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all Esth. Neh.

people relapsed into the same enormities; for which reason we find Malachi †, the last From Ezra iv. prophet under the law, and who (not long after Haggai and Zechariah) must have lived 7. to the end; in the time of Nehemiah, reproving the priests for their iniquity and scandalous lives; and part of and upbraiding the people with their neglect of the worship of God; with their refusal Hagg. Zech. to pay their tithes and offerings; with their divorcing their own wives, and marrying. strange women; and with their inhumanity and cruel usage of their indigent brethren; the very same enormities which this good governor laboured to reform.

How long after this Nehemiah lived at Jerusalem is uncertain: It is most likely however, that (notwithstanding all the revolutions in the Persian court) he continued in his government to the time of his death, but when that happened, it is nowhere said; only we may observe, that at the time when he ends his book he could not be much less than seventy years old.

and Malachi.

66

THE OBJECTION.

BUT how good, and wise, and pious men soever the two governors of the Jewish church and nation, Ezra and Nehemiah, might be; yet it cannot but be thought an act of extreme severity, if not a violation of all justice and equity, for them to decree (as we find they both did) that, upon the dissolution of all illegal marriages, the poor children (who were entirely innocent as to their parents transgression) should be turned a

+ Whether the word Malachi be the proper name of a man, or only a generical name to denote an angel, a messenger, a prophet, or the like, has been a matter of some enquiry. From the prophet Haggai, chap. i. 18. and this other whom we cite under the name of Malachi, chap. iii. 1. it appears, that, in those times, the name of Malach-Jehovah, or the "messenger of the Lord," was often given to prophets; and under this title the Septuagint have characterized, and the fathers of the Christian church have frequently quoted this prophetic writer. But the author of the lives of the prophets, under the name of Epipha nius Dorotheus, tells us, that this writer was of the tribe of Zebulun, a native of Sapha, and that the name of Malachi was given him because an angel used visibly to appear to the people after the prophet had spoken to them, to confirm what he had said; though most of the ancient Jews (as well as the Chaldee paraphrast) were of opinion, that Malachi was no other than Ezra under a borrowed name. However this be, it is agreed on all hands, that he was the last of the prophets of the synagogue, and lived about four hundred years, according to Hales four hundred and twenty] before Christ; of whose coming, and the coming of his fore-runner John the Baptist, and of whose religion, and the institution of a Catholic and Universal church in the room of the Jewish, he speaks in very full and express terms, chap. iii. 1, &c. Calmet's Dictionary, under the word.

* Upon the death of Artaxerxes, (in Scripture called Ahasuerus) Xerxes, his only son by his queen,

(for he had several by his concubines, and among
these the most famous were Sogdianus, Ochus, and
Arsites) succeeded in the Persian throne; but by the
treachery of one of his eunuchs, Sogdianus came up.
on him while he was drunk, and after he had reigned
no more than five and forty days, slew him, and seiz-
ed on the kingdom. But his unjust possession did
not hold long; for his brother Ochus, being then go-
vernor of Hyrcania, raised a considerable army, and
having gained many of the nobility and governors of
provinces to his interest, marched against him, and,
under a pretence of a treaty, having got him into his
power, threw him headlong into ashes: (a punishment
used among the Persians for very enormous criminals)
so that after he had reigned only six months and fif-
teen days, he died a very miserable death, and was
succeeded by Ochus; who, as soon as he was settled
in the kingdom, took the name of Darius, (and is
therefore by historians called Darius Nothus) and af.
ter he had slain his brother Arsites, (who thought to
have supplanted him as he had done Sogdianus, and
Sogdianus, Xerxes) and suppressed several other in-
surrections against him, continued to sway the Per-
sian sceptre for nineteen years; but whether he, or
Nehemiah, his governor of Judea, died first, we have
no certain account: all that we know is, that the last act
of the governor's reformations, viz. his dissolution of
strange marriages, was in the fifteenth year of this
prince's reign, and consequently but four before his
death. Prideaux's Connection, anno 425.

6

A. M. 3475, drift, and sent a-starving: As indeed the whole matter of these divorces seems to be ab&c. or 1947. horrent to the apostle's direction, (a) If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.'

Ant. Chris. 529, &c. or 464.

