Returning Families and the Disputed Lists

"Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed, that I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the ruler of the palace, charge over Jerusalem: for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many."

"Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot; and while they stand by, let them shut the doors, and bar them." Watches are set, each man opposite his house.

"Now the city was large and great: but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded. And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first."

The list follows: those who came with Zerubbabel, the families and towns, priests, Levites, singers, gatekeepers, temple servants, Solomon's servants, those who could not prove their ancestry, the priests excluded until a priest should stand with Urim and Thummim. "The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore."

Gifts follow: the Tirshatha gave a thousand drams of gold, fifty basins and 530 priestly garments; heads of families and the rest of the people gave gold, silver and garments. "So the priests, and the Levites… and all Israel, dwelt in their cities; and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities."

One list, kept twice

Nehemiah 7:6–73 and Ezra 2 are the same list, with about half the figures different. The listed families and towns add up to 29,818 in Ezra and 31,089 in Nehemiah; both give the total as 42,360. The full side-by-side comparison, with 1 Esdras 5, is on the shared passage pages ("The returnee list"), used by both books so the figures are never copied twice.

Nehemiah's differences

Among them: Arah 652 (Ezra 775), Azgad 2,322 (1,222), Adin 655 (454), Senaah 3,930 (3,630), Bethel and Ai 123 (223), singers of Asaph 148 (128), singing men and women 245 (200). Magbish is missing; Nehemiah has twelve leaders with Zerubbabel (adding Nahamani) to Ezra's eleven.

The animals verse

Nehemiah 7:68 in the KJV ("their horses, seven hundred thirty and six: their mules, two hundred forty and five") is missing from most Hebrew manuscripts, including the Leningrad Codex; the library's Hebrew (WLC) has no such verse, so its 7:68 is the KJV's 7:69. Translators restored it from Ezra 2:66. The library's Greek (Giguet) has "2,700 asses" there.

Gifts compared

Ezra 2:69: 61,000 darics of gold, 5,000 minas of silver, 100 priestly garments. Nehemiah 7:70–72 (Hebrew 7:69–71): from the Tirshatha 1,000 darics, 50 basins, 530 garments; from family heads 20,000 darics and 2,200 minas; from the people 20,000 darics, 2,000 minas and 67 garments; in all 41,000 darics, 4,200 minas and 597 garments. The two lists are related but not the same.

Hananiah, commander of the citadel

Hananiah "ruler of the palace" (sar habbirah, commander of the fortress) guarded the citadel north of the temple. Hanani is Nehemiah's brother (1:2). A gate guard "until the sun be hot" kept the city closed in the dangerous early hours.

Why repeat the list?

Nehemiah 7 uses the old list to establish who belonged before resettling the city (chapter 11). Ezra 2 uses it to tell of the first return. Scholars debate which book took it from the other, or whether both took it from an archive. The repetition shows the list's importance and how it was reused for new purposes.