fore, to intrust the important mission to an officer high in former trust and confidence, such as Nehemiah, whose services at court Artaxerxes reluctantly dispensed with, as appears from his appointing a set time for Nehemiah's return, and afterward, from his return again to Persia in the thirty-second year of his reign." While the city remained unwalled the mass of the people had chosen rather to dwell in the country than in a place so conspicuous and yet so insecure. The walls were built on the old foundations; and Nehemiah found that although as enclosed within the walls "the city was large and great," yet" the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded." He therefore caused the people to be registered, and required that one family in ten (to be chosen by lot) should come to reside in Jerusalem. Those who, without waiting the decision of the lot, voluntarily offered them selves to dwell in Jerusalem, were received with peculiar favor. The city was thus replenished with inhabitants, and the walls with defenders. The walls were dedicated with great solemnity and joy. And while the governor was thus heedful of the stoneand-mortar framework of the social system which he desired to establish, he was by no means negligent of the inhabiting and animating spirit. He applied himself diligently (assisted by Ezra) to the organization * All that is really known of Ezra is contained in the four last chapters of the Book of Ezra, and in Neh. viii. and xii. 26. From these passages we learn that he was a learned and pious priest residing at Babylon in the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus. In the seventh year of his reign, Ezra obtained leave to go to Jerusalem, and to take with him a company of Israelites, together with priests, Levites, singers, porters, and Nethi nim. The journey of Ezra and his companions from Babylon to Jerusalem took just four months; and they brought up with them a large free-will offering of gold and silver, and silver vessels. It appears that his great design was to effect a religious reformation among the Palestine Jews, and to bring them back to the observation of the Law of Moses, from which they had grievously declined. His first step, accordingly, was to enforce a separation from their wives upon all who had made heathen marriages, in which number were many priests and Levites, as well as other Israelites. This was effected in little more than six months after his arrival at Jerusalem. With the detailed account of this important transaction Ezra's autobiography ends abruptly, and we hear nothing more of him till, 13 years afterwards, in the 20th of Artaxerxes, we find of the temple-service, and of the civil gov ernment; while various abuses, which the unsettled condition of affairs had engendered, were corrected by him with a firm and unsparing hand. And to strengthen his authority and influence, and that he and his government might not be burdensome to the people, this fine-spirited man declined to receive the usual dues of a governor; but while he travelled with a great retinue, maintained a large number of servants, and kept open table at Jerusalem, the heavy charges were entirely borne from his own private fortune, which must have been very considerable. That he, a foreigner and a captive, was enabled to accumulate such a fortune, affords another illustration of the liberality of the Persian government; which also was unquestionably, as far as the Hebrews at least were concerned, the best and most generous of the foreign governments, to which they were at any time subjected. It was during the government of Nehemiah that Ezra, his ecclesiastical coadjutor, completed his collection and revisal of the sacred books.* Traces of his careful hand may still be detected throughout the historical books of scripture; and the settlement of the Old Testament canon in nearly its present shape, may be ascribed to him. Among his labors was the exchange of the old Hebrew character of writing with which the people had now become unachim again at Jerusalem with Nehemiah "the Tirshatha." It seems probable that after he had effected the above-named reformation, and had appointed competent judges and magistrates, with authority to maintain it, he himself returned to the king of Persia. The functions he executed under Nehemiah's government were purely of a priestly and ecclesiastical character. But in such he filled the first place. As Ezra is not mentioned after Nehemiah's departure for Babylon in the 32d Artaxerxes, and as every thing fell into confusion during Nehemiah's absence (Neh. xiii.), it is not unlikely that Ezra may have died or returned to Babylon before that year. Josephus, who should be our next best authority after Scripture, evidently knew nothing about the time or the place of his death. There was a strong Jewish tradition that he was buried in Persia. The principal works ascribed to him by the Jews are:-1. The institution of the Great Synagogue. 2. The settling the canon of Scripture, and restoring, correcting, and editing the whole sacred volume. 3. The introduction of the Chaldee character instead of the old Hebrew or Samaritan. 