HOW MANY PEOPLE RETURNED FROM THE EXILE?

One internet site critical of the biblical accounts poses the following contradictions between statements made in Ezra and Nehemiah:

    “The number in the assembly was said to be 42,360 in Ezra 2:64 and Nehemiah 7:66 but the         individual numbers add up to 29,818 in Ezra and 31,089 in Nehemiah.”

So we are really faced with two problems here rather than just one. First is the issue concerning the fact that in each case the sum of the numbers earlier in chapter do not match up with the grand total. Secondly, we must deal with the fact that added-up numbers in Nehemiah do not give the same total as those in Ezra. We must admit that this appears to be, for once, a valid criticism of the biblical record. Thus,

    Cundall says, “It is not easy to account for the discrepancies.”

    Clines states, “Attempts at harmonization are unconvincing.”

    Myers: “No one has yet come up with a fully satisfactory explanation of the purpose of the list, of the place where it stood originally, or of the discrepancies between the two recensions.”

    Fensham: “The total in v. 64 [of Ezra 2] leaves us with an insoluble problem.”

But before throwing up our hands and giving up, I should also mention that a number of reputable Bible commentators feel that this is so minor an issue that they don't even bother pointing out the differences between the two passages. And others try to put the discrepancies into perspective with the following comments:

    “Despite some minor differences in names and numbers (about 8 percent of the total), it is quite clear that the list in Ezra 2 is identical with the list in Nehemiah 7.” (Yamauchi)

    “The view that the list is fictitious is no longer accepted by scholars.” (Fensham)

    And Cundall notes, “It is interesting to observe that no attempt at harmonization been made [between these two accounts].” If it were such a serious sin as our critic would have us believe, one would have expected that at least one or two scribes over the centuries would have tried to correct such an obvious contradiction.

Finally, we have the remarks from some of those who try to explain the differences we observe. Whether any of these completely satisfy our curiosity regarding this issue (and it is certainly not a matter to destroy anyone's faith), I will leave that up to you:

    Fensham starts with the most obvious scenario: “The divergencies in the lists of Ezra and Nehemiah occur mainly in proper names and in numerical information. Such discrepancies might have been due to textual corruption.” As I have explained in several other posts, it is notoriously difficult to recover original information such as numbers and proper names once an accidental mistake in copying by scribes has occurred due to the principle of their low redundancy compared to that of words.

Fensham continues by saying, “H.L. Allrick has shown how the numerals in the Hebrew script could have been misinterpreted by later copyists...In the case of Nehemiah it is mentioned that the list is drawn up from 'the book of genealogy' (Neh. 7:5). This document might have been the original for both authors.”

He then offers another possibility only to refute it: “Some have proposed that women and children are left out of the totals of the families [referring to the 29,818 people mentioned in Ezra 2], but this leaves us with 12,542 women and children, much too low a figure. This total of 42,360, however, occurs also in Neh. 7 and must be regarded as correct. Somehow through textual corruption or by the omission of certain families, this discrepancy happened.”

I guess it is possible to propose that for one reason or another many of the women and young children either decided to forego the arduous journey back to Israel or were prevented from doing so by the Persian authorities, but that is probably only grasping at straws.

    Clines, on the other hand, points to another proposed solution: “By emending three figures (in Ezra 2:12, 16, 31) J. Bewer arrived at a total of 32,360 for which 42,360 would be a simple scribal error involving only one digit.”

Then there are the historical explanations for the various discrepancies. Myers states, regarding the numbers in Ezra, “It may be that the whole summary pertains to the situation aro    und 520 rather than 538 and thus would include the people of Judah who joined the golah [exiles] and the cumulative numbers of all who returned between the above-noted dates.”

    Williamson says, “The initial group, apparently lad by Sheshbazzar, returned around 537 BCE (the total figure, some 50,000 according to Ezra 2:64-65 and Neh 7:66-67, probably reflects various stages of return between the reigns of Cyrus and Darius, and arguably, includes some who had remained in the land).”

    Yamauchi agrees: “The list in Ezra is ostensibly the list of those who returned in response to the decree of Cyrus. But the large total numbers...have inclined most scholars to regard this as a cumulative total of the returnees. Ezra 8:1-20 records additional exiles who returned with Ezra.”

    “Others have suggested that later scribes were less meticulous in their copying of the Writings, the third section of the Hebrew Canon [which includes Ezra-Nehemiah]. Allied to this there is the possibility that the list of those who returned in 538 BC was modified and expanded to include others who returned subsequently, and even some who, though they had never been in exile,were fully in sympathy with the returned exiles. Seven [such] groups may be distinguished...The same total is given in Nehemiah and 1 Esdras [as in Ezra] but in none of the three do the constituent parts add up to this, indicating errors in interpreting numbers or in transmission.”

The same critical source follows this quandary with one dealing with the verses immediately following the above:

“How many singers accompanied the assembly? Ezra 2:65 says 200 while Nehemiah 7:67 says 245.”

Most of the comments above relating to the great difficulty in accurately copying numbers compared with words applies here as well. But in addition, there are at least two other factors applying to this particular situation. In the first place, it has been often noted that many of the numbers cited in the Old Testament historical books are obviously round numbers, not precise ones. We tend to follow the same practice today without anyone calling us liars for using such a type of shorthand. So Ezra may have merely rounded down the actual number of 245 to 200.

But there is another possibility in this particular case. Some manuscripts of Nehemiah 7:68 are missing the first half of the verse, reading “They had 736 horses, 245 mules.” Thus, Hulst in speaking for the United Bible Societies chooses to omit this sentence due to poor textual support while some modern translations such as RSV and NRSV have decided to include it. Obviously, at this point in the text either (a) an early scribe committed an accidental error in transcribing the copy he had and omitted that sentence or (b) a copyist using private information purposely added this tidbit.

Whichever scenario is the correct one, what struck me was the fact that the number of mules given in some manuscripts and the number of singers in the Nehemiah account was identical – 245. Therefore we are faced with the strong possibility that a scribe's eyes accidentally skipped over a line in the manuscript he was copying and attached “245” to the number of singers, taken from the number of mules in the following verse. This sort of error is so common that textual scholars have even given it a technical name, haplography.