Why are the lists in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 different?

Answer:

Actually there are seventeen differences between Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7:

It might be possible that a few of the differences is due to errs in copying the numbers, but given the care of the Jewish scribes, it isn't reasonable that there were that many mistakes in one section.

Ezra states, "Now these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city" (Ezra 2:1). Nehemiah was written about fifty years later. He states, "Then my God put it into my heart to gather the nobles, the rulers, and the people, that they might be registered by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of those who had come up in the first return, and found written in it: These are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his city" (Nehemiah 7:5-6). Please note that Nehemiah does not state that he had Ezra's records. Though they begin the same, there are differences in numbers. There are also differences in terms. For example, Ezra 2:21 talks about the children (Hebrew: ben) of Bethlehem, but Nehemiah talks about the men (Hebrew: enowsh) of Bethlehem.

The most likely cause of the difference is that Ezra recorded those who left for Israel from Babylon. Many scholars believe that Ezra's list was compiled in Babylon before the people actually left. Of course, in any large crowd things happen. People who start to leave get ill and have to stay behind. Some die, some are born. Some didn't leave with the group but joined it while it was in progress. Nehemiah had a list of who arrived in Jerusalem, but his list was for a later time. "Then it was, when the wall was built and I had hung the doors, when the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, ..." (Nehemiah 7:1). In other words, Nehemiah recorded those who came from Babylon at the time the walls in Jerusalem were finished. His list was based on the earlier list but updated to the current numbers. This would also explain the shift from children to men in some of the entries. In the time that elapsed, people would have died and been born giving a different number of people currently in Jerusalem.

Therefore, the clearest answer is that Ezra and Nehemiah's records are for a similar event but recorded at different moments in time.