Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/697

The view (of Neh 12:11, Neh 12:12, and Neh 12:22) just stated, is confirmed both by Neh 12:22 and Neh 12:23, and by Neh 13:28. According to Neh 13:22, the chiefs or heads of the priestly houses were enrolled under the government of Darius the Persian. Now there is no doubt that this Darius is Darius Nothus, the successor of Artaxerxes Longimanus, who reigned from 424 to 404. The notion that Darius Codomanus is intended, rests upon the mistaken view that in Neh 13:11 Jaddua is mentioned as the high priest already in office. According to Neh 13:23, the heads of the houses of the Levites were enrolled in the book of the Chronicles even until the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib. The days of Johanan - that is, the period of his high-priesthood - are here named as the latest date to which the author of this book extends the genealogical lists of the Levites. And this well agrees with the information, Neh 13:18, that during Nehemiah's absence at Jerusalem, one of the sons of Joiada the high priest allied himself by marriage with Sanballat the Horonite, i.e., married one of his daughters, and was driven away by Nehemiah. If Joiada had even in the days of Nehemiah a married son, Johanan the first-born son of Joiada, the presumptive successor to the high-priesthood, might well have been at that time so long a married man as to have already witnessed the birth of his son Jaddua.
To complete our proof that the contents of Neh 12 do not extend to a period subsequent to Nehemiah, we have still to discuss the question, how long he held office in Judaea, and when he wrote the book in which he relates what he there effected. Both these questions can be answered with sufficient accuracy for our purpose, though the exact year cannot be named. Concerning the time he held office in Jerusalem, he only remarks in his book that he was governor from the