I ESDRAS
internal difficulties (see criticisms in Berth., 18 seq., Nikel, 182), probably illustrates the story of N when 'Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear' (vi. 19).[1] It points to some new reconstruction of the city by returned exiles—evidently after an earlier disaster—and requires the assumption that the story of N is focussed upon the governor alone and that N and his military escort (ii. 9, cf. E v. 2, contrast ib. viii. 51 seq.) brought back a band of exiles (so Jos.); see below (d). Against this the objection has been brought that N, in spite of the royal command (E iv. 21 seq.), continued to build and actually did complete the walls. On the other hand, the walls were already practically finished (vi. 1, vii. 1, see Ryle, 219), and some time would necessarily elapse before letters could reach Artaxerxes and his reply come to hand (cf. the situation in E v. 5). The king does not order the walls to be destroyed or weakened; N naturally had other building operations to attend to in addition to the walls, and these may well have been stopped 'by force and power' (E iv. 23). The letter to Artaxerxes urges that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be detrimental to the security of the province (iv. 13, 19 seq.), and disloyalty was the strongest charge brought against the governor (N ii. 19, vi. 6–7). In fact, N vii. 2 seq. may suggest that the perturbed governor left his brother in charge of the city while he visited the king—his leave had been limited (ii. 6)—and although the sequence of events is admittedly obscure there is a distinct gap between his position in N i.–iv., vi. and that as represented in xiii. (cf. v.). The formal steps of the Samaritans in E iv. 7 seqq. (similarly the satrap in E v. seq.) stand in contrast to the confusing account of the hostility in N iv., vi. against one who had come armed with royal authority, and undue weight must not be laid upon the present form of the N-story (see above [a]). All in all, the evidence does not exclude the helpful conjecture that E iv. 7–23 illustrate the troubles of N at that stage where the continuation of the book (after vi. 19) is almost inextricably complex.
(c) The semi-Edomite population. In the list of those who helped to rebuild the wall (N iii.) it is noteworthy (1) that very few of the names can be at all plausibly identified with the families who apparently returned with either Zerubbabel or Ezra (Kosters, 47), and (2) that some of the names have Calebite affinities.[2] The list is evidence for the poverty of the Babylonian section of population and for the prominence of the Judaeans, who include both the natives and those Calebite and allied groups who moved up from the south of Judah some time after 586. The presence of the latter is only to be expected, and the fact, pointed out by Meyer himself in 1896, is obviously fundamental for the criticism of the book of Ezra (see Kosters, Th. T. xxxi. 536).[3] In this Calebite or semi-Edomite Judah—and to call these groups 'half heathen' (with Nikel, 56, 64) is to beg the question—we may find a starting-point for our conception of the district from the time of their immigration northwards to the date of the far-reaching reorganization associated with the names of N and E. Further, the list of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in N xi. recurs, though with variations, in 1 Chron. ix., where it represents the compiler's conception of the post-exilic population after the captivity. According to his perspective of history, there was an old Israel which included a Judah of Calebite and Jerahmeelite origin (1 Chron. ii. and iv.) and some later stage which corresponds closely with N xi. N xi., however, differs widely from the lists in E ii. and viii. and ignores the return of Zerubbabel and Ezra. Its disagreement is hardly a proof that these lists are authentic; what is significant is the agreement between the Judaean clans Perez, Shelah and the semi-Edomite Zerah in N xi. and the mixed genealogies in 1 Chron. ii. and iv. The chronicler, it will be observed, knows of no earlier Judah; his evidence in ii., iv. is (in his view) pre-Davidic, and it agrees with this that his lists of the Levitical orders of David's time illustrate the close bond uniting these ecclesiastical bodies with people of south Palestinian and Edomite affinity.[4]
(d) A decree and a return. The introduction to the Jerusalem list reads like the sequel to the account of some return (N xi. 3, 1 Chron. ix. 2; cf. E ii. 70, N vii. 73, and see Ewald, 159 n. 2). The list itself, after dealing with priests, Levites, &c, proceeds to refer to those who dwelt in the country, and it is noteworthy that N xi. 23 seq. have in view the fulfilment of some royal decree touching the singers (cf. E iv. 54 seq., E vii. 24). The singers, also, are subsequently collected from the Netophathite and other villages which they had built at some unspecified period (xii. 28 seq.; cf. the Levites in 1 Chron. ix. 16), and the explicit references to the rest of Israel and their cities (xi. 20, 25), before the assembling at the dedication of the walls (xii. 27), recall the situation before
- ↑ H. P. Smith, 348; Kent, 358; see also the remarks of Sellin, Ser., 53 seqq., Stud. 16–35. With Tobiah, cf. the Aram. form Tabeel, E iv. 7 (Hoonacker, Rev. Bibl. x. 183 n. 6; Sellin, Stud. 33).
- ↑ See for (2) Meyer, Ent., 114–19, 147, 167, 177 seq., 181, 183, and his Israeliten, 352 n. 5, 399, 402, 409, 429 n. 5, 430. See also on E v. 26.
- ↑ Cf. also H. Guthe, E. Bi. 2249; T. K. Cheyne, ib. 3385; H. P. Smith, Hist. 354 n. 1; R. Kittel, Chron. 14, 16; Jahn, 99; Kennett, Essays, 117, 123; Torrey, 328, n. 53; E. L. Curtis and A. A. Madsen, Chron. 89, 98, 104.
- ↑ See also E. Meyer and B. Luther, Israel., 442 seqq., for evidence connecting Judah and the Edomites; in their opinion, however, the data, found in literature relating to pre-monarchical times, refer to pre-Davidic conditions.
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