“Now these are the people of the province”—This passage is repeated in Nehemiah [chapter 7], with many variations. In some cases, the number given there is smaller than the number here: for example, the descendants of Arah number seven hundred here and six hundred there; the descendants of Zattu number nine hundred here and eight hundred there. In most cases, however, the number there is greater: the descendants of Azgad number one thousand here and two thousand there; the descendants of Adin number four hundred here and six hundred there, and so forth. It appears that the present passage speaks of the prominent people who went up from Babylon itself. When Jehoiachin was exiled, Nebuchadnezzar exiled the officials and the leading members of the nation. He brought them to the capital, where they were always treated with honor. Those exiled with Zedekiah, however, were sent throughout the provinces, because they were lowly in his eyes, as described [in Jeremiah 24] by the good figs and the bad figs. Here it says, “whom Nebuchadnezzar had exiled to Babylon,” whereas there it merely says, “whom Nebuchadnezzar had exiled.” This is because the present passage speaks of those exiled with Jehoiachin, who were brought to Babylon itself, the capital city, while the passage there speaks of those exiled with Zedekiah, who were sent to the provincial cities. The prominent people discussed here had Jerusalem as their principal destination, and from there they spread throughout Judah. The less prominent people had Judah as their principal destination, intending to settle there. Therefore, here it says “to Jerusalem and Judah,” without repeating the preposition “to” before Judah, whereas there it says “to Jerusalem and to Judah,” using the preposition for both. This accords with what I wrote in my commentary HaTorah VeHaMitzvah [on the portion of Aharei Mot, concerning the verse “and a ram for a burnt offering”]: wherever the preposition is not repeated, the first element is primary; when it is repeated, both elements are equal. Here it says that they “came with Zerubbabel,” etc., whereas there it adds Azariah, Raamiah, and Nahamani, who arrived later with additional groups of people. Therefore, the number counted there is greater than the number here. In the few cases where the number counted here is greater, the difference consists of those who returned from the Land of Israel to Babylon after construction was halted; their number was consequently absent from the second count, which was made later. [See further below, verse 64.]

“Who came”—to Jerusalem. “Mordecai Bilshan”—according to our Sages, this refers to one person: Mordecai, who knew many languages. According to some commentators, however, these are two separate names. “Mispar”—the first form is a personal name; in Nehemiah, it appears as “Mispereth.”

(6–35) This passage is repeated in Nehemiah (chapter 7), where there are many variations and different numbers. In some cases, the number there is greater, while in others it is smaller than the number given here.

“The descendants of Pahath-moab, of the descendants of Jeshua”—Pahath-moab was the head of the family, and the descendants of two of his sons, Jeshua and Joab, came to the Land of Israel. The same construction appears in verses 16, 36, and 40. This is necessarily so from what is stated in verse 40: “The descendants of Jeshua and Kadmiel, of the house of Hodaviah,” which is identical to what is stated [in Ezra 3:9]: “Jeshua and his sons and brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the descendants of Judah.”

“The people of Bethlehem”—Those who all belonged to one family, even if they lived in several cities, were counted together under the name of the head of their family. If they did not belong to a single family, they were grouped according to the city in which they had formerly lived.

“The people of Anathoth”—See what I have written on Jeremiah [16:3].

“The descendants of the other Elam”—The descendants of Elam were already counted [in verse 7]; however, this was a different man, and it happened that the number of people in his family was equal to that of the first Elam’s family.

“The priests”—After enumerating the Israelites, he enumerated the priests and Levites. Among the Levites, he counted the singers and the gatekeepers; afterward, he counted the Temple servants, who served the priests.

“The descendants of Solomon’s servants”—According to one opinion in Yevamot, which holds that the child of a non-Jew or a slave and a Jewish woman is a mamzer, they were mamzerim, because Solomon’s servants married Jewish women and had children by them. They therefore belong with those listed afterward whose parentage was uncertain—the shetuki and the asufi—as stated in Kiddushin: “Ten genealogical classes went up from Babylon.” According to the opinion that the child is legitimate, it may be said that they were included among the emancipated slaves. As Tosafot explain in Yevamot [16b], because their owners had despaired of recovering them, they did not require documents of emancipation. They were thus included among the converts and freedmen counted among the ten genealogical classes. Since they are counted together with the Temple servants, it appears that they descended from the seven Canaanite nations whom Solomon subjected to forced labor, as stated in II Chronicles [8:7]. “The descendants of Hassophereth”—The initial heh is not the definite article but an integral part of the name, as I have demonstrated similarly in I Chronicles 2:52 and elsewhere.

