Moore Perspective: Why is the Timing of Events in Ezra-Nehemiah So Confusing? (Part 3 of 4): Non-Chronological Arrangement

Chronological Confusion

From the starting point of Ezra’s historical record to that of Nehemiah’s is an interval of roughly ninety-five years. Ezra relocated to Jerusalem approximately eighty years following the decree of Cyrus, and Nehemiah around ninety-four years after the decree. The entire period recounted in Ezra-Nehemiah is just over a century, from the inaugural return of exiles led by Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel (ca. 538 BC) to Nehemiah’s second return to Jerusalem (ca. 432 BC),¹ although reference to “the reign of Darius the Persian” (Neh. 12:22) would add at least another decade if Darius II Nothus is in view.² The reporting, however, is limited to particular occasions of importance and is intermittent, nonsequential, and disproportional, including extended spans of silence.

Ezra 1:1–4:5 reviews about a fifteen-year period (ca. 537-522 BC), then vv. 6-23 jump ahead approximately thirty-six years and cover just over six decades of history (ca. 486-424 BC). The record jumps back in v. 24 nearly a century to 520 BC,³ and the rebuilding of the temple, recounted in 4:24–6:22, is completed over the next four years (to 516 BC). Almost sixty years are then bypassed with the brief statement, “after these things” (7:1a), bringing the narrative to 458/7 BC (7:1b-7). Up to this point roughly eighty years of history have been covered, and the final section (7:7–10:44) documents only a single year.⁴

Nehemiah overlaps Ezra’s account, albeit arriving in Jerusalem about a dozen years later, and continues the story for at least another quarter of a century. His narrative begins in 445/4 BC, the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (1:1–5:14a), and after a brief twelve-year overview and reflection on previous years (5:14b-15), the story resumes and recounts the completion of the city wall by mid-445/4 BC (5:16–7:5a). The record then reaches back to 538 BC, listing the first group of returning refugees (7:5b-73a), leaps forward to 445/4 BC when the Law was publicly read and reforms enacted (7:73b–11:36), then back again to 538 BC (12:1-9). Next is a concise review of the subsequent generation (12:10-12), listing the priests “in the days of Joiakim” (12:13-21), followed by a summary of the record of Levites and priests of the third generation extending through to the sixth, documented “in the reign of Darius the Persian⁵ … in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua⁶ … until the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib” (12:22-25).⁷ The section concludes by noting those who lived “in the days of Joiakim … and [in addition] in the days of Nehemiah the governor and of Ezra the priest, the scribe” (12:26), particularly the thirteen years or so between 445 and 432 BC (12:27–13:31).

Canonical Vs. Chronological Order

Which came first, Ezra or Nehemiah? The reverse-order hypothesis was developed from what appears to be duplications and interpolations of personalities and story lines between the two accounts, with perceived anomalies in the traditional arrangement.⁸ There is general agreement about the historical period of Nehemiah and his service under Artaxerxes I Longimanus (465-424 BC), marking Nehemiah’s arrival in Jerusalem at around 445/4 BC. But if the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7:1-11 is Artaxerxes II Mnēmōn (404-359 BC), then Ezra began his work in Jerusalem in about 397 BC. The record of Nehemiah would therefore precede that of Ezra, making the conventional order backwards.

The clearest reading of the Ezra-Nehemiah narrative, without the unnecessary and unprovable assumption of literary emendation, patently supports the traditional order.⁹ Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries during the reign of Darius the Persian (Neh. 12:22-26). Ezra had begun his work in Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:7), and Nehemiah in the twentieth year (Neh. 2:1). Nehemiah’s tenure in Jerusalem coincided with Eliashib the high priest and his son Johanan,¹⁰ and Nehemiah had to contend with Sanballat, his cohorts, and the Samaritan army.¹¹ To claim that any of these reported details are spurious, especially in light of the earliest known transmission and preservation of the biblical text, is unfounded.

Papyri documents discovered on the Egyptian island of Elephantine, predating all extant Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts pertaining to the fifth-century BC Jewish people, include a letter dated ca. 407 BC, “the seventeenth year of Darius the King” (Sachau, Pap. 1.29). The reference is to none other than Darius II (423-404 BC), who succeeded Artaxerxes I (465-424 BC) and Xerxes II (424/3 BC). The letter names Johanan as high priest and Sanballat as governor of Samaria at an advanced age, his two sons being the primary recipients of previous correspondence.¹²This validates the Ezra-Nehemiah narrative and confirms the conventional chronology, Ezra having arrived in Jerusalem in 458/7 BC, followed by Nehemiah thirteen years later in 445/4 BC.

--Kevin L. Moore

*Originally prepared for the 2023 FHU Lectures.

