Ne. 7: The New Exile List

Nehemiah 7:5 "So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return. This is what I found written there:"

Even with the wall rebuilt and the gates in place, the city was still vulnerable to attack or at least hanky panky. Nehemiah gives the command to leave the gates shut until the sun is hot. I don't think there's any mystical reason for this. When "the sun is hot," I would guess that is when the majority of the city is no longer asleep. They're all alert and doing their thing. They've gotten some breakfast in them, and could defend themselves if need be. 

Jerusalem was now this large rebuilt city, but there weren't a lot of houses rebuilt, because of the emphasis on rebuilding the temple first, and the wall second. Which is sort of opposite of the way things were done with David. He went to war first, and built up a strong army and defenses, while the temple was secondary. So Nehemiah wants to take a look at the numbers of the exiles who have returned.

The 5th chapter of Nehemiah ends with Ezra 2 tacked onto the end of it. It's pretty close to being exactly the same, except that several of the numbers are a bit off. I don't know whether it's an error in transcription, or if births and deaths of people were brought into the accounts after the Ezra 2 list, but I don't think its any cause to bring down the Bible. Not yet at least.