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 priests and their Levitical assistants in the sacrificial service) and the singers and door-keepers, seems to us quite consistent; while, on the other hand, the naming of the שׁוערים before the משׁררים in Nehemiah seems inappropriate, because the performance of the choral service of the temple was a higher office than the guardianship of the doors. Neither can we regard Bertheau's view, that בּעריהם, which in the present verse follows והנּתינים, should be erased, as a correct one. The word forms a perfectly appropriate close to the sentence beginning with ויּשׁבוּ; and the sentence following, “And all Israel were in their cities,” forms a well-rounded close to the account; while, on the contrary, the summing up of the different divisions by the words כל־ישׂראל in Nehemiah, after the enumeration of those divisions, has a rather heavy effect. =Chap. 3=

The Altar of Burnt-Offering Erected, the Feast of Tabernacles Celebrated, and the Foundations of the Temple Laid - Ezr 3:1-13
On the approach of the seventh month, the people assembled in Jerusalem to restore the altar of burnt-offering and the sacrificial worship, and to keep the feast of tabernacles (Ezr 3:1-7); and in the second month of the following year the foundations of the new temple were laid with due solemnity (Ezr 3:8-13). Comp. 1 Esdr. 5:46-62.The building of the altar, the restoration of the daily sacrifice, and the celebration of the feast of tabernacles. - Ezr 3:1 When the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. The year is not stated, but the year in which they returned from Babylon is intended, as appears from Ezr 3:8, which tells us that the