4. The authorship of the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and, some add, Esther. Smith's Bib. Dictionary. A. B. quainted for the more shapely and generally known Chaldæan character, with which alone the people were now familiar. The difference thus created is not so great as that which would take place were the Germans to exchange their peculiar (and not very elegant) character of print for that (the Roman) which prevails among nearly all other European nations. The Samaritans did not adopt or need this change in their copies of the Pentateuch; they retained the original character, which, therefore, has since been known as the Samaritan character. It was not alone the old Hebrew character of writing, but the language itself, which had become unintelligible to the mass of the people, who had been born beyond the Euphrates, and had imbibed the EastAramæan or Chaldee dialect as a mother tongue. The old Hebrew was still well known to, and spoken by, educated persons in their intercourse with each other; but the Chaldee was used in all the common intercourse of life, since that only was understood by all. It was not, however, until the time of the Maccabees, that the old Hebrew was completely displaced by the Chaldee. This last language is but a dialect of the Hebrew, which fact accounts for the ease with which the Jews fell into the use of it during the captivity. It however assigned to words essentially the same such additional or new meanings, and such differing terminations and pronunciation, that the old Hebrew could be but imperfectly intelligible to those who understood only the Chaldee. extent to which the injunctions which they heard had been neglected by them, filled them with grief, and occasioned much and loud lamentation, which the Levites allayed with difficulty. Among other things, they heard of the feast of tabernacles, and found that the time of its celebration was close at hand. They therefore proceeded forthwith to manifest their obedience to this law, and they celebrated the feast in a manner so distinguished that nothing like it had been known since the time of Joshua. Nehemiah and Ezra availed themselves of the favorable disposition which at this time existed to induce the people to enter into one of those solemn covenants which we have had frequent occasion to notice in the past history. This was, however, more specific in its obligations; for the people pledged themselves; 1, to walk in God's law as given to Moses; 2, not to intermarry with the people of the land; 3, to observe the sabbath day, and not to buy or to sell goods thereon; 4, to keep the sabbatical year, and to remit all debts therein; 5, to pay a tax of a third of a shekel yearly for the service of the temple; 6, and to render their first-fruits and tithes as required by the law. At the expiration of his twelfth year of office, when his leave of absence expired, Nehemiah returned to resume his station at the Persian court. When he departed, no person with adequate authority appears to have been left to carry on or complete his measures. His salutary Accordingly, when Ezra had finished his regulations, and even the solemn covenant revision of the sacred books, and the people into which the people had entered, were gradthronged to Jerusalem to hear the authentic ually infringed and violated. The general law from his lips, it was necessary that some laxity of principle and conduct may be estiof the Levites should interpret to the multi-mated from the proceedings of the tude what this excellent person read in Hebrew from the book. This was a very solemn and interesting occasion. The people assembled in the open street; and Ezra, raised above the people on a kind of pulpit made for the occasion, read from the book of the law to an immense audience, who listened with most rapt attention to the interpretations which the surrounding Levites gave. It is manifest that the copies of the law had been scarce, and that it had not been publicly read to the people, for it is manifest that they heard much on this occasion with which they were not previously acquainted; and the consciousness of the persons who might have been expected to offer the brightest examples of knowledge and faithfulness. Thus the high-priest himself, Eliashib, gave Tobiah the Ammonite (the grand opponent of Nehemiah) for lodging, even in the temple itself, a large chamber, which had been used as a store room for the tithes and offerings. This Tobiah, as well as his son Johanan, had married Jewish women and became allied to the high-priest. One of the grandsons of Eliashib was also son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite, another of Nehemiah's great adversaries. The temple service was neglected; the tithes, appointed for the support of the Levites and the singers, were ab stracted by the high-priest and his agents, or he ultimately succeeded in obtaining per withheld by the people; the sabbath was pro- mission to return to Judæa. He returned faned in every possible way;* and marriages in his former capacity as governor, and apwith strange women were frequent among plied himself most vigorously to the correction the people. In accounting for the demoral- of the evils which had gained ground during ization of this period, it may not be improper his absence.