forth of the commandment,” etc., cannot refer to the edict of Cyrus, because in it there is no express mention made of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, so also, for the same reason, it cannot refer to that which was issued by Artaxerxes in favour of Ezra. Auberlen's remark, however, is correct, when he says that the edict relating to Nehemiah is of secondary importance when compared with that relating to Ezra. Strictly speaking, there is no mention made of an edict relating to Nehemiah. Nehemiah, as cup-bearer of Artaxerxes, entreated of the king the favour of being sent to Judah, to the city of his fathers' sepulchres, that he might build it; and the king (the queen also sitting by him) granted him this request, and gave him letters to all the governors on this side the Euphrates, that they should permit him undisturbed to prosecute his journey, and to the overseers of the royal forests, that they should give him wood “for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city” (Neh 2:4-8). However important this royal favour was in its consequences for Jerusalem, - for Nehemiah built the walls of the city, and thereby raised Jerusalem to a fortified city guarded against hostile assaults, - yet the royal favour for this undertaking was not such as to entitle it to be designated as 'מצא דצר וגו, a going forth of a commandment of God. But if, in favour of the reference of דּבר מצא to the edict of Ezra, Auberlen (p. 128ff.) attaches special importance to the circumstance that in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are recorded two periods of post-exilian history, the first of which - namely, the time of Zerubbabel and of the high priest Joshua under Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes - we may designate the period of the building of the temple, the second - namely, the time of Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah the Tirshatha, under Artaxerxes Longimanus - we may designate the period of the restoration of the people and the building of the city, - the former the time of the religious, and the latter that of the political restoration; and, in seeking to establish this view, he interprets the first part of the book of Ezra as a whole in itself, and the second as a whole taken in combination with the book of Nehemiah; - if this is his position, then Hengstenberg has already (Christol. iii. p. 149) shown the incorrectness of this division of the book of Ezra, and well remarks that the whole book of Ezra has the temple as its central-point, and views with reference to it the mission of Ezra as well as that of Zerubbabel and Joshua. There is certainly an inner connection of the mission of Ezra with that of Nehemiah, but it consists only
