned to Jud.-ea with Zerub- 

 babel, and the number of their beasts of burden. All this account, 

 except some of the numbers, is repeated word for word in the seventh 

 chapter of Nehemiab, beginning at Terse 6. In verses 64 and 65 of 

 Ezra, the total number of the people is said to have been 42,860, 

 which appears not to agree with the preceding particulars, since the 

 addition of these produces only 29,818, that is, a deficiency of 12,542. 

 The numbers given in Nehemiab. occasionally differ very widely from 

 those in Ezra : for instance, the children of Azgad are said in Ezra 

 (ii. 12) to have been 1222; but in Nehemiah (vii. 17) they are said to 

 have been 2322, or 1100 more. Nehemiah repeats precisely the total 

 given by Ezra, 42,360; but the addition of Nehemiah's particular 

 numbers makes 31,089, or a deficiency of 11,271. The numbers of 

 horses, 736, mules, 245, camels 435, and asses 6720, exactly agree in the 

 two accounts ; but in Ezra, verse 69, the chief fathers give to the trea- 

 sury 61,000 drams of gold ; in Nehemiah, ver. 71, they give only 20,000. 

 Chap. iii. records the events of setting up the altar at Jerusalem and 

 re-ectablwhing the Jewish sacrificial worship. An account of the 

 interruption of the building of the Temple by the decree of Artaxerxes, 

 and its completion by a subsequent decree of the same monarch, with 

 transcripts of the documents written on these occasions, occupy chap- 

 ters iv., v., and vi. Chapters vii. and via. contain an account of Ezra's 

 commission from Artaxerxes to undertake the government of Judea, 

 his preparations and reception of presents for his journey thither, with 

 a multitude of Jews, who it appears still remained in Babylon after 

 the return to Judaea of the multitude under Zerubbabel ; an enumera- 

 tion of the people and families who returned, and the weight of gold 

 and silver contributed by the king, his councillors, and the Israelites, 

 for the use of the Temple at Jerusalem (viii. 25-28). The value of 

 thnss presents amounts to 803,6002. Chapters ix. and x. relate the 

 r, r p^.Hjng of Ezra in separating from their wives and children all the 

 Israelites who had married women from among the surrounding nations, 

 and thus " mingled the holy seed with the abominations of the Gen- 

 tiles." Ezra (x. 3, 5, 19, 44) made all the Israelites who had " strange 

 wives and children" swear, and give their hands, that they would put 

 them away, which accordingly was done. The latter half of the last 

 chapter contains a long list of the husbands and fathers who were the 

 subjects of this national renovation. The part from iv. 8 to vii. 27 is 

 written iii the Chaldee idiom, the rest in Hebrew. The period to 

 which the four hut chapters relate, comprising the Jewish history from 

 B.C. 458 to 445, is coeval with the age of Pericles. The subject-matter 

 of the book of Nehemiah being identical with that of Ezra, the colla- 

 tion of the two affords a mutual illustration. Chapter viii. of Nehe- 

 miah relates circumstantially the fact of Ezra's solemn reading and 

 exposition of the law to the assembled Israelites, who, according to 

 Dr. Prideaux, were taught the (signification of the Hebrew words by 

 means of Chaldaic interpreters (8) ; for, since their seventy years' 

 captivity in Babylon, the Chaldee instead of the Hebrew had become 

 their vernacular language. (Dean Prideaux's ' Connection,' fol, p. 263.) 

 The critical arguments adduced in opposition to the opinion that the 

 Israelites lost the Hebrew language, and understood only the Chaldtcan, 

 are well exhibited in Dr. Gill's learned 'Dissertation on the Antiquity 

 of the Hebrew Language,' 8vo, 1767. The two principal undertakings 

 of Ezra wen 1. The restoration of the Jewish law and ritual, accord- 

 ing to the modes observed before the captivity ; and 2. The collection 

 and rectification of the Sacred Scriptures. On account of these im- 

 portant services the Jews regarded Ezra as a second Moses. It was 

 commonly believed by the ancient fathers of the Christian church 

 that all the Sacred Scriptures of the Jews were entirely destroyed in 

 UM conflagration of the temple and city of Jerusalem by the king of 

 Babylon, and that, on the return of the Jews from the Chaldicau cap- 

 tivity, these writings were wholly reproduced by a divine inspiration 

 of Ezra. (See Ireuams, ' Adversus Hseres./ 1. iii. c. 25 ; Tertulliau, 

 De Habitu Mulierum,' c. iii.; Clemens Alexandrinus, 'Strom.,' i. : 

 Basil, in 'Epist. ad Chilonem.) The following passages from the 

 wrnod Apocryphal book of Ezra, xiv. 20, 46, 46, 47, appear to sanction 

 this opinion. ' IVhold, Lord," says Ezra, " I will go as thou hast 

 d*d tor, and reprove the people. The world is set in dark- 



ness, and they that dwell therein are without light, for ' thy law is 

 burnt;' therefore no roan knoweth the things that are done of thee; 

 but if I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Ohost into me, 

 and I shall write all things that have been done iu the world since 

 the beginning, which were written in the law; And God said, Go, 

 prepare to write swiftly, and when thou hast done, some things shall 

 thon publish, and some things shall thou show secretly to the wise." 