Nehemiah, no doubt, was a zealous reformer of the vices of his countrymen; but how these vices came to sprout up again so soon (as we find they did chap. xiii.) and in the short time of his absence from Jerusalem, which was but for (b) certain days, we cannot conceive. And though he was confessedly a man of a large and liberal spirit, yet the author of his history seems to have tarnished his character in this respect, when he makes him so lavish in his own praise, so ostentatious of his good works, and even in his very generosity discovering a mercenary temper, by his so frequently calling upon God (c) to think upon him for good, according to all that he had done for his people.' Nor has the author of the book of Ezra concerted his matters much better, when he makes an heathen prince (as Artaxerxes was) write in a style more becoming the Sanhedrim, and in the preamble to his commission, compliment him with the title of (d) the scribe of the law of the God of heaven,' as if that idolater had any knowledge of the God of heaven, or any perception that the Jews were the true worshippers of him.

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The truth of the matter is, (e) these books of Ezra and Nehemiah were never written at the time of their pretended date, nor by the persons whose names they bear; but by some ignorant Sadducee or other, unacquainted with the affairs he pretended to treat of, and badly versed in points of chronology. For it is next to a thing incredible, that either Ezra or Nehemiah should be old enough to be acquainted with that Sanballat whose daughter Manassa (as he is called by Josephus) married, or that Sanballat himself should extend his life to the days of Alexander the Great, according to the same historian.

Nor is the authority of the book of Esther (ƒ) clear of all suspicion, since in all Hebrew copies we find nothing of the six last chapters of it; no mention made of its contents in any exotic writer; and so many unaccountable absurdities everywhere occurring in it, that we cannot but look upon it as a spurious piece, that has in it the air of a romance, or a kind of tragi-comedy, rather than real history.

For (to begin with the very foundation of the whole story) how absurd is it to think that Mordecai should refuse to pay all manner of obeisance to Haman, who at that time was the king's great favourite and first minister of state; when to bow the knee, and even prostrate the whole body, in the salutation of their betters, was a common custom among the Hebrews as well as Persians? And how unreasonable is it to imagine that Ahasuerus should divorce his queen, merely because she was a modest woman, because she would not do a thing unbecoming her dignity, and contrary to the laws of the Persians *, (which allowed no woman of fashion to appear in public) merely to gratify the mad frolic of a drunken husband?

Say what we will, we can never apologise for Esther's turning concubine, though it were to the greatest prince in the universe, much less for her kinsman's abetting her unchastity, how much soever he might raise his fortune by it. And though it sounds a little strange that the king should forget to recompence a man, who had been so signal an instrument in preserving his life from a treasonable conspiracy, as Mordecai had

(a) 1 Cor. vii. 12.

(c) Chap. v. 19.

(b) Neh. xiii. 6.
(d) Ezra vii. 12.
(e) Huetii, Demonst. Propos. 4.
(f) Ibid.
*To this purpose Josephus (lib. xi. c. 6.) informs
us, that the reason why Vashti refused to go to the
king, when sitting in public company, was, because
she thought herself bound by the laws of Persia, which
would not allow wives to be seen by any besides their
domestics: "For most barbarous nations (says Plu-

tarch in his Themistocles) are so very rigid and trou blesome in their jealousy of their women, that they keep not only their wives, but their very maid-servants and concubines shut up at home, from seeing any but their own family; and when they travel they carry them in covered waggons, and lodge them under tents shut up and quite closed round." Le Clerc's Commentary.

to the end;

been; yet, all on a sudden, (a) to confer such vast honours upon him, as would necessarily From Ezra iv. expose him to the envy and indignation of the whole Persian nobility, seems to be but an ill-judged method of rewarding him.

How Mordecai's (b) being a Jew (when at that time the Jews had no interest at the Persian court, nay, when at that time a decree was issued out for their utter extirpa. tion) could portend Haman's downfal, we cannot see; but a manifest thing it is, that when they grew into favour, (c) they became too bloody and outrageous to deserve the name of God's peculiar people; and that, how far soever Haman's resentment against Mordecai might carry him, yet for him to have (d) ten thousand talents of silver,' (which, upon the lowest computation, amount to almost three millions of our Sterling money) to lay down for his life and the lives of his countrymen, has as little credibility in it, as that the walls of Jerusalem (e) were built by Nehemiah (notwithstanding all the interruptions he met with) in two and fifty days."

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all Esth. Neh. and part of

Hagg. Zech.

and Malachi.

