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 relating Ezra's return from Babylon, and the conclusion of the transaction concerning the unlawful marriages, in his own words, but with careful employment of the said record. This view, however, does not satisfactorily explain the transition from the first to the third person in the narrative. For what could have induced the historian, after giving Ezra's record verbally in Ezra 8 and Ezr 9:1-15, to break off in the midst of Ezra's account of his proceedings against the unlawful marriages, and, instead of continuing the record, to relate the end of the transaction in his own words? Bertheau's solution of this question, that the author did this for the sake of brevity, is of no force; for Ezra 10 shows no trace of brevity, but, on the contrary, the progress and conclusion of the affair are related with the same circumstantiality and attention to details exhibited in its commencement in 8 and 9. To this must be added, that in other historical portions of the Old Testament, in which the view of different authorship is impossible, the narrator, as a person participating in the transaction, frequently makes the transition from the first to the third person, and vice versa. Compare, e.g., Isa 7:1. (“Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth,” etc.) with Isa 8:1 (“Moreover, the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll,” etc.); Jer 20:1-6, where Jeremiah relates of himself in the third person, that he had been smitten by Pashur, and had prophesied against him, with Jer 20:7., where, without further explanation, he thus continues: “O Lord, Thou hast persuaded me, and I was persuaded;” or Jer 28:1 (“Hananiah ... spake unto me ... the Lord said to me”) with Jer 28:5 (“Then the prophet Jeremiah said to the prophet Hananiah”), and also Jer 28:6; while in Jer 28:7 immediately following, Jeremiah writes, “Hear thou now this word which I speak in thine ears.” As Jeremiah, when here narrating circumstances of his own ministry, suddenly passes from the third to the first person, and then immediately returns to the third; so, too, might Ezra, after speaking (Ezr 7:1-10) of his return to Jerusalem in the third person, proceed with a subsequent more circumstantial description of his journey to and arrival