After the Temple was built, and _Darius Hystaspis_ was dead, the enemies of the _Jews_ in the beginning of the Reign of his successor _Ahasuerus_ or _Xerxes_, wrote unto him an accusation against them; _Ezra_ iv. 6. but in the seventh year of his successor _Artaxerxes_, _Ezra_ and his companions went up from _Babylon_ with Offerings and Vessels for the Temple, and power to bestow on it out of the King's Treasure what should be requisite; _Ezra_ vii. whence the Temple is said to be finished, _according to the commandment of _Cyrus_, and _Darius_, and _Artaxerxes_ King of _Persia__: _Ezra_ vi. 14. Their commission was also to set Magistrates and Judges over the land, and thereby becoming a new Body Politic, they called a great Council or Sanhedrim to separate the people from strange wives; and they were also encouraged to attempt the building of _Jerusalem_ with its wall: and thence _Ezra_ saith in his prayer, that _God had extended mercy unto them in the sight of the Kings of _Persia_, and given them a reviving to set up the house of their God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give them a WALL in _Judah_, even in _Jerusalem__. _Ezra_ ix. 9. But when they had begun to repair the wall, their enemies wrote against them to _Artaxerxes_: _Be it known_, say they, _unto the King, that the _Jews_ which came up from thee to us, are come unto _Jerusalem_, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof, and joined the foundations_, &c. And the King wrote back that the _Jews_ should cease and the city not be built, until another commandment should be given from him: whereupon their enemies _went up to _Jerusalem_, and made them cease by force and power_; _Ezra_ iv. but in the twentieth year of the King, _Nehemiah_ hearing that the _Jews_ were in great affliction and distress, and that the wall of _Jerusalem_, that wall which had been newly repaired by _Ezra_, _was broken down, and the gates thereof burnt wth fire_; he obtained leave of the King to go and build the city, and the Governour's house, _Nehem._ i. 3. & ii. 6, 8, 17. and coming to _Jerusalem_ the same year, he continued Governor twelve years, and built the wall; and being opposed by _Sanballat_, _Tobiah_ and _Geshem_, he persisted in the work with great resolution and patience, until the breaches were made up: then _Sanballat_ and _Geshem_ sent messengers unto him five times to hinder him from setting up the doors upon the gates: but notwithstanding he persisted in the work, until the doors were also set up: so the wall was finished in the eight and twentieth year of the King, _Joseph._ _Antiq._ l. xi. c. 5. in the five and twentieth day of the month _Elul_, or sixth month, in fifty and two days after the breaches were made up, and they began to work upon the gates. While the timber for the gates was preparing and seasoning, they made up the breaches of the wall; both were works of time, and are not jointly to be reckoned within the 52 days: this is the time of the last work of the wall, the work of setting up the gates after the timber was seasoned and the breaches made up. When he had set up the gates, he dedicated the wall with great solemnity, and appointed Officers _over the chambers for the Treasure, for the Offerings, for the First-Fruits, and for the Tithes, to gather into them out of the fields of the cities, the portions appointed by the law for the Priests and Levites; and the Singers and the Porters kept the ward of their God_; Nehem. xii. _but the people in the city were but few, and the houses were unbuilt_: _Nehem._ vii. 1, 4. and in this condition he left _Jerusalem_ in the 32d year of the King; and after sometime returning back from the King, he reformed such abuses as had been committed in his absence. _Nehem._ xiii. In the mean time, the Genealogies of the Priests and Levites were recorded in the book of the _Chronicles_, in the days of _Eliashib_, _Joiada_, _Jonathan_, and _Jaddua_, until the Reign of the next King _Darius Nothus_, whom _Nehemiah_ calls _Darius_ the _Persian_: _Nehem._ xii. 11, 22, 23. whence it follows that _Nehemiah_ was Governor of the _Jews_ until the Reign of _Darius Nothus_. And here ends the Sacred History of the _Jews_.