(13) And of the last sons.--The younger branches, the elder being reported in Ezra 2:13.

Verse 13. - The last sons of Adonikam are probably his younger sons, whose descendants returned with Ezra, their elder brethren's families having returned with Zerubbabel. DETAILS OF EZRA'S JOURNEY FROM BABYLON TO JERUSALEM (Ezra 8:15-31). We gather from scattered statements in this passage -

1. That Ezra, with his companions, after a journey of nine days' duration, reached Ahava from Babylon on the ninth day of the first month;

2. That he rested three days at Ahava, and proclaimed a fast;

3. That he was there joined by a small number of Levites and a considerable body of Nethinims from the immediate neighbourhood;

4. That, on the twelfth day of the first month, he resumed his journey, and, though threatened by some opposition upon the way, arrived safely at his destination fourteen weeks after he quitted Ahava, and exactly four months after he had started from Babylon. The only other important fact mentioned is, that at Ahava twelve of the principal priests were selected by Ezra, and the royal offering of silver, gold, and vessels handed over to them for safe custody, after having been carefully weighed. The weights are recorded with Ezra's usual exactness in vers. 26, 27.

8:1-20 Ezra assembles the outcasts of Israel, and the dispersed of Judah. God raised up the spirits of a small remnant to accompany him. What a pity that good men should omit a good work, for want of being spoken to!Of the sons of Shechaniah, of the sons of Pharosh,.... Who is so described, to distinguish him from another Shechaniah, Ezra 8:5,

Zechariah: and with him were reckoned by genealogy, of the males an hundred and fifty; males only were reckoned, not women and children; though that there were such that went up is clear from Ezra 8:21, from hence to the end of Ezra 8:14 an account is given of the number of the males that went up with Ezra, who were chiefly, if not altogether, sons of those that went up with Zerubbabel; such of them as were left there behind, and now returned, at least a great number of them, see Ezra 2:1, it is particularly remarked of the sons of Adonikam, Ezra 8:13, that they were the last of them; not that they were the last that came in to go with Ezra, or were backward and dilatory, but the last with respect to the first of his sons that were gone before, and seem with them to be the whole of his family; the number of all that went up under their respective heads amounts to 1496.