Lebanah

Lebanah is the name of an ancestral house among those given to temple service whose descendants returned with the first repatriation from Babylon. He himself does not act in any narrative — the name appears only as a heading under which "the sons of Lebanah" are counted in the parallel registers of returning families. The Nehemiah list spells the name in the slightly shorter form Lebana.

Among the Temple Servants of the Return

The Ezra register opens its catalogue of those given to temple service with "Those given [to temple service]: the sons of Ziha, the sons of Hasupha, the sons of Tabbaoth," (Ezr 2:43) and continues down the list to "the sons of Lebanah, the sons of Hagabah, the sons of Akkub," (Ezr 2:45). The bracketed clarification "[to temple service]" is preserved in UPDV's rendering of the heading, identifying the class within which Lebanah's house belongs.

The Parallel Register in Nehemiah

The Nehemiah list runs in essentially the same order from the same heading, "Those given [to temple service]: the sons of Ziha, the sons of Hasupha, the sons of Tabbaoth," (Ne 7:46), and reaches the same household at "the sons of Lebana, the sons of Hagaba, the sons of Salmai," (Ne 7:48). The orthographic shift from "Lebanah" in Ezra to "Lebana" in Nehemiah is one of several minor spelling differences across the two parallel rosters of the temple-service families, and the household sits in the same relative position in both lists.