the son of Meshezabeel, and Azariah the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, were fathers of their houses at the repairing of the wall; Nehem. iii. 4, 23. and their grandfathers, Meshazabeel and Hananiah, subscribed the covenant in the Reign of Cyrus:  Nehem. x. 21, 23.  Yea Nehemiah, this same Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah, was the Tirshatha, and subscribed it, Nehem. x. 1, & viii. 9, & Ezra ii. 2, 63. and therefore in the 32d year of Artaxerxes Mnemon, he will be above 180 years old, an age surely too great.  The same may be said of Ezra, if he was that Priest and Scribe who read the Law, Nehem. viii. for he is the son of Serajah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, &c. Ezra vii. 1. and this Serajah went into captivity at the burning of the Temple, and was there slain, 1 Chron. vi. 14. 2 King. xxv. 18. and from his death, to the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Mnemon, is above 200 years; an age too great for Ezra.

I consider further that Ezra, chap. iv. names Cyrus, *, Darius, Ahasuerus, and Artaxerxes, in continual order, as successors to one another, and these names agree to Cyrus, *, Darius Hystaspis, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Longimanus, and to no other Kings of Persia:  some take this Artaxerxes to be not the Successor, but the Predecessor of Darius Hystaspis, not considering that in his Reign the Jews were busy in building the City and the Wall, Ezra iv. 12. and by consequence had finished the Temple before. Ezra describes first how the people of the land hindered the building of the Temple all the days of Cyrus, and further, untill the Reign of Darius; and after the Temple was built, how they hindered the building of the city in the Reign of Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes, and then returns back to the story of the Temple in the Reign of Cyrus and Darius; and this is confirmed by comparing the book of Ezra with the book of Esdras:  for if in the book of Ezra you omit the story of Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes, and in that of Esdras you omit the same story of Artaxerxes, and that of the three wise men, the two books will agree:  and therefore the book of Esdras, if you except the story of the three wise men, was originally copied from authentic writings of Sacred Authority.  Now the story of Artaxerxes, which, with that of Ahasuerus, in the book of Ezra interrupts the story of Darius, doth not interrupt it in the book of Esdras, but is there inferred into the story of Cyrus, between the first and second chapter of Ezra; and all the rest of the story of Cyrus, and that of Darius,