Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/695

 a list of the chiefs of the priests and Levites who returned from captivity with Zerubbabel and Joshua, which consequently descends from the times before Nehemiah; Neh 12:12-21, a list of the heads of the priestly houses in the days of the high priest Joiakim, the son of Joshua; and Neh 12:24, Neh 12:25, a list of the heads of chiefs of Levi (of the Levites), with the closing remark, Neh 12:26 : “These were in the days of Joiakim the son of Joshua, and in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra,” Now the high priest Joiakim, the son of Joshua, the contemporary of Zerubbabel, was the predecessor and father of the high priest Eliashib, the contemporary of Nehemiah. Consequently both these lists descend from the time previous to Nehemiah's arrival at Jerusalem; and the mention of Ezra and Nehemiah along with Joiakim proves nothing more than that the chiefs of the Levites mentioned in the last list were still living in the days of Nehemiah. Thus these three lists contain absolutely nothing which reaches to a period subsequent to Nehemiah. Between the first and second, however, there stands (Neh 12:10, Neh 12:11) the genealogical notice: Joshua begat Joiakim, Joiakim begat Eliashib, Eliashib begat Jonathan (correct reading, Johanan), and Jonathan begat Jaddua; and between the second and third it is said, Neh 12:22 : With respect to the Levites, in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua, the heads of houses are recorded, and the priests under the reign of Darius the Persian; and Neh 12:23 : With respect to the sons of Levi, the heads of houses are recorded in the book of the Chronicles even to the days of Johanan. From these verses (Neh 12:10, Neh 12:11, and Neh 12:22, Neh 12:23) it is inferred that the lists descend to the time of the high-priesthood of Jaddua, the contemporary of Alexander the Great. To this we reply, that viewing the circumstance that Eliashib was high priest in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 3:1; Neh 13:4, Neh 13:7), it cannot be an absolute objection that Jaddua was still living in the days of Alexander the Great, since from the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, i.e., from b.c. 433, to the destruction of the Persian empire b.c. 330, there are only 103