[538] When Nehemiah came to Jerusalem Eliyashib was high priest, and he was grandson of Jeshua, who was high priest in 520, or seventy-five years before; but between 520 and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes II. lie one hundred and thirty-six years. And again, the Artaxerxes of Ezra iv. 8-23, under whom the walls of Jerusalem were begun, was the immediate follower of Xerxes (Ahasuerus), and therefore Artaxerxes I., and Van Hoonacker has shown that he must be the same as the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah. [539] Kosters, p. 43. [540] vii. 1-8. [541] Neh. xii. 36, viii., x. [542] Vernes, _Précis d’Histoire Juive depuis les Origines jusqu’à l’Époque Persane_ (1889), pp. 579 ff. (not seen); more recently also Charles C. Torrey of Andover, _The Composition and Historical Value of Ezra-Nehemiah_, in the _Beihefte zur Z.A.T.W._, II., 1896. [543] Pages 113 ff. [544] Page 237. [545] The failure of his too hasty and impetuous attempts at so wholesale a measure as the banishment of the heathen wives; or his return to Babylon, having accomplished his end. See Ryle, _Ezra and Nehemiah_, in the _Cambridge Bible for Schools_, Introd., pp. xl. f. CHAPTER XVI _FROM THE RETURN FROM BABYLON TO THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE_ (536—516 B. C.) Cyrus the Great took Babylon and the Babylonian Empire in 539. Upon the eve of his conquest the Second Isaiah had hailed him as the Liberator of the people of God and the builder of their Temple. The Return of the Exiles and the Restoration both of Temple and City were predicted by the Second Isaiah for the immediate future; and a Jewish historian, the Compiler of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, who lived about 300 B.C., has taken up the story of how these events came to pass from the very first year of Cyrus onward. Before discussing the dates and proper order of these events, it will be well to have this Chronicler’s narrative before us. It lies in the first and following chapters of our Book of Ezra.