עזרא, פרק ב׳, פסוק כ״א

As the exiles return to their homeland, the official record of their numbers takes on a new structure. At this stage, the nature of the list shifts, and from this point forward, the returning groups are organized and identified by their places of residence [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

The census of the returning population relied on two distinct methods of organization. When individuals belonged to a single family, they were counted together under the name of their family leader, regardless of whether they actually lived in different cities. On the other hand, when returnees did not share a unifying family tie, they were grouped and counted based on their original hometowns in their ancestral land. Because of this dual system, the people from Bethlehem are recorded as a collective unit, bound together by the city where they had originally lived [מלבי״ם].