RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ezra and Nehemiah
ous. For errors and omissions in the text the pseudo-Ezra is sometimes serviceable (Ezra v. 15). Many of the lacunre in the text are evident, and occasionally the evident completion of the sense may be gathered from the context (Ezra iii. 12-13). It is quite likely that the lacuna between Ezra iv. 23 and 24 is not to be laid to the charge of the author, but to carelessness or to arbitrariness on the part of copyists. That changes have taken place in the person of the verb, particularly from the first to the third, is one of the matters of which note must be taken in a critical discussion of the text.
II. Composition of the Books : This is understood both by the arrangement of the material and by its nature. The one book Ezra-Nehemiah is the second half of a large work, of which I and II Chronicles are the first half. The divisions of Ezra-Nehemiah are Ezra i.-vi., vii.-x., Nehemiah i.-xiii. These
three parts are constructed on the 1. Analysis same plari; each narrating the story of the oj a retum 0f tne jews under special 00 S" authority and with grants from the Persian kings under Zerubbabel and Joshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, and telling the weighty consequences for the temple community in the Holy Land. There resulted the completion of the temple, the restoration of the public service, the binding together of the community by prohibition of foreign marriages, the securing of political independence of the neighboring peoples through completion of the wall of the repeopled capital, and adoption by the community of the law-book of Moses (Ezra vi., x.; Neh. iii. sqq., viii.).
These results are interwoven into the history of the times. The first step was taken under Cyrus and continued under Darius, the second in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, the third in the twentieth and thirty-second year of the same Artaxerxes. The Persian succession was well known to the author, who in Ezra iv. 5-7 names successively Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. During that period fell the decrees which were the legal basis of the Jewish community and the contests the successful issue of which consolidated that community and impressed upon it a distinctive character. The seventh year of the Artaxerxes of Ezra vii.
can not be regarded as the seventh
„ ' e year of an Artaxerxes who lived some
Emnloved sixty years later under whom the
events of Neh. i.-xiii. happened. Nor may it be held that the author dealt with fictitious dates and decrees. Such suspicions are excluded by the quality of the material, which the writer has brought together and made to serve his. purpose. The books are a mosaic. The author doubtless obtained the list of the returning exiles from the Books of the Kings of Israel and Judah. He also employed the " Memoirs " of Ezra, those of Nehemiah, and a reputed report of Tabeel and his companions (Ezra iv. 7) directed to Artaxerxes. Here the Masoretic text is the result of a complete misunderstanding. The author of it made out of the original "with the permission of Mithredath ' ' the series ' ' Bishlam, Mithredath," producing a triple authorship for a document which is only referred to and not given, since the document in Ezra iv. 11-16 is specifically
stated to be by others (verses 8-9). It is to be noted also that iv. 12 refers to the building of the city and iv. 24 to the building of the temple, and that if the traditional theory were correct, the author would have confused entirely different events and blended the accounts as though they referred to one and the same thing. Similarly out of the reports of Nehemiah, narrated in the first person, the writer built up a story in which seven successive steps in the progress of the work of rebuilding the wall appear, which is a reconstruction by the Chronicler of the order of events as they probably lay in the original documents. Into this is woven an account of the introduction of the lawbook, explained by the union of efforts by Ezra and Nehemiah for that purpose. This part is probably taken as an excerpt from the memoirs of Ezra.
In defense of the author's stylistic method it must be remembered that he was writing for his contemporaries, probably using documents stored in the Jewish archives; that he was not concerned with historical matters of detail the interest in which is great to moderns ; and that he had A Vh ' a comprehensive view of the whole Purpose work of restoration of the Jewish commonwealth, which he put forward in the shape of a mosaic the joining of which is not always close and the parts of which are not well coordinated. It was his idea to set forth that as the Samaritans of the time of Zerubbabel hindered the work commanded by Cyrus, so they continued their attempts at hindrance in the days of Artaxerxes. He desired in his notes of time (Ezra vii. 1; Neh. i. 1, ii. 1, viii.-xiii.) to indicate the cooperation of Ezra and Nehemiah in the work. The question has been raised whetner the narrative as it stands is the result of wilful perversion of the sources, or of misunderstanding, or whether it conforms to the facts. Nehemiah reports that to him had come sad accounts of the ruinous state of the walls and city of Jerusalem; the apology of Tabeel narrates that the work of reconstruction had been prohibited and forcibly prevented through a denunciation to the Artaxerxes who sent Jews back to Jerusalem. But who could be so influential and so secure in bringing about the restoration of Jerusalem as those who had come with letters missive from the king directed to the accomplishment of this task of restoration? The general outline of history as made out by the author agrees with the facts as presented by his sources.
(A. Klostermann.)
Bibliography: Texts are issued by S. Baer in the Baer and Delitzsch series, Leipsic, 1882; in the Polychrome Bible, by H. Guthe, New York, 1901; and a new text is by M. Lohr in the new Biblia Hebraica begun by R. Kittel, Leipsic, 1905. The best commentaries are by J. D. Michaelis, Frankfort, 1720; C. F. Keil, Leipsic, 1870, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1873; G. Rawlinson and others in Pulpit Commentary, 1880; E. Bertheau and V Ryssel, Leipsic, 1887; H. E. Ryle, in Cambridge Bible, 1893. Discussions on special topics are: R. Smend, Die Listen der Biicher Esra und Nehemiah, Basel, 1881; A. van Hoonacker, Nehemie et Esdras, nouvelle hypothese sur la chronologic Gand, 1890; idem, Nehemie en Van 20 d' Artaxerxes I. et Esdras enl 'are 7 a" Artaxerxes II., ib. 1892; idem, Zorobdbel el le second temple, ib. 1892; idem, Nouvelles etudes sur la restauration juive, Paris, 1896 (a reply to Kosters, be-
Ezra Faber