time, the Jews received fresh tokens of the king's favour Reforms upon his raifing Efther to the diadem. Ezra, relying the church upon the protection of two fuch powerful friends as the and flate. new queen and Mordecai, who now engroffed the king's favour, gave himself up wholly to the care of the Jewish affairs, and to reform fome crying abufes which had crept in among those who were returned from Babylon under Zerubbabel (K). His next great work was to reform the whole state of the Jewish church, by restoring its difcipline and rites, according to its ancient pattern, under the former prophets. In order to which, his first care was to collect and Collects the fet forth a correct edition of the facred books, and then facred to reduce the observance of the Mofaic law to that stand- books. ard. This circumftance we find neither exprefsly mentioned in the facred hiftorians, nor in Jofephus; but we have it from the Talmudifts, and other ancient Jews, who add a great many others, which not carrying the fame probability, we fhall omit as fabulous. But as for this point of his collecting and revifing the facred writings, making fome small additions to them, and fixing the canon of the Old Teftament to twenty-two books, as they are now received by the Jews and proteftant Chriftians; we have many reafons to confirm the fact. He was well verfed in the language; his extenfive authority en-abled him to gather up all the best copies that could be met with, either at Jerufalem, or among the dispersed Jews; and he had the affiftance of two or three prophets (L) in the work. The then confused state of the Jews (K) One of these was the intermarriages, which not only the common people, but even priefts, Levites, and heads of families, had made with fome of their idolatrous neighbours; by which they had introduced a mixed mongrel breed of Egyptians, Moabites, Ammonites, Samaritans, and other frange nations, among the true Ifraelites. (L) These were Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, to which the Jews add Daniel, and his three companions. As for Malachi, they pretend that he was the fame with St. Jerom and fome other thers с Jews required fuch a collection and revifal of the facred writings; and fome fuch thing we find done foon after Nehemiah's arrival in Judæa, when Ezra brought forth the facred volume, and read and expounded it to all the people from morning till noon, during the whole seven days of the feast of tabernacles b. Laftly, the whole current of Talmudift writers, and all the ancient and modern Jews (except the Samaritans, who reject all but the Pentateuch, as fhall be feen in due time; and Jofephus, who perhaps did not think proper to tell the world that the facred writings stood in need of fuch a revifal and amendment), afcribe this work to Ezra, as prefident of the fanhedrim, and chief director and overfeer of the whole; in which opinion they have been followed by no fmall number of ancient fathers, and by far the greatest part of modern writers. We may farther add, that there is no other way of justifying that great and zealous man, for leaving the city and outworks of the temple in that desolate state in which Nehemiah found them at his coming; but the fuppofition, that he thought it of greater moment to bestow his time and care in this new and correct edition of the facred code, and to busy himself in repairing the outworks of the city and temple. It is in the time of this revifal that he is fuppofed to have exchanged the old Hebrew character for the more beautiful and commodious Chaldee, now in ufe, and to have invented the Mafforah (M), vowel and other points. e Seld. de Synedr. Buxd Clem. Alexandr. Strom. Nehem. viii. 2, & feq. ad fin. torf. Tiberiad. & Auct. ab eis citat. lib. i. Iren. lib. iii. Bafil. Epift. ad Chilon. Ifidor. Orig. lib. e Nehem. i. 2. ii. 14, & feq. vi. & al. mult. them. Another and very useful improvement which he and Corrects. his infpired affociates are generally, and with great probability, believed to have made to this new edition of the facred books, is the interfperfing here and there an explanatory clause by way of parenthefis, and making fuch other additions to the text, as were neceffary to explain, illustrate, or confirm it. Of this nature some fuppofe the account of Mofes's death, and the excellent character given to that great lawgiver in the laft chapter of Deuteronomy, to have been; but it feems to us more probable, that this was inferted much earlier, namely, by Joshua, or fome of his contemporary writers, in order to inspire the people with a fingular refpect for him and his writings. However that be, we meet with a great number, which, being manifeftly inserted long after the facts, cannot well be afcribed to any but Ezra, or fome of thofe prophets that affifted him in the work: thus we find in feveral of the historical books, concerning fome ancient monuments, fuch words as thefe added by way of teftimony, "which remain unto this day f (N)." To the fame end he is fuppofed likewise to have added fome new names of places to the old appellations, which were become obfolete. Thus Abraham is faid to have purfued the confederate kings as far as Dan, the name which the Danites gave long afterwards to the city of Lefhem or Laish %. The fame was done to Beth-el, anciently called Luz; to Hebron, whofe original name was Kirjath-Arba, and to many more, by the help of whofe new names we come f Deut. iii. 14. Joshua x. 27, & alib. plur. xiv. 14. & Joshua xix. 47. Judg. xviii. 