THE Jewish law against marrying with heathens runs thus:-(f)" When the Lord ANSWER. thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee,-Thou shalt not make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take to thy son." And the reason of the law is assigned in the following verse: "For they will turn away thy sons from following me, that they may serve other gods:-For did not Solomon, (g) king of Israel (as Nehemiah argues with the people) sin by these things?" And if so great a one as he, who excelled all mankind in wisdom, was not safe from the seducement of these outlandish women, how shall ye be able to preserve yourselves from their enticements? And yet (as Moses goes on in his reasoning) (h)" Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

Here then is an express law, enforced with weighty reasons, against these Pagan marriages: And therefore, since whatever is done contrary to the law is ipso facto null and void, these marriages with idolatrous women, which were strictly forbidden by God, were (properly speaking) no marriages at all; and the children which proceeded from them were in no better condition than those whom we call bastards. (i) No interposition of civil authority was therefore needful to dissolve these marriages. The infidelity of the party espoused was as much an interdiction as any of the most proximate degree of consanguinity, which, by the laws of all civilized nations, is known to vacate the marriage.

But even suppose that the civil authority thought proper to interpose in this matter, yet, wherein had the Jews any reason to complain, if, in just punishment for their wilful breach of a known and positive law, they were excluded from cohabiting with these illegal wives? The Jews, I say, especially, who for every light and trivial cause † made no scruple to give even their lawful wives a bill of divorcement, and might therefore, with much less difficulty, be supposed willing to repudiate those whom the laws of their God (for fear of their catching the infection of idolatry) had forbidden them to live with.

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her guilty of some action which was really infamous
and contrary to the rules of virtue. But the school
of Hillel, who was Shammah's disciple, taught, on the
contrary, that the least reasons (such as, if she did
not dress his meat well, if she was not agreeable to
him in person or temper, or if he found any other
woman that he liked better) were sufficient to autho
rise a man to put away his wife. Selden's Uxor He
braica, lib. iii. c. 18.

A. M. 3475,

Ant. Chris.

599, &c or 464

St Paul indeed is not for "turning away an unbelieving wife," in case she is "will&c. or 4947. ing to dwell with her husband;" but then he supposes. that this couple were married. when they were both heathens, and in a state of infidelity, in which case there was no law, either divine or human, forbidding them to marry (whereas in these Jewish marriages with Pagans the prohibition is strict); and therefore, as there was no sin in their coming together at first, and the Christian religion (whether it was the man or the woman that embraced it) made no alteration in the case, his advice is, that they continue to dwell together, even though they be of different persuasions in matters of religion, because (as he farther adds this reason) (a)" the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife; and how knowest thou, O man,” but that, by thy peaceable cohabitation with her, thou mayest convert and "save thy wife."

Though therefore the apostle is not for encouraging any separation between husband and wife upon account of their difference in religion, when their marriage was previous to either of their conversions to Christianity; yet, if we will make him consistent with himself, we must allow, that he is utterly averse to all mixed marriages with infidels, when in his following epistle he advises all Christians, (b)" not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what communion, says he, has light with darkness, or what concord has Christ with Belial ?" &c. Whereby he gives us to think, that he esteemed all marriage with heathens illegal, and that, had the apostle at that time been either of Ezra's or Nehemiah's council, he would have given his vote for their dissolution among the Jews.

We own, indeed, that it is a very gracious declaration of God, “Behold all souls are mine, as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die." But then we are to consider, that as life signifies, in general, all that happiness which attends God's favour, so death denotes all those punishments which are the effects of Divine displeasure; and among these, the miseries of the next world are chiefly intended. These indeed shall be allotted to men according to their own demerits, without any regard to the faults of their forefathers, which shall neither be laid to their charge, nor made an aggravation of their guilt; but as to temporal evils and calamities, it cannot well otherwise be, but that, in the very course of things, children should suffer for the iniquities of their parents.

Though therefore it may seem a little hard, that the children should be included in their mother's divorce, yet the laws of most nations have determined this point :-That children are to follow the condition of their mothers, be it what it will, and, consequently, as they are unlawfully born, they must of course be alienated from the family, at the same time that the mother is repudiated, and in virtue of that very law which declares her marriage to be null. So that it was no arbitrary act in Ezra to abdicate the children as well as the mothers; though (c) to prevent the danger of their corrupting the other children of the family (if they were allowed to stay), and of insinuating themselves so far into their fathers affection's, as to prevail with them in time to recall their ejected wives, might be motive enough to a prudent ruler (considering the then situation of affairs) to put the law rigidly in execution. As this however was an act of the government, wherein Ezra and other good men who feared the Lord were concerned, we may reasonably presume, that some provision was made for the maintenance, and perhaps the education of these poor children, in the principles of the Jewish religion, at the public charge.

