Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/770

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hearkening to the voice of the true prophets of God, who preached repentance and conversation as the conditions of prosperity.The wall completed, and the impression made by this work upon the enemies of the Jews. -
Neh 6:15
The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, i.e., of the sixth month, in fifty-two days. According to this statement, it must have been begun on the third day of the fifth month (Ab). The year is not mentioned, the before-named (Neh 2:1) twentieth year of Artaxerxes being intended. This agrees with the other chronological statements of this book. For, according to Neh 2:1, it was in Nisan (the first month) of this year that Nehemiah entreated permission of the king to go to Jerusalem; and we learn from Neh 5:14 and Neh 13:6 that he was governor in Jerusalem from the twentieth year onwards, and must therefore have set out for that place immediately after receiving the royal permission. In this case, he might well arrive in Jerusalem before the expiration of the fourth month. He then surveyed the wall, and called a public assembly for the purpose of urging the whole community to enter heartily upon the work of restoration (Neh 2:11-17). All this might take place in the course of the fourth month, so that the work could be actually taken in hand in the fifth. Nor is there any reasonable ground, as Bertheau has already shown, for doubting the correctness of the statement, that the building was completed in fifty-two days, and (with Ewald) altering the fifty-two days into two years and four months.^[1]
For we must

↑ Ewald, Gesch. iv. p. 178, thinks that traces of the correct reading of this verse are found in the statement of Josephus, Ant. xi. 5. 7f., that the wall of Jerusalem was finished in two years and four months, and that the word וּשׁנתים may have been omitted from Neh 6:15 by an ancient clerical error, though he is obliged to admit that Josephus in other instances gives no trustworthy dates concerning Nehemiah, whom he makes arrive at Jerusalem in the twenty-fifth, and complete the wall in the twenty-eight year of Xerxes. On the other hand, Bertheau has already remarked, that even if שׁנתים is supplied, no agreement with the statement of Josephus is obtained, since the question still remains how four months can be made out of fifty-two days, or vice versa, fifty-two days of four months. In fact, it is vain to seek for any common ground on which these two different statements can be harmonized; and hence the two years and four months of Josephus can scarcely be regarded as furnishing traces of another reading of the text.

[1] Ewald, Gesch. iv. p. 178, thinks that traces of the correct reading of this verse are found in the statement of Josephus, Ant. xi. 5. 7f., that the wall of Jerusalem was finished in two years and four months, and that the word וּשׁנתים may have been omitted from Neh 6:15 by an ancient clerical error, though he is obliged to admit that Josephus in other instances gives no trustworthy dates concerning Nehemiah, whom he makes arrive at Jerusalem in the twenty-fifth, and complete the wall in the twenty-eight year of Xerxes. On the other hand, Bertheau has already remarked, that even if שׁנתים is supplied, no agreement with the statement of Josephus is obtained, since the question still remains how four months can be made out of fifty-two days, or vice versa, fifty-two days of four months. In fact, it is vain to seek for any common ground on which these two different statements can be harmonized; and hence the two years and four months of Josephus can scarcely be regarded as furnishing traces of another reading of the text.

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