29. (N) Thus it is faid in Genefis, that "the Canaanites did then dwell in the land;" which words could not be inferted till they had actually been extirpated out of it: and in another place of the fame book it is faid, "Thefe are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king in Ifrael;" which laft words muft of neceffity have been inferted long after Mofes's time. The large iron bed of Og, king of Bafan, faid in Deuteronomy to have been still to be feen in the me Conf. Genef. tropolis of the Ammonites, to Reffores the divine worship. to the knowlege of the places there mentioned, which we could never have known by their old denominations. The laft work of this great man was to reftore the wor ship of the temple according to its ancient form before the captivity; to revise and amend the Jewish liturgy, and to add particular prayers and thanksgivings proper for the festivals that were fuperadded after their return from the captivity; fuch as the dedication of the new temple, of Purim, and the like; and as the Pfalms entered into almoft every part of their worship, and were to be fung alternately, it is not to be doubted but he took the fame pains in collecting the whole book, and giving it the fame revifal which he had given to the rest. Whether he digested them in the fame order we have them now in, as is generally believed by Jews and Christians; and whether he was the author of thofe which were manifeftly compofed during the captivity, and after their return from it, fuch as we take those which were ftyled Gradual to have been; and lastly, whether he lived to finish all these things, or left them to be completed by his fucceffors, we will not pretend to determine. One thing the fecond book of Maccabees informs us of, that Nehemiah founded a library at Jerusalem, in which he depofited the acts of the kings, of the prophets, and of Davidk; which seems to intimate as if the revisal of them had been completed before that time. It is no lefs uncertain whether this revifal of the facred books reached fo far as the restoring the poetical parts to their ancient metre, or whether they contented themfelves with fuch a punctuation and division of verses as would beft fit them for the fervice of the temple. The generality of writers declare for the latter opinion; but there is one reafon which appears to us very strong for the former, namely, that thofe Pfalms which were compofed after the captivity, run much in the fame cadence with those which had been written before it; and many of them feem to be in no circumstance inferior to them; which is a plain intimation, either that the rules of Hebrew poetry were not loft at Babylon, or that they were recovered after their return, though they have been in vain fought for ever fince the total disperfion of that nation. Ezra was fucceeded by Nehemiah, after he had governed the Jewish church and nation thirteen years. Jofephus Ezra vi. 16. i Esther ix.29, ad fin. Chap, ii. 13. tella tells us, that he died and was buried at Jerufalem; but Ezra's the reft of the Jews affirm that he returned into Perfia, death and and died there in the hundred and twentieth year of his character. age. They bear fo great a veneration for him, that they look upon him as a fecond Mofes, a restorer of the facred books and Mafforah, and, in a word, one every way worthy to have been their lawgiver, had not that honour been bestowed on Mofes. They join the books of Ezra and Nehemiah into one, and make him the author of it; and he was certainly author of the first, since he mentions nothing in it but what was done in his time, and under his eye; and almost every where fpeaks of himself in the first person: but if he wrote the fecond, fome additions must have been made to it fince his death; though the difference of style seems to prove it of another hand, as are the two books of Chronicles, which it is not, however, improbable he might have had the revifal of. As for the other two books falfely attributed to him, and known by the names of the first and second books of Efdras, they are justly rejected. Nehemiah, cup-bearer to the king of Perfia, a Jew (0) Nehemiah of great learning and piety, had heard by fome of his na- fent into tion lately come from Jerufalem, of the ruinous condition Judea. which that city still stood in, notwithstanding the favours which that monarch had heaped on the returned Jews. Being therefore aided by the queen, who is exprefsly faid Yr. of Fl. to have been at the table when he made his petition to the king, he obtained a commiffion from him to fucceed Ezra in the government of Judæa, with full power to rebuild and adorn both city and temple, and with fresh·· 1 Antiq. lib. xi. (0) The text calls him barely the fon of Hachaliah, with out informing us of what tribe he was. Some therefore, from a paffage in the Maccabees, where he is faid to have offered facrifices, and from his being reckoned at the head of the priests that figned the new covenant with God, have affirmed him to have been of the family of Aaron. But as there is nothing conclufive in all this, and it feems VOL. III. m Nehem. ii. 6, & feq. exprefsly contradicted by his orders 1903. Ante Chr. 445. |