“Bro. Smith: In your late work on the Sanctuary, page 82, you say the work of building was finished under Nehemiah, in the fifteenth year of Darius Nothus, and that that year of his reign was the year B. C. 408. Now in Nehemiah, chap. 2, I read that he received his permit in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, and in chap. 6:15, that he finished the building in 52 days. How then could his work have been finished in the fifteenth year of Darius Nothus? Again, the chronology of chapters 2 and 6 is given as B. C. 445. Please explain this discrepancy in the first use of the ‘measuring line.’” Ans. Nehemiah made several visits to Jerusalem; and while the building of the wall was finished in a very short time during his first visit, from 444 to 432 B. C., there were other matters to be accomplished in the work of the restoration of Jerusalem, which he attended to afterward. In the 32d year of Artaxerxes, Nehemiah returned to the king of Persia, and after some days, how long after is not stated, he gained permission to go up to Jerusalem again. Neh. 13:6. Prideaux makes his tarry at the Persian court, at this time, at least five years, and his return to Jerusalem in the 37th year of the king, B. C. 427. Whether he returned to Persia again or not is not stated. Artaxerxes reigned 41 years, to B. C. 423, and in the canon of Ptolemy, was succeeded by Darius Nothus, the short reigns of the usurpers Xerxes and Sogdianus, amounting together to less than a year, being thrown out of the count. The 15th year of Darius Nothus would therefore be as late as B. C. 408, nineteen years from the date of Nehemiah’s second journey to Jerusalem. That Nehemiah’s last act of reform, as recorded in Nehemiah 13:23–31, was as late as the 15th of Darius Nothus, is ascertained from the fact that Nehemiah himself says, verse 28, that it was in the priesthood of Joiada, who came to the priesthood on the death of Eliashib, his father, in the 11th year of Darius. This was within four years of the point where the seven weeks or forty-nine years would end. And as the act of restoration was accomplished under this priesthood, and we have the light of the prophecy to guide us, the only reasonable place to locate it is in the fourth year of the priesthood of Joiada, the fifteenth of the reign of Darius, B. C. 408, just forty-nine years from the going forth of the commandment to restore Jerusalem, B. C. 457. The chronology given in the margin of the book of Nehemiah is not consistent with the record of the book itself, nor with the chronology placed in the margin of the book of Ezra. For instance, the first year of Artaxerxes is placed beyond controversy in the year B. C. 464. To get his seventh year, we subtract seven from that, which gives 457, as is given in the margin of Ezra 7. Nehemiah (2:1) received his first commission in the twentieth year of the king. Twenty from 464 would give us 444. But in the margin we find the figures 445, and this number is carried through to the end of the book, without regard to the record of chapter 13:6. Prideaux argues this matter fully in his “Connexion,” vol. 1, pp. 322–324, making it clear that the record of Nehemiah brings us down to the end of the seven weeks of Dan. 9:25, to the 15th year of Darius Nothus.