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Bible Dictionaries
Nehemiah The Book of
Smith's Bible Dictionary
or Nehemi'ah, The Book of. The Book of Nehemiah, like the preceding one of Ezra, is clearly and certainly not all by the same hand. See Ezra, The Book of. By far the most important portion, indeed, is the work of Nehemiah, but other portions are either extracts from various chronicles and registers, or supplementary narratives and reflections, some apparently by Ezra, others, perhaps the work of the same person, who inserted the latest, genealogical extracts from the public chronicles.
The main history contained in the book of Nehemiah covers about twelve years, namely, from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes Langimanus, that is, from B.C. 445 to 433. The whole narrative gives us a graphic and interesting account of the state of Jerusalem, and the returned captives in the writer's times, and, incidentally, of the nature of the Persian government, and the condition of its remote provinces.
The book of Nehemiah has always had an undisputed place in the Canon, being included, by the Hebrews, under the general head of the book of Ezra, and, as Jerome tells us in the Prolog. Gal., by the Greeks and Latins, under the name of the second book of Ezra.
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Smith, William, Dr. Entry for 'Nehemiah The Book of'. Smith's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/sbd/n/nehemiah-the-book-of.html. 1901.
