In my opinion, there is much misunderstanding concerning the books of Ezra and Nehemiah among scholars, and, therefore, among Christians in general. However, I can only prove what I believe, if I consider the word of God inspired and read as though it cannot be contradicted (cp. John 10:35). Originally, the two books were one book, and I believe it was probably wrong to separate the one from the other. One simply cannot accurately understand either book without taking the other into consideration. Moreover, according to the word of God, the books of Nehemiah and Ezra take place during the reigns of four kings, Cyrus and his three successors (Daniel 11:1-2). This is emphatically **not** the position of most scholars who interpret these works, and, from where I sit, this is the reason why most scholars are wrong in their understanding of these books, vis-à-vis the word of God (if the reader needs to be reminded).
The Book of Nehemiah begins by introducing the hero of the record; he is Nehemiah, the son of Hachaliah (Nehemiah 1:1). We are told that the content of the book begins in Chisleu, during the ninth month of the Jewish calendar, in the 20th year, vis-à-vis the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia (cp. Nehemiah 2:1).[1] The reigns of the kings of Persia were reckoned from the autumn of the year to the autumn of the next year.[2] Nehemiah was considered to be a high official in the king’s court, and his official title was that of the king’s cupbearer (Nehemiah 1:11).
At this point Nehemiah found some of his brethren (countrymen; Jews) in the king’s winter palace at Shushan. Thew were probably there in an official capacity, perhaps seeking some help for the problems the Jews were facing in Judah (Nehemiah 1:2). Josephus records this account somewhat differently as:
“Now there was one of those Jews that had been carried captive who was cup-bearer to king Xerxes; his name was Nehemiah. As this man was walking before Susa, the metropolis of the Persians, he heard some strangers that were entering the city, after a long journey, speaking to one another in the Hebrew tongue; so, he went to them, and asked them whence they came. And when their answer was, that they came from Judea, he began to inquire of them again in what state the multitude was, and in what condition Jerusalem was; and when they replied that they were in a bad state (12) for that their walls were thrown down to the ground…” (Josephus; Antiquities of the Jews; 11.5.6 [11-12]).
Whatever the circumstances, concerning how Nehemiah may have been informed, the point is that he came to understand that Jerusalem’s walls remained in ruins, and work on the Temple had been stopped for over 20 years, from the beginning of the reign of Cambyses (Ezra 4:5-6) to the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes (Darius Hystaspes),[3] and this is how the events that transpire in the Book of Nehemiah are introduced to the reader.
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[1] Some scholars believe this points to the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7 (see You Can Understand the Bible Commentary by Dr. Bob Utley), but this is false. If this were true, and Ezra were in Jerusalem for 13 years, how is it that neither he nor any of the chief men who returned to Jerusalem with him (Ezra 8:1-14, 18-19) worked on building the city walls after the arrival of Nehemiah (cp. the names in Nehemiah 3:1-32)? See my earlier studies: Dating the Events of Ezra and Nehemiah, and Who Was Claudius Ptolemy? Moreover, how is it that the program that Ezra initiated after his arrival in Jerusalem to confront the apostasy of the Jews ended in total failure, which we must believe, if the arrival of Ezra comes before the arrival of Nehemiah?
[2] Notice that the book begins in the tenth month of the year, and during the twentieth year or the reign of the king of Persia. Yet, chapter two begins in the first month of the calendar year, but it is still the twentieth year of the reign of the king. Therefore, the reigns of the Persian kings were reckoned from the beginning of the civil year (harvest season), which was the seventh month of the calendar.
[3] See my earlier study: The Four Kings of Persia.
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