Nehemiah 6:15
Fifty-two days
"So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days." All the library's texts agree. Josephus says two years and four months.
Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning
The family tree
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✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
- Related (shared ancestry)
Every witness, in order
Memoir c. 430 BC; book compiled c. 400–300 BC (debated)
Original Ezra–Nehemiah
No original survives. No Qumran fragment of Nehemiah has been identified.
Translated c. 2nd century BC or later
Greek 2 Esdras 11–23 (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
le mur fut achevé en cinquante-deux jours, le vingt-cinq du mois d'élal
Greek 2 Esdras via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
c. AD 93
Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 11.179
How the site knows this: Reported in scholarship; not checked by the site.
Says the wall took two years and four months to build. Not checked by the site.
Source: Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 11.159–183 (Nehemiah), 11.297–347 (Sanballat, Jaddua and Alexander)
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate (2 Esdras = Nehemiah)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
vigesimo quinto die mensis Elul, quinquaginta duobus diebus
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
בְּעֶשְׂרִים וַחֲמִשָּׁה לֶאֱלוּל לַחֲמִשִּׁים וּשְׁנַיִם יוֹם
on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days
What changed, and why
Fifty-two days fits repairing a circuit on existing foundations with many work parties (chapter 3). Josephus' longer figure may include gates and finishing work, or reflect his own expectations. Elul 25 falls in late summer (about September in 445 BC, if that is the year).
What the evidence shows
- All the library's texts give 52 days.
- The wall took 52 days to repair. The text's figure.
Sources
- Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 11.159–183 (Nehemiah), 11.297–347 (Sanballat, Jaddua and Alexander)
Related lessons
- Intrigue, Prophets and the 52 Days →Sanballat and Geshem invite Nehemiah four times to meet in the plain of Ono; he refuses. A fifth messenger brings an open letter: Gashmu says you plan to rebel and make yourself king, with prophets to proclaim you. Shemaiah urges him to hide in the temple; Nehemiah sees a trap. He names the prophetess Noadiah and other prophets who tried to frighten him. The wall is finished on the 25th of Elul, in 52 days. Tobiah's letters and marriages tie him to Judah's nobles.
- Investigation: Did Archaeologists Find Nehemiah's Wall? →In 2007 Eilat Mazar announced that a wall section and tower on the City of David's eastern slope belonged to Nehemiah's rebuilding, dated by pottery in the fill beneath. Israel Finkelstein and others argued that the structure is Hellenistic or Hasmonean, and that Persian-period Jerusalem was too small for a wall the length of Nehemiah 3. Recent analyses reopen the question. No structure has been securely identified as Nehemiah's wall.