Verse 1. - Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel. See the comment on Ezra 3:2. Jeshua. The high priest of Zerubbabel's time. Seraiah. Compare Nehemiah 11:11 with the comment on that place. The original Seraiah was the high priest murdered by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:18-21). Jeremiah and Ezra, who gave name to the second and third course, must not be regarded as the prophet or the scribe so named, but as persons of whom nothing more is known to us.
12:1-26 It is a debt we owe to faithful ministers, to remember our guides, who have spoken to us the word of God. It is good to know what our godly predecessors were, that we may learn what we should be.
Now these are the priests and the Levites that went up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua,.... Who went up from the captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem with them; the one was the prince, the other the high priest, the same with Joshua the high priest, Zechariah 3:1, the names of the priests are given in this and the six following verses:
Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra; not Jeremiah the prophet, who cannot be thought to live so long as through the captivity; but Ezra may be Ezra the priest and scribe, who might come up with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem, and return to Babylon again, and from thence come again as he did, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:1, though this by some (m) is not thought very probable.
(m) Vid. Rainold de Lib. Apocryph. praelect. 153. p. 402, &c.
(1-9) The priests and Levites of the First Return.
(1) Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra.--The first is the family name, represented by Jeshua. Of the two others we know nothing more than this record gives.
Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra; not Jeremiah the prophet, who cannot be thought to live so long as through the captivity; but Ezra may be Ezra the priest and scribe, who might come up with Zerubbabel to Jerusalem, and return to Babylon again, and from thence come again as he did, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:1, though this by some (m) is not thought very probable.
(m) Vid. Rainold de Lib. Apocryph. praelect. 153. p. 402, &c.