How many of Arah's offspring returned from Babylon?

775 - Ezra 2:5
5 The children of Arah, seven hundred seventy and five. (KJV)

5 of Arah, 775 (NIV)


652 - Nehemia 7:10
10 The children of Arah, six hundred fifty and two. (KJV)

10 of Arah, 652 (NIV)


This is a shining example of why random verses in the Bible should not be pulled out and compared without reading them in their context.

We read in the first part of Ezra 2 leading up to the listing of returned captives:

1 Now these are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive to Babylon (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town,	1 Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city;
2 in company with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum and Baanah): The list of the men of the people of Israel: (NIV)	2 Which came with Zerubbabel: Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel: (KJV)

This is pretty straight forward.

Now, here is what is written in Nehemiah leading up to the listing of the returned captives:

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:	5 And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy . And I found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and found written therein,
6 These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken captive (they returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town,	6 These are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity, of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away , and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto his city;
7 in company with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum and Baanah): The list of the men of Israel: (NIV)	7 Who came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, Baanah. The number, I say, of the men of the people of Israel was this;(KJV)

I believe the key here is the part of verse 5 that is highlighted above.  Nehemiah found a listing of the people who were first to return from Babylon.  Knowing this, it is no surprise that the numbers don't line up for the descendants of Arah.  (Actually, what seems more surprising is that there aren't many more differences in the numbers of the two listings.)  It's anyone's guess as to why 123 of Arah's descendants did not return in the initial wave, but they must have stayed in Babylon a while longer for some reason.  Maybe they liked it there and didn't want to come back at first.

All this may raise another question.  Why did Ezra's listing account for these people, seeing as it was written before Nehemiah's?  I honestly don't know, but I also don't think that it matters.  Being the writer, it was Nehemiah's prerogative to use the listing he discovered.