The number of descendants of Azgad who returned from the Babylonian exile (Ezra 2:12). The number has no established independent symbolic meaning in biblical tradition.
The number 1222 appears in Ezra 2:12, where it states that the descendants of Azgad who returned from Babylon to Judah numbered one thousand two hundred and twenty-two. The context is the great return under Persian rule, where Ezra carefully catalogs the returning families and their numbers. Although the number does not carry an independent symbolic meaning like the numbers 7, 12, or 40 do, the precise record testifies to the importance of genealogies and census-taking in rebuilding the Jewish community after exile. In the parallel text in Nehemiah 7:17, the descendants of Azgad are given as 2322, showing that different traditions preserved different numbers from the lists of returnees. Azgad (אַזְגָּד) is a name that likely means 'Gad is strong' or 'fortune is strong.' The family is mentioned several times in Ezra-Nehemiah as a significant group among those who returned from exile. The difference between the number 1222 in Ezra 2:12 and 2322 in Nehemiah 7:17 has been discussed by rabbinic commentators and modern textual critics. A common explanation is that the lists originate from different points in the return process, or that scribal errors occurred during the transmission of the numbers. The return lists in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 served an important function in the restored Jewish community: they documented who had the right to participate in temple worship and who belonged to the legitimate people.*