7:9a He had begun the journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month,

He started his journey from Babylon on the first day of the first month⌊ ⌋ ⌊of that year⌋,
-or-
He ⌊and the other Jews⌋ had left Babylon on the first day of Nisan, the first month of the year.
-or-
We (excl.) left Babylon on the first day of the first month,

7:9b and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month,

and he arrived in Jerusalem ⌊only⌋ four months later
-or-
They arrived in Jerusalem ⌊city⌋ on the first day of Ab.
-or-
and we (excl.) arrived on the first day of the fifth month.

7:9c for the gracious hand of his God was upon him.

because God’s good/kind hand was upon him ⌊and gave him success⌋.
-or-
⌊They were able to do the trip in just four months⌋ because the God whom they worshiped/served blessed them.
-or-
That was because God helped us (excl.) ⌊on the journey⌋.

7:8–9 (reordered)

Because God was so kind to him/them, they left Babylon on the first day of the first month and ⌊soon⌋ arrived on the first day of the fifth month of that year.

© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.