Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/580

 one to his city.” In Neh 7:6 לבבל is omitted, through an error of transcription caused by the preceding בּבל; and וליהוּדה stands instead of ויהוּדה, which does not, however, affect the sense. המּדינה is the province whose capital was Jerusalem (Neh 11:3), i.e., the province of Judaea as a district of the Persian empire; so Ezr 5:8; Neh 1:2. The Chethiv נבוכדנצור is similar to the form Nebucadrezor, Jer 49:28, and is nearer to the Babylonian form of this name than the usual biblical forms Nebucadnezzar or Nebucadrezzar. For further remarks on the various forms of this name, see on Dan 1:1. They returned “each to his city,” i.e., to the city in which he or his ancestors had dwelt before the captivity. Bertheau, on the contrary, thinks that, “though in the allotment of dwelling-places some respect would certainly be had to the former abode of tribes and families, yet the meaning cannot be that every one returned to the locality where his forefathers had dwelt: first, because it is certain (?) that all memorial of the connection of tribes and families was frequently obliterated, comp. below, Neh 7:61-64; and then, because a small portion only of the former southern kingdom being assigned to the returned community, the descendants of dwellers in those towns which lay without the boundaries of the new state could not return to the cities of their ancestors.” True, however, as this may be, the city of each man cannot mean that “which the authorities, in arranging the affairs of the community, assigned to individuals as their domicile, and of which they were reckoned inhabitants in the lists then drawn up for the sake of levying taxes,” etc. (Bertheau). This would by no means be expressed by the words, “they returned each to his own city.” We may, on the contrary, correctly say that the words hold good à potiori, i.e., they are used without regard to exceptions induced by the above-named circumstance. אשׁר־בּאוּ, Ezr 2:2, corresponds with the העלים of Ezr 2:1; hence in Neh 7:7 we find also the participle בּאים. They came with Zerubbabel, etc., that is, under their conduct and leadership. Zerubbabel (Ζοροβάβελ, זרבּבל or זרוּבבל, probably abbreviated from בּבל זרוּע, in Babylonia satus seu genitus) the son of Shealtiel was a descendant of the captive king Jehoiachin