Nehemiah 12:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

NEHEMIAH CHAPTER 12 The priests, Nehemiah 12:1-7, and Levites which came up with Zerubbabel, Nehemiah 12:8,9. The succession of high priests, Nehemiah 12:10-21. Certain chief Levites, Nehemiah 12:22-26. The manner of dedicating the wall, Nehemiah 12:27-43. The offices of priests and Levites, Nehemiah 12:44; of singers and porters, Nehemiah 12:45-47. The priests, i.e. the chief of the priests, as they are called here, Nehemiah 12:7, to wit, the heads of those twenty-four courses which David appointed by Divine direction, 1Ch 24. And whereas there are twenty-four, and here but twenty-two, and Nehemiah 12:12, &c. only twenty, the reason of this difference may possibly be this, because two of the twenty-four courses were extinct in Babylon, or at least none of them was then returned; and two of the persons here named, Nehemiah 12:2,5, to wit, Hattush and Mandish, may be omitted in the account of the posterity of these persons, Nehemiah 12:12, &c., because they had no posterity. Possibly these were not the same courses which David had appointed, but others which Zerubbabel and Joshua had constituted in imitation of that order as far as they could. Ezra: either this was another Ezra, or if it were the same mentioned Ezr 7, he lived to a great age; which may well be supposed, considering his great sobriety, and abstinence from those evil practices which shorten men's lives, and his great piety, to which God promised long life, and withal the special providence of God confirming him so long in such a season wherein the church of God did greatly need his help and counsel.