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Updated: May 2, 2025
Josephus was anxious to avoid a vacuum, and by a little vague chronology and the aid of the fragmentary records of Ezra and Nehemiah and a priestly chronicle, the few Jewish incidents known in that tranquil, unruffled epoch are spread over three centuries. The episode of Esther is treated elaborately, and, following the apocryphal version, is placed in the reign of Artaxerxes.
Shucks! his kin is welcome ter enny sech critter ez that, though I ain't denyin' ez he'd be toler'ble spry ef he could keep his nose out'n his book," he qualified, relenting, "or his fiddle out'n his hands. I made him leave his fiddle hyar ter the still, an' I be goin' ter hide his book." "No need," thought Nehemiah, scornfully. He even ventured to differ with the overbearing miller.
A few treated it as a great national wrong, speaking such denunciation as the Hebrew prophets gave to the national sins of their people; and of these some were driven from their pulpits. A few expressed open sympathy or apology for slavery, such as Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston, and Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont. The foremost preacher in America was Henry Ward Beecher.
After this work was finished, Nehemiah undertook a census of the restored city, but he found, as he says, "the book of the genealogy of them that came up at the first," the list of families which appears in Ezra, and this he copies. It may be instructive to take these two lists the one in Ezra ii. and the one in Nehemiah vii. and compare them.
What was to be done? The repairs could not be put off. I now asked the Lord for two things, viz., that He would be pleased to change the north wind into a south wind, and that He would give to the workmen 'a mind to work'; for I remembered how much Nehemiah accomplished in 52 days, whilst building the walls of Jerusalem, because 'the people had a mind to work. Well, the memorable day came.
"That was Old Man Curry's nigger Mose," continued Squeaking Henry, so-called because of his plaintive whine, "and I was wondering if the horse wasn't Elijah. I didn't get a good look at him. Maybe it was Obadiah or Nehemiah. Did you ever hear such a lot of names in your life? They tell me Old Man Curry got 'em all out of the Bible." The Kid nodded.
And were there not chapters of the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach far more interesting and edifying than the genealogies and muster rolls which made up a large part of the Chronicles of the Jewish Kings and of the narrative of Nehemiah?
In a later age the "Arabs" who, according to the inscriptions of Sennacherib, formed the body-guard of Hezekiah were probably Bedâwin, and Geshem the Arabian in the time of Nehemiah seems to have represented the Amalekite chieftain of an earlier epoch. The Bedâwin still haunt the plains and unfrequented paths of Palestine, waylaying the traveller and robbing the peasant of his flocks.
According to tradition, at that time Ezra established the great Synagogue, a college of one hundred and twenty learned men, who were appointed to collect copies of the ancient sacred books, the originals of which had been lost in the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and Nehemiah soon after placed this, or a new collection, in the Temple.
The trouble is at home this time, and as poor Nehemiah listens to the dismal noise, and as he tries to still the shrill cries, that his voice may be heard, and as he watches the people rocking to and fro, as Easterns do when moved by sorrow, he may well feel downcast and disappointed, for a city divided against itself cannot stand, and as Nehemiah listens to the cry, he clearly sees that, at that moment, Jerusalem, the city he loves best on earth, is indeed a divided city.
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