The Reason For The Discovery Of The List (Nehemiah 7:4-5).
‘Now the city was wide and large, but the people in it were few, and the houses were not built.'
The walls having been completed, and the doors having been hung in the gates, Nehemiah now turned his thoughts onto the question of the lack of inhabitants in Jerusalem. It was a large city, but few were there living there permanently and most of the houses were in ruins.
‘And my God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written in it:
So God put it into his heart to gather the leaders and the people together in order that their genealogies might be confirmed. This was presumably with a view to causing Jerusalem to be inhabited with people of true Jewish descent. And in giving this matter further investigation he discovered in a record office the list already mentioned, that of those who had returned from Babylon with Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel. In it was written as follow: