Naming Nehemiah

In this article we will examine how the Book of Ezra came to be divided into Ezra and Nehemiah and see the theological ramification of this in rabbinic literature.

The Original Book of Ezra

TB Baba Batra 14b lists the books included in each part of the Tanach. The third part, the Writings, ends with “Ezra and Chronicles” with no distinct Book of Nehemiah listed. This is the traditional Jewish view, to call both Ezra and Nehemiah together the Book of Ezra. This is why the Masoretes didn’t list the number of verses found at the end of Ezra as is customary with other books of the Bible, rather the total of verses of both books together is given after Nehemiah (685). Similarly, they noted the midpoint of Ezra and Nehemiah (between Nehemiah 3:31 and 3:32) as a single long work.¹ We also find that Rashi and other early commentators refer to verses found in Nehemiah as being in Ezra.² The Septuagint³ as well as early Christian authorities, such as Melito of Sardis, also regarded Ezra and Nehemiah as a single work called Ezra.⁴

TB Sanhedrin 93b provides a reason for this. There the Talmud asks “what is the reason that a book was not called by his (Nehemiah’s) name?” even though he wrote the bulk of the combined Ezra and Nehemiah.⁵ Two answers are given. “Rabbi Yirmiyah bar Abba says: Because he took credit for himself, as it is stated: Remember me, God, for good (Nehemiah 13:31)… Rav Yosef says: Because he spoke in denigration of his predecessors, as it is stated: But the former governors who were before me placed burdens upon the people, and took from them for bread and wine beyond forty shekels (Nehemiah 5:15).” Since Nehemiah was understood to have spoken with a bit too much pride, he was punished by not having a book of the Bible named after him, a form of measure for measure punishment.⁶

Two Books or One?

There are textual reasons that can lead readers to consider Ezra and Nehemiah one long work or two distinct works. Ezra comes to Jerusalem to teach the laws of the Torah to the Jews (Ezra 7:10), but we only read of him doing so in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, indicating that the books make up one complete narrative. Also, Nehemiah 1:1 refers to the twentieth year but we are not immediately told of which king, as the reader is expected to understand it was the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, the king in the last four chapters of Ezra.⁷ On the other hand, there are significant stylistic differences between Ezra and Nehemiah. Nehemiah is written as a first person memoir, unlike Ezra. Other literary distinctions include the fact that Nehemiah uses names for the months (Kislev in Neh. 1:1, Nissan in Neh. 2:1, Elul in Neh. 6:15), while Ezra only uses numbers, and that only Ezra uses long quotes from official records, something never found in Nehemiah.⁸ Also the two parts have different themes, Ezra focusing on the return of the Judeans and the building of the Temple, while Nehemiah focuses on the rebuilding of the walls and repopulating of Jerusalem.⁹

From the time of the Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria (c.184 – c.253 CE) we find that the book was divided into two, called First and Second Ezra (or Esdras, the Greco-Latin variation of the name of Ezra), the second book beginning with Nehemiah 1:1.¹⁰ Although the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were already divided in the Septuagint, called 1-4 Reigns and 1-2 Supplements, that was due to their long length. Ezra and Nehemiah together are 23 chapters long, shorter than either subdivision of Samuel and Chronicles, and so did not need to be divided on account of length. The division seems to have been based on the text itself, which understood that Nehemiah 1:1 was the start of a new part of the narrative.¹¹ The division of Origen was preserved by Jerome in the Vulgate.¹² Thus, the division of Ezra and Nehemiah is a product of “the Christian Church, and was only adopted into Jewish tradition in the Middle Ages, being attested first in the early printed editions of the Hebrew Bible.”¹³

A factor that played into the decision to divide Ezra into two parts is that while the Septuagint has the 23 chapters of Ezra and Nehemiah as one book called 2 Esdras or Esdras beta, it also includes a work called 1 Esdras or Esdras alpha, an apocryphal version of Ezra composed of nine chapters containing material from 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.¹⁴ Thus, there was a long running tradition in the Greek and later Latin Church that there are two books of Ezra, 1 Esdras (the apocryphal work) and 2 Esdras (the current Ezra and Nehemiah). This laid the conceptual groundwork of two books of Ezra, the second one being composed of the Nehemiah narrative.¹⁵ This “somewhat confusing” state of affairs led a situation where the current Book of Ezra corresponds to the first part of 2 Esdras in the Septuagint and 1 Esdras in the Vulgate.¹⁶ The concept of two books of Ezra in the Septuagint seems to have had an influence on Origen’s decision to have two books of Ezra in his own canon.

