The gatekeepers: the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai: one hundred thirty-eight.
World English Bible
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The gatekeepers: the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai: one hundred thirty-eight.
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Ezra 2:42 totals 139 returnees among the porters (gatekeepers) from six named families. Nehemiah 7:45 lists the same six family names and gives 138.
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
One of these tensions involves a difference in wording across manuscripts or translations. Examine the original language on Lemma →
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"Nehemiah 7:45 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/nehemiah/7/45?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).