The importance of genealogies is often overlooked. After all, how interesting can reading a list of names be? Perhaps reading them is about as interesting as writing them down, or even gathering the lists in the first place—a ho-hum task from start to finish. Nevertheless, and especially in the study at hand, the genealogies in Ezra and Nehemiah are very important. Why would this be so? It is, because our modern understanding of the list of the kings of Babylon and Persia, from Nebuchadnezzar to the coming of Alexander the Great, has been corrupted through historians’ use of Ptolemy’s Canon, something which is rejected by astronomers from the eleventh century AD to the present. Why historians reject science in order to preserve Ptolemy’s Canon is a mystery. Therefore, such an error in the perception of historians about this period of ancient history places great importance upon the list of genealogies in Ezra and Nehemiah, because they show the time of Cyrus (Ezra 1) to the time of Xerxes (Ezra 7), the first and the last of the four kings mentioned in Daniel 11:2, spans a little more than a single generation of time.[1]
We are told by the author of the Book of Ezra that 42,360[2] men, women and children returned to the Province of Judah and Jerusalem, and with them 7,337 servants (Ezra 2:1, 64-65). The former group were the descendants of those whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken captive to Babylon fifty to seventy years earlier (Ezra 2:1; cp. Daniel 1:1).
Among these folks were twelve men (Ezra 2:2),[3] who, probably, represented and were the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel. The implication we receive is that the returning exiles are, in fact of all Israel, certainly not the whole of the descendants of Jacob, but some from all the tribes of Israel (Ezra 2:2, 70).
After mentioning these leaders, the recorder of the Book of Ezra lists the number of the men of the people of Israel (Ezra 2:3-35). Next, he lists the number of priests (Ezra 2:36-39), then he lists the number of Levites, then singers and porters (Ezra 2:40-42). The “Nethinim” (Ezra 2:43-58) were Temple servants, perhaps descendants of the Gibeonites, who were given to the priests and the Levites by Joshua to serve at the Temple (Joshua 9:27). Finally, the recorder of the lists found in Ezra 2 mentions the number of men out of Israel who couldn’t prove they were from Israel (Ezra 2:59-60) and the number of men who claimed to be descendants of priests but couldn’t prove it by genealogy, and were, therefore, considered “polluted, put from the priesthood” (Ezra 2:61-63).
As I mentioned above, the genealogies found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are important for various reasons, but in particular they are important to show that Cyrus, not Artaxerxes of Ezra 7 wrote the decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. The historians who follow the works of Claudius Ptolemy are in error, because his works don’t stand up to the scrutiny of legitimate astronomers, who claim Ptolemy’s Canon of kings has no value at all, in determining when the kings of Babylon and Persia rose to power and did the things history credits to them. Therefore, this study shows that the period of time covered in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther, from Cyrus the Great to Xerxes, the fourth king of Persia, is 49 years or seven weeks of the Seventy Weeks Prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27).[4]
[1] This assumes 40 years to be a single generation of time, or about the span of a king’s life, who reigned from his youth to what was sometimes called full of years, when he died. Other methods of determining a generation are 70 years, the life expectancy recorded by the Psalmist (Psalm 90:10), and the time it takes for one generation to be born and grow up and have children of their own (averaging about 20 years).
[2] If one adds up the number of returning exiles to Jerusalem found in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7, he would find the figures do not agree. Taking the sum found in both books and adding the surpluses found in either, we would come to the figure of 31,583, which is 10,777 less than the 42,360. If we account that the main body of returning exiles are of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and the Levites (Ezra 1:5), then the 10,777 surplus may point to the other tribes of Israel. This, of course, is guesswork, but it is a plausible answer to the differences in the figures.
[3] Nehemiah 7:7 supplies the 12th man, which may have been dropped in error by a copyist of the Book of Ezra 2:2.
[4] See the chart of the priests who officiated during these days: The Generations of Priests in Nehemiah 12.
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