How long Nehemiah was in finishing the walls of Jerusalem, interpreters are not agreed, because some of them, supposing the space of two and fifty days, (d) mentioned in the Scripture, to be too short for the perfecting of the whole, have begun their computation from the time that Nehemiah returned his answer to Sanballat's first message, (a) 1 Cor. vii. 16.

(b) 2 Cor. vi. 14.

(c) Pool's Annotations.

(d) Neh. vi. 15.

and others, from the time that the stone-wall was finished, and so allowing the whole From Ezra iv. fifty-two days for the perfecting of the rest But if we look into the compass of time, 1. to the end; from Nehemiah's being at Shushan to the day of the month when these walls are said and part of to have been finished, we shall find, that no more than fifty-two days could well be al- Hagg. Zech. lowed for the perfecting of the whole.

It was (a) in the first month, called by the Jews Nisan, that Nehemiah was at Shushan, and obtained of the king leave to go to Jerusalem: And though we have no express account what time he spent in his journey, and when he came to Jerusalem; yet, if we may make a conjecture from the time that Ezra expended in the same journey, we can scarce suppose that he arrived at Jerusalem before the end of the fourth month. Ezra set out on the first day of the first month. He made a (b) short stay indeed at the river Ahava; but it was the first day of the fifth month before he reached Jerusalem. Nehemiah could not possibly set out so soon in the year, because his commission (c) from the king, and instructions to the neighbouring governors, must have taken some time in passing through the several offices: And therefore we can scarce suppose that he reached Jerusalem sooner than the time specified; and from thence to the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month (including the three days of rest that he gave him. self before he began), the space will be much about fifty-two days wherein, we suppose, that the whole work was finished. (d) For if Alexander the Great (as Arrianus and Curtius relate) built the walls of Alexandria, which was seven miles in compass, in the space of twenty days, why should it be thought a thing incredible, that a vast number, not of hired, but voluntary men, full of zeal for the work themselves, animated by the example of their rulers, and ranged and distributed in a proper manner for dispatch, should in almost thrice that space of time be able to finish a work of less compass; when they had long summer days for it, plenty of stones and other materials hard at hand, the foundation of the wall unrazed, some parts of it standing entire, only some breaches here and there to be amended; and when their design in the whole was, not to study curiosity, but strength, and to provide themselves with such a fortification for the present, as would secure them from any sudden invasion of their enemies?

How (e) long Nehemiah continued at the Persian court after his return from Jerusalem, the Sacred History no where informs us. It tells us, indeed, that he came back again after certaiħ days; but since the word yamin, which we render days, does equally signify years, and in many places of the Hebrew Scriptures is used in that sense, we cannot but wonder, how the generality of chronologers, as well as commentators, came to overlook this sense of the word, and, in so doing, to make Nehemiah's stay at Shushan much shorter than it possibly could be. For since he had been twelve years in reforming what he found amiss among the Jews, and Ezra had been doing the same for thirteen years before him; they must, one would think, have brought their reformation to such a state and stability, that a little time could not have been sufficient so totally to have unhinged it: And therefore we may conclude, that his absence at Court, which have room for these irregularities to grow to such an height, was not for certain days, but for some years continuance; and, consequently, that the author of this part of his life had no intention either to magnify his good offices, or to relate any thing incredible concerning him, since, though he acquaints us with sundry corruptions that had sprung up, yet he makes the time of his absence (if we take his words in their proper sense) long enough for that purpose.

That Nehemiah was the writer of the account of his own government in Judea (for that is the subject of his book) most interpreters are agreed : (ƒ) And as he appears in

(a) Neh. ii, 1. (b) Ezra viii. 15, 31. tary, and Pool's Annotations on Neh. vi. 15. (f) Patrick's Commentary on Neh. v. 19.

(c) Neh. ii. 6, &c.
(d) Patrick's Commen-
(e) Prideaux's Connection, anno 428.

all Esth. Neh.

and Malachi.

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