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Ezra and Nehemiah give the same list of those who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel, and the same totals: “the whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore, beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven” (Ezra 2:64–65; Nehemiah 7:66–67). But Ezra goes on, “and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women” (Ezra 2:65), and Nehemiah, “they had two hundred forty and five singing men and singing women” (Nehemiah 7:67).

Critics add that the next verse in both books gives the mules as “two hundred forty and five” (Ezra 2:66; Nehemiah 7:68), and say a copyist of Nehemiah let his eye fall on that number and wrote it for the singers.

Preferred: The two lists were made at two times. Ezra’s is the list of “the children of the province that went up out of the captivity” (Ezra 2:1), as their names were given in at Babylon when they set out under the decree of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1–5). Nehemiah’s is one he found nearly a century later, “a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first” (Nehemiah 7:5), which Gill takes to have been made after the company came to Jerusalem and was reckoned by its families. Between the two, some who gave in their names stayed behind or died on the way, and others who had not given them in followed and joined the company. The two lists differ in this way in many of their families, more in some, fewer in others; the singers are one more. Forty-five singing men and women joined the company after its names were first taken. Gill, after the Jewish commentator Abendana, gives this account of the two lists.

The totals do not contradict it. The singing men and women were counted apart from the congregation and from its servants: the 42,360 and the 7,337 are given first, and then the singers, as something more the company “had” (Nehemiah 7:67). So forty-five more singers change neither total.

The mules are no evidence of a copyist’s slip. Ezra’s own list has the same two verses side by side, two hundred singers and then two hundred forty-five mules (Ezra 2:65–66), and no one says Ezra’s copyist carried the number back. That a number recurs in a list is no reason to deny it the second time.

Also given: That Ezra gives the number in round hundreds where Nehemiah’s register gives it exactly (the Pulpit Commentary). Ezra gives the mules and the rest to the unit in the next verse, so the first answer is preferred.