Bible Synapse
Why do the lists of exiles returning from Babylon in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 give different numbers?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Ezra lists the families, towns, priests, Levites and temple servants who returned with Zerubbabel, with a number for each.
Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city; Which came with Zerubbabel: Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel: The children of Parosh, two thousand an hundred seventy and two. The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two. The children of Arah, seven hundred seventy and five. The children of Pahath–moab, of the children of Jeshua and Joab, two thousand eight hundred and twelve. …
Nehemiah finds “a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first” and copies the same list, with many numbers different.
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, and found written therein, These are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity, of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto his city; Who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, Baanah. The number, I say, of the men of the people of Israel was this; The children of Parosh, two thousand an hundred seventy and two. The children of Shephatiah, three hundred seventy and two. The children of Arah, six hundred fifty and two. …
Ezra gives the whole congregation as 42,360, besides servants, with 200 singers, and then the animals.
The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore, Beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women. Their horses were seven hundred thirty and six; their mules, two hundred forty and five; Their camels, four hundred thirty and five; their asses, six thousand seven hundred and twenty.
Nehemiah gives the same total, 42,360, but 245 singers, followed by 245 mules.
The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore, Beside their manservants and their maidservants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven: and they had two hundred forty and five singing men and singing women. Their horses, seven hundred thirty and six: their mules, two hundred forty and five: Their camels, four hundred thirty and five: six thousand seven hundred and twenty asses.
The objection
Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 give what is plainly the same list of exiles who came back with Zerubbabel, yet many family figures differ: the sons of Arah are 775 or 652, of Azgad 1,222 or 2,322, of Adin 454 or 655, and the singers 200 or 245. Both lists give a grand total of 42,360, but Ezra’s figures add up to 29,818 and Nehemiah’s to 31,089.
The answer
Both chapters reproduce one document: Nehemiah says he found “a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first” (Nehemiah 7:5). Long columns of names and figures, copied by hand in two books over many centuries, are exactly where copying slips collect, and most of the differences look like such slips. Some figures differ by a unit or a few (2,812 and 2,818; 323 and 324; 725 and 721); others by a round hundred or thousand (945 and 845; 1,222 and 2,322; 3,630 and 3,930). One can be traced: Nehemiah’s 245 singers match the 245 mules in the very next line, where a copyist’s eye could easily slip. Keil and Delitzsch conclude that the differences are clerical errors.
The grand total, 42,360, is the same in Ezra, in Nehemiah and in the Greek book of 1 Esdras, so it was copied faithfully; yet the separate figures fall more than eleven thousand short of it in all three. The total therefore seems to include people who were not entered family by family. Older Jewish and Christian writers (the Seder Olam, Rashi and Ussher) took them to be Israelites of other tribes who returned with Judah and Benjamin.
Other answers Christians give
Two stages of the register
The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary suggests that Ezra’s list was drawn up in Babylon and Nehemiah’s in Judea years later, so that deaths and other changes over the years, and different names for the same man (Jorah and Hariph, Ezra 2:18; Nehemiah 7:24) account for many of the differences.
Still open
Keil and Delitzsch were not persuaded by the ‘other tribes’ explanation and thought single items had dropped out of the lists. Why the total is so much larger than the items is still debated.
From the classic commentators
In transcribing such a multitude of names and figures, errors could scarcely be avoided, whether through false readings of numbers or the omission of single items. The sum-total being alike in all three texts, we are obliged to assume its correctness.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Ezra 2
But the discrepancy is sufficiently accounted for from the different circumstances in which the two registers were taken; that of Ezra having been made up at Babylon, while that of Nehemiah was drawn out in Judea, after the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on Nehemiah 7 (1871)
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Ezra 2, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Ezra 2, at Bible Hub
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on Nehemiah 7, at Bible Hub