 The learned Dr. Prideaux ( ' Connection,' p. 260, folio) remark", that 

 " in the time of king Josiah (B.C. 640), through the impiety of the two 

 preceding reigns of Manassch and Ammon (a period of sixty years), 

 the book of the law was so destroyed and lost, that, besides the copy 

 of it which Hilkiah, the high-priest, accidentally found in the Temple 

 (2 Kings xxii. 8, etc. ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, Ac.), there was then no other 

 to be had; for Hilkiah 's surprise in finding it, and Josiah' s gri. f in 

 hearing it read, do plainly show that neither of them had ever seen it 

 before ; and if this pious king and the high-priest were without it, it 

 cannot be thought that any one else had it." If this were the authentic 

 copy laid up before the Lord in the Temple, it was burned, as believed 

 by all Jewish and Christian writers, in the burning of the Tern pie, fifty- 

 two years afterwards, by Nebuchadnezzar. Dr. Prideaux takes it to 

 be implied in several passages which he cites that, from the copy 

 accidentally found by the high-priest Hilkiah, some transcriptions were 

 made previous to the destruction of the Temple, and that from these 

 scattered copies Ezra formed his improved edition of the sacred text. 

 In common with most other modern divines, he rejects the opinion of 

 the fathers respecting the restoration of the Scriptures by a new reve- 

 lation to Ezra. AH, he continues, that Ezra did was "he got together 

 as many copies of the sacred writings as he could, and out of them all 

 he set forth a corrected edition, in which he took care of the follow- 

 ing particulars: 1. He corrected all the errors introduced int.. 

 copies by the negligence or mistakes of transcribers ; for, by comparing 

 them, he found out the true reading, and set all to rights. 2. He col- 

 lected together all the books of which the Sacred Scriptures did tli n 

 consist, disposed them in proper order, and settled the canon of Scrip- 

 ture up to that time." The Jewish writers state that the cauou was 

 decided by a congress of 1 20 elders under the presidency of Ezra ; but 

 since they mention as members of it, not only the contemporaries of 

 Kzra, as Daniel, Shadrach, Meschech.andAbednego.but the high-priest 

 Simon the Just, who lived 250 years later, it is evident that they mean 

 the number of those who 'successively' arranged and rectified the 

 canonical book*. Ezra divided all the books he collected into three 

 parts the Law, that is, the Pentateuch; the Prophets, containing all 

 the historical and prophetical books; and the Hagiographa, whuli 

 comprised all the writings not included in the two other divisions. 

 (Josephus, 'Advers. Apion.') He divided the Pentateuch into fifty- 

 four sections, one of which was read every Sabbath ; and, according to 

 the Jewish authorities, he was also the author of the smaller dr. 

 called Pesukim, or verses, and of the various readings and suggested 

 corrections inserted in the margins of the Hebrew copies. These, 

 called Keri Cotib (that which ia read and that which is written), appear 

 however in the books attributed to Ezra himself. (On these particular* 

 see the remarks of Prideaux; Buxtorf, ' Viudiciao Veritatis Hol>: 

 par. ii. c. 4 ; Walton, ' Prolegom.,' viii. S 18 ; and Dr. Gill, ' Dissertation 

 on the Hebrew Language.') Most Biblical critics state, that Ezra changed 

 the ancient names of places for those by which these places were known 

 in his time, and some say that he wrote out all the Scriptures in the 

 Chaldeo character, which alone was used and understood by the Jews 

 after the Chaldamn captivity. Whether Ezra added the vowel-points, 

 and whether they were invented by the Hasorite grammarians at a 

 f eriod far posterior to the rise of Christianity, are subjects of great 

 controversy among Hebrew critics. A concise and able view of this 

 dispute is contained in Houbigaut's ' Uacines Hebraiques,' 1732. The 

 Jewish commentators assert that all the rules and observances pre- 

 served by tradition from the time anterior to the captivity wore care- 

 fully collected by Kzra, and that having reviewed them, those wlm-h 

 he sanctioned by his authority henceforth constituted the oral law, in 

 contradistinction to that which is written; the Church of Jem 

 like the Church of Rome, regarding Scripture and tradition of r<|iial 

 authority, and believing the latter to be highly necessary for clearing 

 the obscurities, supplying the defect*, and solving the difficulties of 

 the former. (See the Rabbinical authorities cited by Dr. Prideaux.) 

 It is a theory suggested by this learned divine, and since adopt 

 many others, that all the numerous passages of the Hebrew Scriptures 

 which involve chronological inconsistencies were interpolations made 

 by Ezra, and that this U the only possible way to solve the difficulties 

 which arise from considering the several books as the productions of 

 the persons to whom they ore commonly ascribed. The Book of K/.m, 

 with the two Books of Chronicles, Nehemiah, Esther, and Slulachi, are 

 supposed by Dr. Prideaux to have been ndded to the sacred canon by 

 the high-priest Simon the Just, in the year i;.c. 150. 



