4. Chronology.
The Chronology of the Book is gathered out of Nehemiah 1:1; 2:1; 13:6. In the twentieth year of Artachshasta, or Artaxerxes Longimanus; in the month Chisleu, Nehemiah mourns in Susa (where the Kings of Persia were wont to winter, as Athenæus, Book XII of Deipnosophistæ,[1] confirms), Nehemiah 1:1, 2. In the month Nisan of the same year, he obtains from Artaxerxes the authority to rebuild Jerusalem; and he, proceeding in the same, begins and perfects the work, Nehemiah 2:1, 2; etc. In the thirty-second year of the same King, he returns to reform Jerusalem, Nehemiah 13:6. There is an interval of twelve years, in which the matters narrated and conducted in this book are completed.
[1] Athenæus of Naucratis (late first, early second century AD) wrote Deipnosophistæ (or Banquet of the Learned), a dialogue in which the characters discuss a wide range of topics.