† His exertions appear to have to connect it with the frequent march of been continued for four years, or until the Persian troops through the territory in passing third year of Darius Nothus, whom Nehemiah to and from Egypt, which was frequently in designates as Darius the Persian. The end, a state of revolt. By this Judæa was made therefore, of this eminent person's second to share in the evils of war, than which reform, which may be taken as the final act nothing is more relaxing of the bonds by in the restoration and settlement of the Jews which the order of civil society is main- in their own land, may be ascribed to the tained. year B. C. 420. With this year, therefore, the canon of the Old Testament concludes; for Malachi, the last of the prophets, is The tidings of this relapse occasioned much grief to Nehemiah at the Persian court, and alleged by tradition, supported by every | Persian king, obtained permission to build probability of internal evidence, to have a temple upon Mount Gerizim like that at prophesied during this later administration Jerusalem, and in which Jehovah was to be of Nehemiah. Malachi is supposed by many to be the same as Ezra. One of the measures of Nehemiah was to expel the grandson of the high-priest, who had wedded the daughter of Sanballat, from whom he declined to separate. This act was attended with important consequences. Josephus informs us that this person's name was Manasseh; and that, on being expelled from Jerusalem, he went to his father-in-law Sanballat, who, by his interest with the * One of the profanations consisted in the practice of the Tyrians bringing fish to the city for sale on the sabbath day. A curious fact. worshipped with similar services. Of this establishment he made Manasseh the highpriest. This, in future, attracted numbers of Jews who had married strange wives from whom they could not bring themselves to part, or who had rendered themselves amenable to punishment by other transgressions of the law. And this, while it tended in a very serious degree to aggravate the enmity between the two nations, served ere long to correct the remaining idolatrous practices, †The time is uncertain and conjectures vary. Hales makes it B. C. 424, six years after his return to Persia. and tendencies to idolatry among the Samaritans. Receiving the account of these matters through Josephus, and other prejudiced writers, it behooves us to be cautious of receiving all the impressions they intend to convey. The temple of Gerizim was undoubtedly a schismatical establishment. But seeing that, on the one hand, the Samaritans were anxious to worship Jehovah according to the regulations of Moses, while, on the other, the Jews, whether right or wrong, pertinaciously refused to receive their ad hesion to the temple of Jerusalem, it is difficult to see what other course was left them than to build a temple for themselves. Besides, the obligation of adhesion to one temple was imposed only on the seed of Abraham; and the law made no provision for the case of a people who desired to worship Jehovah, but were repelled by the Jews. And this very fact may suggest that this repulsion was in itself not legal, whatever good effects may ultimately have resulted from it. CHAPTER XXIV. END OF INSPIRED HISTORY, 420 B. C.— JEWISH HISTORY TO B. C. 163. AFTER Nehemiah, no more separate governors of Judæa were sent from Persia. The territory was annexed to the province of Cole-Syria, and the administration of Jewish affairs was left to the high-priests, subject to the control of the provincial governors. This raised the high-priesthood to a degree of temporal dignity and power, which very soon made it such an object of worldly ambition, as occasioned many violent and disgraceful contests among persons who had had the least possible regard for the religious character and obligations of the sacerdotal office. The history of this period is obscure and intricate.* Facts are few, and some of those which we possess are hard to reconcile. But there is enough to acquaint us with the unholy violence and unprincipled conduct of the competitors for the priesthood, and the sufferings arising from this, as well as from the arbitrary proceedings of those who succeeded in obtaining that high office. Jeshua, the high-priest who returned with * The narrative of inspired history closes soon after the administration of Nehemiah, about 420 years, B. C. The history of the intervening period to the coming of Christ is intricate and fragmentary. The principal sources are the historic writings of Josephus, Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, Livy, Plutarch, Maccabees, and other ancient writers. He Zerubbabel, was succeeded by his son Joachim, and he by his son Eliashib, who obtains unfavorable notice in the history of Nehemiah's second administration. was then old, and died in B. C. 413. He was succeeded by his son Joiada or Judas, who held the office for forty years, B. C. 413-373. Artaxerxes, who died in 423 B. C., left one son by his queen, and seventeen sons by his concubines. The first was named Xerxes, and, among the latter, history only knows Sogdianus, Ochus, and Arsites. Xerxes, the only legitimate son, succeeded; but, after forty-five days, he was slain by Sogdianus, who mounted the throne. On this, Ochus, who was governor of