[3] Allowing some months for the preparation of the expedition—and this we must do—we may safely say that it started in the year after the decree of Cyrus, which was issued in B.C. 538.
[15] This name is a later form of "Joshua"; the older form of the name is used for the same person in Hag. i. 1, 14, and Zech. iii. 1.
[16] Of course the Nehemiah and Mordecai in this list are different persons from those who bear the same names in the Books of Nehemiah and Esther and belong to later dates.
[203] At Ono. This place has not yet been found. It cannot well be Beit Unia, north-west of Jerusalem, near Beitin (Bethel). Its association with Lod (Lydda) in 1 Chron. viii. 12 and Neh. xi. 35, points to the neighbourhood of the latter place.
[221] In Neh. viii. 4 six names are given for the right-hand contingent and seven for the left-hand. But since in the corresponding account of 1 Esdras fourteen names occur, one name would seem to have dropped out of Nehemiah. The prominence given to the Levites in all these scenes and the absence of reference to the priests should be noted. The Levites were still important personages, although degraded from the priesthood. The priests were chiefly confined to ritual functions; later they entered on the duties of civil government. The Levites were occupied with teaching the people, with whom they came into closer contact. Their work corresponded more to that of the pastoral office. In these times, too, most of the scribes seem to have been Levites.
[222] Not translating it into the Aramaic dialect. That would have been a superfluous task, for the Jews certainly knew Hebrew at this time. Ezra and Nehemiah and the prophets down to Malachi wrote in Hebrew.
[228] Lev. xxvii. 30; Num. xv. 20 ff., xviii. 11-32.
[229] Strictly speaking, the Hexateuch, as "Joshua" was undoubtedly included in the volume. But the familiar term Pentateuch may serve here, as it is to the legal requirements contained in the earlier books that reference is made.
[252] Still in the earlier scene, the dedication of the temple, the sacred use of the building makes the act of initiation to be equivalent to consecration. There the connection gives the special association.
[263] On the supposition that the writer is not here recording historical facts in the life of Amestris, the real queen of Xerxes, who we know was not murdered.