“And they could not state their ancestral house or their descent”—That is, they could not identify their ancestral house—namely, the family from which they came—and they could not even establish their descent, whether they were Israelites at all, because they had been taken in from the street in a place where the majority of the population was non-Jewish. This also implies that they did not know whether they were of legitimate birth or were mamzerim, corresponding to the shetuki and the asufi included among the ten genealogical classes.

(61) Why does Scripture relate that he took a wife from the daughters of Barzillai and was called by their name?

“The descendants of Hakkoz, the descendants of Barzillai”—That is, the family of Hakkoz consisted of priests, and they are mentioned in Chronicles [I Chronicles 24:19] as the seventh house in the order of the priestly divisions. Now, however, doubt arose concerning some of his descendants. The reason was that Hakkoz had taken a wife from the daughters of Barzillai, who were prominent in the days of David and Solomon, and the sons born from this woman were also honorably called by the name of Barzillai. It may be that Habaiah was the son born from this woman, and his descendants had two names: they were called both the descendants of Hakkoz and the descendants of Barzillai. Scripture explains that this was because he took—that is, Hakkoz took—a wife from the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and he was called—that is, Habaiah, who was born from this woman, was called—by their name. He was named both after his father and after his maternal grandfather, and his descendants were therefore called both the descendants of Hakkoz and the descendants of Barzillai. As long as their genealogical register remained in their possession, this created no difficulty. But they sought their genealogical record, but it could not be found. Their genealogical documents were no longer available. [Each family possessed a general genealogical register covering the entire family, while individuals also possessed separate documents recording their own particular lineage. Neither their collective family record—which is why “their record” is expressed in the singular—nor their individual genealogical records—which is why “they were not found” is expressed in the plural—could be found.] Consequently, doubt arose concerning their status, for there was reason to suspect that they were not priests at all but Israelites descended from Barzillai, since there was also an Israelite family known as the descendants of Barzillai. Therefore, they were disqualified from the priesthood. In particular, this uncertainty created an additional concern that they were halalim—persons disqualified from the priesthood through improper priestly unions—because, owing to their uncertain status, they themselves had not refrained from marrying women forbidden to priests. This too is included in the words “they were disqualified,” for they had already become defiled with respect to the priesthood by marrying disqualified women. This accounts for the halalim counted among the ten genealogical classes.

“And the Tirshatha said”—The question now arose whether they were permitted to eat from the sacred offerings. “And the Tirshatha said”—this was Nehemiah, as it is written, “And Nehemiah, who was the Tirshatha, said” [Nehemiah 8:9]—that they should not eat until there would be Urim and Thummim and the doubt could be resolved by consulting them. I have already explained in my commentary on the Aramaic Targum that, had they then been worthy, the Divine Presence would have returned to them in the Second Temple and they would have possessed the Urim and Thummim. At the time of their ascent, they still hoped that this would occur.

(64) The total number does not agree with the sum of the individual figures.

“The entire congregation together”—The individual figures fall short of the total by thirteen thousand; see Rashi. Apparently, the individual enumeration did not include everyone who came, but only those who first arrived from Babylon. Even in Nehemiah, which also includes those who came from the land of the Chaldeans [as I explained on verse 1], not everyone was counted individually, because additional people arrived every day who are not mentioned in the enumeration here. Those who joined families from which people had already arrived were added to the individual family totals in Nehemiah. New families, however, or individuals who came from cities not previously represented, were not mentioned individually at all. Nevertheless, they were included in the general count, so that after all the groups had assembled, their number was forty-two thousand, etc. Here, the descendants of Magbish number one hundred and fifty-six, whereas Nehemiah does not mention them. It must therefore be that Nehemiah included them within one of the families whose number is greater there. For example, the descendants of Azgad number one thousand more there. It may be that all the people of the city of Magbish belonged to the family of Azgad: here they were counted according to their city, while there they were counted according to their family. This may also explain why the descendants of Arah and the descendants of Zattu are each fewer by one hundred in Nehemiah than in the first count. It may be that one hundred descendants of Arah and one hundred descendants of Zattu lived in the city of Senaah and were counted there among the people of their city. This would explain why Nehemiah adds three hundred to the descendants of Senaah, without requiring the strained explanation that some of them returned to Babylon.

“And some of the heads of the ancestral houses”—There are discrepancies between the figures mentioned here and those mentioned in Nehemiah, chapter 7; they will be explained there.

“And they settled”—Upon arriving, they first occupied themselves with working the land in order to secure food. They sowed fields and planted vineyards so that the land would produce crops and they would not suffer the disgrace of hunger. Furthermore, because they had not been granted permission to rebuild the wall, they did not settle in Jerusalem. Instead, they dispersed among their cities, each person settling in another city where his ancestors had lived in earlier times. The priests and Levites settled in the forty-eight Levitical cities, while the Israelites settled in the cities of Israel.