Hyrcania, marched thence with a powerful army to avenge the deed. Sogdianus submitted, and was put to death. Ochus, in ascending the vacant throne, took the name of Darius, and was surnamed Nothus, or "bastard," to distinguish him from others of the name. Of the events of this troubled reign, it is been written with much care and labor. The writer seems to have availed himself of the learned works of Prof. Jahn, particularly his History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, to which the critical reader is referred for the several authorities whence the facts of this intermediate portion of the history of the Bible are de This intermediate history hasrived. - A. B. The Egyptian king, by whom the Persians were thus repelled, was succeeded in 369 B. C. by Teos or Tachos, who formed large designs, and made extensive preparations for acting offensively against the Persian power. He made an alliance with the Lacedæmonians, and received from them 10,000 auxiliaries under the command of Agesilaus their king. Both the person and counsels of this consummate general were treated with considerable disrespect; and the king persisted in leading his army in person into Phoenicia against the Persians. perhaps only necessary to notice that the being constantly impeded in his movements Egyptians again shook off the Persian yoke, by the various channels of the rising Nile, and made Amyrtæus of Sais their king, he was obliged to retreat and relinquish the 413 B. C. With the aid of the Arabians, hope of subjecting Egypt to the Persian they drove the Persians out of Egypt, pur- yoke. sued them as far as Phoenicia, and maintained their independence sixty-four years. Ochus sent an army against them without success. The Persian forces marched to Egypt along the coast, through Judæa. This event could not fail to act to the serious detriment and disquiet of the Jews; but we possess no precise information on the subject. The Persian army while on its march might have laid waste Idumæa, because the Idumæans had perhaps taken part with those Arabs, who in conjunction with the Egyptians, had pursued the Persians into Phoenicia, while the Jews continued faithful to the Persian government, with which they certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied. The prophet Malachi appears (Mal. to allude to these circumstances. i. 2-5.) Darius Nothus died in 404 B. C., and was succeeded by his eldest son Arsaces, who, on his accession, took the name of Artaxerxes, and was surnamed Memnon, on account of his astonishing memory. The long reign of this monarch was full of striking and important events; but our notice must be confined to the circumstances connected with Egypt and Phoenicia, with which the Jews could not but be in some way involved. But his absence was immediately followed by a powerful conspiracy in favor of his relative Nectanebo, for whom the army also declared, so that the infatuated Tacho had no resource but to flee from his own people and throw himself under the protection of the great and generous king of Persia, whose dominions he had invaded. The Idumæans again suffered much from being mixed up in the contest between the Persians and Egyptians. Nor can it be supposed that the Jews escaped without much moral if not physical injury. It will be considered that they were exposed to the burdens of a military rendezvous from 377 to 374 B. C.; for at that time there were assembled in their vicinity 200,000 barbarian soldiers, besides 20,000 Greeks; and 300 Artaxerxes determined to make a vigor- ships of war, 200 galleys of thirty rowers, ous effort to restore the Persian power in and a great number of store-ships were colEgypt, and to this end made most exten- lected at Acco (Acre). The invading army sive preparation, continued for three years. of Persia, both in going and returning, took its At last, in 373 B. C., he had equipped route along their coasts, as did afterward the a most formidable expedition by land and sea, Egyptian army in its invasion of Phoenicia. which, he confidently expected, would These circumstances could not but be atspeedily reduce the strongholds, and firmly tended with very injurious effects; but upon establish his authority throughout the coun- the whole the Jews may be considered to try. But the jealousy between the com- have enjoyed peace and comfort during most manders of the land and sea forces pre- of the reign of Artaxerxes Memnon, who vented that union of purpose and action was a prince of mild and humane character, which was essential to success. Pelusium and governed with much moderation and was found to be impregnable, and all the fortified towns were placed in a state of defence. The Persian general, Pharnabazus, therefore, despaired of making any impression upon them, and advanced into the interior; but being opposed by the Egyptian king (Nectanebo) with a considerable force, and in consequence of the want of boats, prudence, and with considerable political wisdom. However, in all the provinces, much depended on the character of the governor or satrap, whose powers, within his province, were almost regal. Artaxerxes died in 358 B. C., after a long reign of forty-six years. The pen of Xenophon has immortalized the revolt of his younger brother |