Although not used as the title of Second Ezra in the Vulgate, in his writings Jerome does refer to the Second Book of Ezra as Nehemiah, and is understood to be the first to have done so, although it was probably in “common ecclesiastical use.”¹⁷ The first time the books were divided into books titled Ezra and Nehemiah in a purely Hebrew Bible was in the Christian printer Daniel Bomberg’s first edition of the Rabbinic Bible, published 1516-1517, where the words “Book of Nehemiah” are found in line after Ezra 10:44.¹⁸ However, while the early Bomberg editions indicate the beginning of Nehemiah with a restart of the chapter numbers, “the running title, Ezra, is carried on.”¹⁹ In Bomberg’s Rabbinic Bible published in Venice in 1525, the words “Book of Nehemiah” are found in the margin at Nehemiah 1:1, and the running title from there on is Nehemiah, although the books are not divided by a space.²⁰ This is the first printed edition of Tanach to completely retitle the second part of Ezra as the Book of Nehemiah. This method of grouping Ezra and Nehemiah together is preserved in most modern Tanach editions. For example, even though they have different chapter counts and book titles, they are grouped together with no dividing space in the Koren and Artscroll editions. Also Nehemiah is not generally printed with the first word in a large font or in a frame, something customary with the other books of the Bible in many printed editions.²¹

In the 1500s many works began to refer to the Second Book of Ezra as having the alternate title of Nehemiah. This is how it is referred to in Myles Coverdale’s Translation (1535) and at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The shift over time to calling the second part of Ezra by the title Nehemiah can be seen when comparing the first edition of Matthew’s Bible (1537) where we find “The seconde boke of Esdras, otherwise called the boke of Nehemiah” to the 1551 edition, where it appears as “The boke of Nehemias, otherwise called the seconde booke of Esdras.”²²

The Rabbinic Response

Most traditional Jewish works point out that there is no real significance to the division of Ezra into the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah, and this division is retained only “as a matter of convenience.”²³ However this is not so simple. The division of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles into two parts each, although initiated by Christians, was not necessarily problematic from a traditional Jewish perspective, and could indeed be used for the sake of convenience. This is not the case regarding calling a book Nehemiah which explicitly contradicts the punishment described in TB Sanhedrin 93b.

R. Chaim Yosef David Azulai (Chida, 1724 – 1806) is the only traditional Jewish figure to have attempted to provide some kind of resolution to the contradiction between the standard usage of referring to the Book of Nehemiah and the punishment of Nehemiah stated in the Talmud. In his work Marit haAyain he states that the fact that already for hundreds of years, particularly with the advent of printing, the books have been divided and one is named Nehemiah cannot be happenstance, it must be with Divine approval. He explains that it is because the punishment meted out to Nehemiah over the years was enough, and after enough time had passed the book could now be named after him. Of course it would not have been appropriate to name the entire book after him, thus removing Ezra from the honor he had received, so it was divinely ordained that the book be split into two.²⁴ This leads to the somewhat surprising conclusion that this division and renaming, although a product of the Christian Church and printers, is viewed as operating with Divine direction, and so can be met with Jewish approval.²⁵

Conclusion

We have seen that from the time of the Church Father Origen the Book of Ezra was divided into two books. The second book began being called Nehemiah in the 1500s in Bibles printed by Christian printers. This renaming in early printed Bibles led to the current situation where the books are universally referred to as Ezra and Nehemiah. From the traditional Jewish perspective this can be taken as an indication that the rehabilitation of Nehemiah has been completed.