Endnotes:

¹ Some separate Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel into two different waves, with four stages documented under the leadership of Sheshbazzar (538 BC), Zerubbabel (520-516 BC), Ezra (458/7 BC), and Nehemiah (445/4 BC), in three identifiable sections: (a) book of Zerubbabel in Ezra 1–6; (b) memoirs of Ezra in Ezra 7–10 and possibly Neh. 8–9 (unless these two chapters belong to the following); and (c) memoirs of Nehemiah in Neh. 1–7, 10–13. Cf. Barry L. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2004): 494-98; Hannah K. Harrington, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022): 3-7.

² The conservate estimate of Ezra-Nehemiah having been completed by 400 BC is based on (a) the latest historical indicator in Ezra, the year after Artaxerxes’ seventh year, ca. 457/6 BC (Ezra 7:7-9; 8:31; 10:9, 17); (b) the latest historical indicators in Nehemiah, sometime during or not long after the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, ca. 432 BC (Neh. 13:6), and referencing the fifth generation of returnees “in the reign of Darius the Persian” (Neh. 12:22), corresponding to Darius II Nothus (423-404 BC); and (c) if documented within a comparable timeframe (cf. 2 Chron. 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4), the six generations of Zerubbabel’s genealogy (1 Chron. 3:19-24), approximating ca. 520–400 BC.

³ Between “the days of Cyrus” and “the reign of Darius” (Ezra 4:5) is a parenthetical thematic review of continual opposition, including the period of Ahasuerus’ reign and the days of Artaxerxes (vv. 6-23), then resuming the report of the situation in “year two of the reign of Darius king of Persia” (v. 24). The seemingly disjointed chronology is not a problem if “the purpose of the writer is taken into account, namely, to finish one subject before going on to the next, even at the expense of chronological sequence …” (Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970]: 381-82).

⁴ See A. Philip Brown II, “Chronological Anomalies in Ezra,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (Jan.-March 2005): 68-84; S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, ITL 8th ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909): 540-44.

⁵ Without the presumption of textual emendation, this was “in” (MT) or “during” (LXX) rather than “until” the reign of Darius. But is “Darius the Persian” to be identified as Darius I (522-486 BC), Darius II (423-404 BC), or Darius III (336-330 BC)? The latter would require editorial emendation or a much later date for Nehemiah, while Darius I would be a matter of historical record and Darius II within Nehemiah’s lifetime. Nehemiah traces the history of the first generation of returnees (vv. 1-9) and includes a concise genealogy up to his present day (vv. 10-11), goes back to the second generation (vv. 12-21), and then makes a summary statement about the third generation through to his own time (vv. 22-23), without explicit reference to the office of high priest (unnecessarily assumed by many commentators). In the immediate context, the reference to “Darius the Persian” more readily fits the reign of Darius II and is too late for Darius I and much too early for Darius III. The section ends by briefly alluding to some in the second generation (v. 26a) and concludes in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (v. 26b).

⁶ Eliashib, son of Joiakim (Neh. 12:10), had at least two sons, Joiada and Johanan (Ezra 10:6; Neh. 12:10, 23), while Jaddua was his great-grandson (Neh. 12:10-11). If twenty years are allowed per generation and Joiakim was born the year his father returned to Jerusalem, Jaddua is feasibly present by 458 BC, around the time Ezra arrived. If thirty years are counted as a generation, and if Joiakim accompanied his father to Jerusalem as an adult, Jaddua could have been present by 448 BC, about a decade after Ezra arrived and just a few years before Nehemiah came. Boys as young as three years old were included in genealogies of priests (2 Chron. 31:16). The book of Nehemiah, therefore, presents “no historical information and no single remark which Nehemiah might not himself have written” (C. F. Keil, “The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther,” in Keil and Delitzsch’s Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969]: 150).

⁷ The book of the chronicles mentioned here is probably not the canonical books of Chronicles (Derek Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary [Westmont, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979]: 124), but cf. 1 Chron. 9:14-22.

⁸ George Widengren, “The Persian Period,” in Israelite and Judean History, eds. John H. Hayes and James M. Miller (London: SCM, 1977): 503-509.

⁹ For helpful analysis, see John Stafford Wright, The Date of Ezra’s Coming to Jerusalem (London: Tyndale Press, 1958): 5-32; Edwin M. Yamauchi, “Ezra and Nehemiah,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. T. Longman III and D. E. Garland, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010): 4:7-13; also Harrington 11-15; Kidner 146-58. An alternative theory marks Ezra’s arrival in Jerusalem in the thirty-seventh year of Artaxerxes (428 BC), assuming textual emendation. For a thorough review and response, see Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1970): 396-401.

¹⁰Neh. 3:1, 20; 12:10-26; 13:28; cf. Ezra 10:6. Unfortunately some English translations (JB, NAB, NLT) and a number of commentators conflate “Jonathan” (Neh. 12:11) and “Johanan” (v. 23), making Johanan the grandson of Eliashib rather than his son, which is an unwarranted assumption (see Kidner 124, 153-55).

¹¹ Neh. 2:10, 19; 4:1-8; 6:1-14.

¹² See Archer 396-97; Kidner 146-58; Young 384.