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Nehemiah 7 · a question people ask

Is the Nehemiah of 7:7 the man telling this book?

In the text

The list names those "who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai" and others (7:7). It is the list Nehemiah found of "those who came up at the first" (7:5). The book's Nehemiah is "Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah" (1:1), and 7:7 gives its Nehemiah and its Mordecai no father, no place and nothing else. Ezra 2's honest question, Is this the Nehemiah of the book of Nehemiah, and the Mordecai of Esther?, sets the verses side by side. The text doesn't say they are the same men, and this study doesn't either.

The verses

“who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:”
Nehemiah 7:7 · World English Bible
“My God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be listed by genealogy. I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found this written in it:”
Nehemiah 7:5 · World English Bible
“The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the palace,”
Nehemiah 1:1 · World English Bible
“who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:”
Ezra 2:2 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Nehemiah 7

Nehemiah 7: The city guarded, the list found

Nehemiah 7 turns from the wall to the people: Jerusalem is put in the charge of Hanani and Hananiah, "for he was a faithful man and feared God above many" (7:2), but the city is "wide and large" with few people (7:4), and what "My God put into my heart" (7:5) leads Nehemiah to the list of those who came up at the first, Ezra 2's list, found again.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions