Bible Commentaries

Public reading of the law, and separation from strangers. - Nehemiah 13:1. At a publicreading of the law, it was found written therein, that no Ammonite orMoabite should come into the congregation of God, because they met notthe children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam to cursethem, though God turned the curse into a blessing. This command, foundin Deuteronomy 23:4-6, is given in full as to matter, though slightly abbreviated asto form. The sing. ישׂכּר relates to Balak king of Moab, Numbers 22:2., and the suffix of עליו to Israel as a nation; see theexplanation of Deuteronomy 23:4.

This law being understood, all strangers were separated from Israel. ערב is taken from Exodus 12:38, where it denotes the mixed multitude ofnon-Israelitish people who followed the Israelites at their departure fromEgypt. The word is here transferred to strangers of different heathennationalities living among the Israelites. The date of the occurrence hererelated cannot be more precisely defined from the ההוּא בּיּום. Public readings of the law frequently took place in those days, asis obvious from Neh 8 and 9, where we learn that in the seventh month thebook of the law was publicly read, not only on the first and second days,but also daily during the feast of tabernacles, and again on the day ofprayer and fasting on the twenty-fourth of the month. It appears,however, from מזּה לפני, Nehemiah 13:4, compared with Nehemiah 13:6, thatthe reading Nehemiah 13:1-3 took place in the interval between Nehemiah's first andsecond stay at Jerusalem. This view is not opposed by the factsmentioned Nehemiah 13:4. and 23f. The separation of the ערב could notbe carried out at once; and hence, notwithstanding repeated resolutions tosever themselves from strangers (Nehemiah 9:2; Nehemiah 10:31), cases to the contrarymight be discovered, and make fresh separations needful.

Nehemiah, on his return to Jerusalem, reforms the irregularities that hadbroken out during his absence. - Nehemiah 13:4-9. While Nehemiah was at Babylonwith King Artaxerxes, Eliashib the high priest had given up to his relative,Tobiah the Ammonite (Nehemiah 2:10; Nehemiah 4:3, and elsewhere), a large chamber inthe temple, i.e., in the fore-court of the temple (v. 7), probably for his useas a dwelling when he visited Jerusalem (see rem. on v. 8). On his return,Nehemiah immediately cast all the furniture of Tobiah out of this chamber,purified the chambers, and restored them to their proper use as a magazinefor the temple stores. מזּה לפני, before this (comp. Ewald, §315, c), refers to the beforementioned separation of the ערב from Israel (Nehemiah 13:3). Eliashib the priest is probably the high priest ofthat name (Nehemiah 3:1; Nehemiah 12:10, Nehemiah 12:22). This may be inferred from the particular: setover (he being set over) the chambers of the house of our God; for suchoversight of the chambers of the temple would certainly be entrusted to nosimple priest, though this addition shows that this oversight did notabsolutely form part of the high priest's office. For נתן, in the sense of to set, to place over, comp. 1 Kings 2:35; the construction with בּ instead of על is, however, unusual,but may be derived from the local signification of בּ, upon, over. Ewaldand Bertheau are for reading לשׁכת instead of the sing. לשׁכּת, because in Nehemiah 13:5 it is not הלּשׁכּה that is spoken of, but alarge chamber. לשׁכּת may, however, be also understoodcollectively. Eliashib, being a relation of Tobiah (קרוב like 2:20), prepared him a chamber. The predicate of the sentence, Nehemiah 13:4, followsin Nehemiah 13:5 with ויּעשׂ, in the form of a conclusion following theaccessory sentence of the subject. How Tobiah was related to Eliashib isnowhere stated. Bertheau conjectures that it was perhaps only through thecircumstance that Johanan, the son of Tobiah, had married a daughter ofMeshullam ben Berechiah (Nehemiah 6:18), who, according to Nehemiah 3:30, was a priestor Levite, and might have been nearly related to the high priest. “A great chamber,” perhaps made so by throwing several chambers intoone, as older expositors have inferred from Nehemiah 13:9, according to whichNehemiah, after casting out the goods of Tobiah, had the chambers (plural)cleansed. The statement also in Nehemiah 13:5 , that there (in this great chamber)were aforetime laid up not only the meat-offerings (i.e., oil and flour, thematerials for them), the incense, and the sacred vessels, but also the titheof the corn, the new wine, and the oil, and the heave-offerings of thepriests, seems to confirm this view. This tenth is designated as הלויּם מצות, the command of the Levites, i.e., what wasapportioned to the Levites according to the law, the legal dues for whichמשׁפּט is elsewhere usual; comp. Deuteronomy 18:3; 1 Samuel 2:13. Theheave-offering of the priest is the tenth of their tenth which the Leviteshad to contribute, Nehemiah 10:39.

In all this, i.e., while this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem; for inthe thirty-second year of Artaxerxes I went to the king, and after the lapseof some days I entreated the king (נשׁאל like 1 Samuel 20:6, 1 Samuel 20:28). Whathe entreated is not expressly stated; but it is obvious from what follows,”and I came to Jerusalem,” that it was permission to return to Judea. Evenat his first journey to Jerusalem, Nehemiah only requested leave to make atemporary sojourn there, without giving up his post of royal cup-bearer;comp. Nehemiah 2:5. Hence, after his twelve years' stay in Jerusalem, he wasobliged to go to the king and remain some time at court, and then to beg forfresh leave of absence. How long he remained there cannot be determined, - ימים לקץ, after the lapse of days, denoting nodefinite interval; comp. Genesis 4:3. The view of several expositors, thatימים means a year, is devoid of proof. The stay of Nehemiahat court must have lasted longer than a year,since so many illegal acts on the part of the community as Nehemiah onhis return discovered to have taken place, could not have occurred in soshort a time. Artaxerxes is here called king of Babylon, because the Persiankings had conquered the kingdom of Babylon, and by this conquestobtained dominion over the Jews. Nehemiah uses this title to express alsothe fact that he had travelled to Babylon.

At his return he directed his attention to the evil committed by Eliashib inpreparing a chamber in the court of the temple (בּ הבין like Ezra 8:15) for Tobiah.

This so greatly displeased him, that he cast out all the household stuff ofTobiah, and commanded the chamber to be purified, and the vessels of thehouse of God, the meat-offering and the frankincense, and probably thetenths and heave-offerings also, the enumeration being here onlyabbreviated, to be again brought into it. From the words household stuff, itappears that Tobiah used the chamber as a dwelling when he came fromtime to time to Jerusalem.

The payment of dues to the Levites, and the delivery of the tenths andfirst-fruits, had also been omitted. - Nehemiah 13:10. “And I perceived that theportions of the Levites had not been given; and the Levites and singerswho had to do the work, were fled every one to his field.” The Levites,i.e., the assistants of the priests, the singers, and also the porters, who arenot expressly mentioned in this passage, were accustomed to receiveduring the time of their ministry their daily portions of the tenths andfirst-fruits (Nehemiah 12:47). When then these offerings were discontinued,they were obliged to seek their maintenance from the fields of the townsand villages in which they dwelt (Nehemiah 12:28.), and to forsake the service of thehouse of God. This is the meaning of the בּרח, to flee to thefields.

Nehemiah 13:11-12

“Then I contended with the rulers, and said, Why is thehouse of God forsaken?” It was the duty of the סגנים, theheads of the community (comp. Nehemiah 2:16), to see that the tithes, etc.,were regularly brought to the house of God. Hence Nehemiah rebukesthem by asking: Why is the house of God forsaken? i.e., through the non-delivery of the dues. On נעזב, comp. Nehemiah 10:39. This rebuke madethe impression desired. Nehemiah assembled the Levites and set them intheir place (comp. Nehemiah 9:3; 2 Chronicles 30:16; 2 Chronicles 35:10), i.e., he brought them back to theperformance of their official duties, and (Nehemiah 13:12) all Judah (the wholecommunity) brought the tithe of the corn, etc., into the store-chambers ofthe temple; comp. Nehemiah 10:38. 2 Chronicles 11:11.

Nehemiah 13:13-14

“And I appointed as managers of the stores (or storehouses,i.e., magazines) Shemaiah the priest,” etc. ואוצרה, Hiphil, forאוצירה, is a denominative from אוצר, to set some one overthe treasures. Whether Shemaiah and Zadok are the individuals of thesenames mentioned in Nehemiah 3:30, Nehemiah 3:29, cannot be determined. Zadok is called aסופר, a writer or secretary, not a scribe in the Jewish sense ofthat word. A Pedaiah occurs Nehemiah 8:4. ידם ועל, and at theirhand Hanan, probably as an under-steward. These four were placed in thisposition because they were esteemed faithful. ועליהם, and itwas (incumbent) on them (comp. 1 Chronicles 9:27; Ezra 10:12) to distributeto their brethren, i.e., to the priests and Levites, the portions due to them(Nehemiah 13:10). Nehemiah concludes his account of this matter with the wish, thatGod may remember him concerning it (comp. Nehemiah 5:19), and not wipe outthe kindnesses which he has shown to the house of God and its watches. תּמה, abbreviated from the Hiphil תּמחה, to cause to wipe out. חסדים .tuo like 2 Chronicles 35:26. משׁמרים (the form occurring onlyhere), properly watches, watch-posts, here the office of attending on theservice of the temple.

Field-work and trading on the Sabbath done away with. - Nehemiah 13:15. In thosedays, i.e., when he was occupied with the arrangements for worship,Nehemiah saw in Judah (in the province) some treading wine-presses onthe Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses, and also wine,grapes, and figs, and all kinds of burdens, and bringing it to Jerusalem onthe Sabbath-day. The מביאים is again taken up by the secondוּמביאים, and more closely defined by the addition: toJerusalem. Robinson describes an ancient wine-press in his BiblicalResearches, p. 178. On כּל־משּׂא, comp. Jeremiah 17:21. ואעיד,and I testified (against them), i.e., warned them on the day wherein theysold victuals. ציד, food, victuals; Psalm 132:15; Joshua 9:5, Joshua 9:14. Hewarned them no longer to sell victuals on the Sabbath-day. Bertheau, onthe contrary, thinks that Nehemiah saw how the market people in theneighbourhood of Jerusalem started while it was still the Sabbath, not forthe purpose of selling during that day, but for that of being early in themarket on the next day, or the next but one. The text, however, offers nosupport to such a notion. In Nehemiah 13:16 it is expressly said that selling tookplace in Jerusalem on the Sabbath; and the very bringing thither of wine,grapes, etc., on the Sabbath, presupposes that the sale of these articleswas transacted on that day.

Nehemiah 13:16

Tyrians also were staying therein, bringing fish and all kind ofware (מכר), and sold it on the Sabbath to the sons of Judah and inJerusalem. ישׁב is by most expositors translated, to dwell; butit is improbable that Tyrians would at that time dwell or settle atJerusalem: hence ישׁב here means to sit, i.e., to stay awhileundisturbed, to tarry.

Nehemiah 13:17-18

Nehemiah reproved the nobles of Judah for this profanationof the Sabbath, reminding them how their fathers (forefathers) by suchacts (as rebuked e.g., by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 17:21.) had brought upon thepeople and the city great evil, i.e., the misery of their former exile andpresent oppression; remarking in addition, “and ye are bringing more wrathupon Israel, profaning the Sabbath,” i.e., you are only increasing the wrathof God already lying upon Israel, by your desecration of the Sabbath. Comp. on the last thought, Ezra 10:10, Ezra 10:14. He also instituted measures forthe abolition of this trespass.

Nehemiah 13:19

He commanded that the gates of Jerusalem should be closedwhen it began to be dark before the Sabbath, and not re-opened till theSabbath was over. In the description of this measure the command and itsexecution are intermixed, or rather the execution is brought forward as thechief matter, and the command inserted therein. “And it came to pass, assoon as the gates of Jerusalem were dark (i.e., when it was dark in thegates) before the Sabbath, I commanded, and the gates were shut; and Icommanded that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath,” i.e.,after sunset on the Sabbath-day. צלל, in the sense of to growdark, occurs in Hebrew only here, and is an Aramaean expression. Nehemiah also placed some of his servants at the gates, that no burdens,i.e., no wares, victuals, etc., might be brought in on the Sabbath. אשׁר is wanting before יבוא לא; the command isdirectly alluded to, and, with the command, must be supplied beforeיבוא לא. The placing of the watch was necessary,because the gates could not be kept strictly closed during the whole of theday, and ingress and egress thus entirely forbidden to the inhabitants.

Nehemiah 13:20

Then the merchants and sellers of all kinds of ware remainedthroughout the night outside Jerusalem, once and twice. Thus, becauseegress from the city could not be refused to the inhabitants, the rest of theSabbath was broken outside the gates. Nehemiah therefore put an end tothis misdemeanour also.

Nehemiah 13:21

He warned the merchants to do this no more, threatening them:”If you do (this) again (i.e., pass the night before the walls), I will layhands on you,” i.e., drive you away by force. The form לנים forלנים occurs only here as a “semi-passive” formation; comp. Ewald,§151, b. From that time forth they came no more on the Sabbath.

Nehemiah 13:22

A further measure taken by Nehemiah for the sanctification ofthe Sabbath according to the law, is so briefly narrated, that it does notplainly appear in what it consisted. “I commanded the Levites that theyshould cleanse themselves, and they should come keep the gates tosanctify the Sabbath-day.” The meaning of the words השּׁערים שׁמרים בּאים is doubtful. The Masoretes haveseparated בּאים from שׁמרים by Sakeph; while deWette, Bertheau, and others combine these words: and that they shouldcome to the keepers of the doors. This translation cannot be justified bythe usage of the language; for בּוא with an accusative of the personoccurs only, as may be proved, in prophetical and poetical diction (Job 20:22; Proverbs 10:24; Isaiah 41:25; Ezekiel 32:11), and then in the sense of tocome upon some one, to surprise him, and never in the meaning of to comeor go to some one. Nor does this unjustifiable translation give even an appropriate sense. Why should the Levites go to the doorkeepers to sanctify the Sabbath?Bertheau thinks it was for the purpose of solemnly announcing to thedoorkeepers that the holy day had begun, or to advertise them by someform of consecration of its commencement. This, however, would havebeen either a useless or unmeaning ceremony. Hence we must relinquishthis connection of the words, and either combine השּׁערים שׁמרים as an asyndeton with בּאים: coming andwatching the gates, or: coming as watchers of the gates; and then themeasure taken would consist in the appointment of certain Levites to keepthe gates on the Sabbath, as well as the ordinary keepers, thus consecratingthe Sabbath as a holy day above ordinary days. Nehemiah concludes theaccount of the abolition of this irregularity, as well as the preceding, byinvoking a blessing upon himself; comp. rem. on Nehemiah 13:14. על חוּסה like Joel 2:17.

Marriages with foreign wives dissolved. - Nehemiah 13:23 and Nehemiah 13:24. “In those days Ialso saw, i.e., visited, the Jews who had brought home Ashdodite,Ammonite, and Moabite wives; and half of their children spoke the speechof Ashdod, because they understood not how to speak the Jews' language,and according to the speech of one and of another people.” It is not said, Isaw Jews; but, the Jews who … Hence Bertheau rightly infers, thatNehemiah at this time found an opportunity of seeing them, perhaps upona journey through the province. From the circumstance, too, that a portionof the children of these marriages were not able to speak the language ofthe Jews, but spoke the language of Ashdod, or of this or that nation fromwhich their mothers were descended, we may conclude with tolerablecertainty, that these people dwelt neither in Jerusalem nor in the midst ofthe Jewish community, but on the borders of the nations to which theirwives belonged. הושׁיב like Ezra 10:2. וּבניהם precedes inan absolute sense: and as for their children, one half (of them) spake. יהוּדית (comp. 2 Kings 18:26; Isaiah 36:11; 2 Chronicles 32:18) is thelanguage of the Jewish community, the vernacular Hebrew. The sentenceוגו ואינם is an explanatory parenthesis, ועם עם וכלשׁן still depending upon מדבר:spake according to the language, i.e., spake the language, of this and thatpeople (of their mothers). The speech of Ashdod is that of the Philistines,which, according to Hitzig (Urgeschichte u. Mythol. der Philistäer),belonged to the Indo-Germanic group. The languages, however, of theMoabites and Ammonites were undoubtedly Shemitic, but so dialecticallydifferent from the Hebrew, that they might be regarded as foreign tongues.

With these people also Nehemiah contended (אריב like Nehemiah 13:11 andNehemiah 13:17), cursed them, smote certain of their men, and plucked off their hair(מרט, see rem. on Ezra 9:3), and made them swear by God: Yeshall not give your daughters, etc.; comp. Nehemiah 10:31. On the recurrence ofsuch marriages after the separations effected by Ezra of those existing athis arrival at Jerusalem. Nehemiah did not insiston the immediate dissolution of these marriages, but caused the men toswear that they would desist from such connections, setting before them,in Nehemiah 13:26, how grievous a sin they were committing. “Did not Solomon, kingof Israel, sin on account of these?” (אלּה על, on account ofstrange wives). And among many nations there was no king like him(comp. 1 Kings 3:12., 2 Chronicles 1:12); and he was beloved of his God(alluding to 2 Samuel 12:24), and God made him king over all Israel (1 Kings 4:1); and even him did foreign women cause to sin (comp. 1 Kings 11:1-3). “And of you is it heard to do (that ye do) all this great evil, to transgressagainst our God, and to marry strange wives?” Bertheau thus rightlyunderstands the sentence: “If the powerful King Solomon was powerlessto resist the influence of foreign wives, and if he, the beloved God, foundin his relation to God no defence against the sin to which they seducedhim, is it not unheard of for you to commit so great an evil?” He alsorightly explains הנשׁמע according to Deuteronomy 9:23; while Geseniusin his Thes. still takes it, like Rambach, as the first person imperf.: nobisnemorem geramus faciendo; or: Should we obey you to do so great an evil?(de Wette); which meaning - apart from the consideration that no obedience,but only toleration of the illegal act, is here in question - greatly weakens, ifit does not quite destroy, the contrast between Solomon and לכם.

Nehemiah acted with greater severity towards one of the sons of Joiadathe high priest, and son-in-law of Sanballat. He drove him from him(מעלי, that he might not be a burden to me). The reason forthis is not expressly stated, but is involved in the fact that he was son-in-law to Sanballat, i.e., had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite(Nehemiah 2:10), who was so hostile to Nehemiah and to the Jewish communityin general, and would not comply with the demand of Nehemiah that heshould dismiss this wife. In this case, Nehemiah was obliged to interferewith authority. For this marriage was a pollution of the priesthood, and abreach of the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Hence he closesthe narrative of this occurrence with the wish, Nehemiah 13:29, that God would bemindful of them (להם, of those who had done such evil) onaccount of this pollution, etc., i.e., would punish or chastise them for it. גּאלי, stat. constr. pl. from גּאל, pollution (plurale tant.). It was a pollution of the priesthood to marry a heathen woman, suchmarriage being opposed to the sacredness of the priestly office, which apriest was to consider even in the choice of a wife, and because of whichhe might marry neither a whore, nor a feeble nor a divorced woman, whilethe high priest mighty marry only a virgin of his own people (Leviticus 21:7, Leviticus 21:14). The son of Joiada who had married a daughter of Sanballat wasnot indeed his presumptive successor (Johanan, Nehemiah 12:11), for then hewould have been spoken of by name, but a younger son, and therefore asimple priest; he was, however, so nearly related to the high priest, thatby his marriage with a heathen woman the holiness of the high-priestlyhouse was polluted, and therewith also “the covenant of the priesthood,”i.e., not the covenant of the everlasting priesthood which God granted toPhinehas for his zeal (Numbers 25:13), but the covenant which God concludedwith the tribe of Levi, the priesthood, and the Levites, by choosing thetribe of Levi, and of that tribe Aaron and his descendants, to be His priest(לו לכהנו, Exodus 28:1). This covenant required, on the part of thepriests, that they should be “holy to the Lord” (Leviticus 21:6, Leviticus 21:8), who hadchosen them to be ministers of His sanctuary and stewards of His grace.

Josephus (Ant. xi. 7. 2) relates the similar fact, that Manasseh, a brotherof the high priest Jaddua, married Nikaso, a daughter of the satrapSanballat, a Cuthite; that when the Jewish authorities on that accountexcluded him from the priesthood, he established, by the assistant of hisfather-in-law, the temple and worship on Mount Gerizim (xi. 8. 2-4), andthat many priests made common cause with him. Now, though Josephuscalls this Manasseh a brother of Jaddua, thus making him a grandson ofJoiada, and transposing the establishment of the Samaritan worship onGerizim to the last years of Darius Codomannus and the first of Alexanderof Macedon, it can scarcely be misunderstood that, notwithstanding thesediscrepancies, the same occurrence which Nehemiah relates in the presentverses is intended by Josephus. The view of older theologians, to whichalso Petermann (art. Samaria in Herzog's Realenc. xiii. p. 366f.) assents,that there were two Sanballats, one in the days of Nehemiah, the other inthe time of Alexander the Great, and that both had sons-in-law belongingto the high-priestly family, is very improbable; and the transposition ofthe fact by Josephus to the times of Darius Codomannus and Alexanderaccords with the usual and universally acknowledged incorrectness of hischronological combinations. He makes, e.g., Nehemiah arrive at Jerusalemin the twenty-fifth year of Xerxes, instead of the twentieth of Artaxerxes,while Xerxes reigned only twenty years.

Nehemiah concludes his work with a short summary of what he hadeffected for the community. “I cleansed them from all strangers” (comp. Nehemiah 13:23., Nehemiah 9:2; Nehemiah 13:1.), “and appointed the services for the priests andLevites, each in his business, and for the wood-offering at times appointed(Nehemiah 10:35), and for the first-fruits” (Nehemiah 10:36.). The suffix to וטהרתּים refers to the Jews. נכר, strange, means foreign heathencustoms, and chiefly marriages with heathen women, Nehemiah 13:23., Nehemiah 9:2; Nehemiah 13:1. משׁמרות העמיד, properly to set a watch, here usedin the more general sense of to appoint posts of service for the priests andLevites, i.e., to arrange for the attendance upon those offices which theyhad to perform at their posts in the temple, according to the law; comp. Nehemiah 10:37, Nehemiah 10:39; Nehemiah 12:44-46; Nehemiah 13:13. וּלקרבּן andולבּכּוּרים, Nehemiah 13:31, still depend on משׁמרות ואעמידה: I appointed the attendance for the delivery of thewood for the altar at appointed times (comp. Nehemiah 10:35), and for the first-fruits, i.e., for bringing into the sanctuary the heave-offering for thepriests. The בּכּוּרים are named as pars pro toto, instead of all theתרוּמות prescribed by the law. On the arrangements connectedwith these two subjects, viz., the purification from heathen practices, andthe restoration of the regular performance of divine worship, wasNehemiah's whole energy concentrated, after the fortification of Jerusalemby a wall of circumvallation had been completed. He thus earned a lastingclaim to the gratitude of the congregation of his fellow-countryman thatreturned from Babylon, and could conclude his narrative with the prayerthat God would remember him for good. On this frequently-repeatedsupplication (comp. Nehemiah 13:14, Nehemiah 13:22, and Nehemiah 5:19) Rambach justly remarks:magnam Nehemiae pietatem spirat. This piety is, however - as we cannotfail also to perceive - strongly pervaded by the legal spirit of post-Babylonian Judaism.