Nehemiah10chapter 10

Nehemiah 10:1-8

Nehemiah's own name leads the list of seals, styled the Tirshatha, the Persian governor's title he already carries at 8:9 and 12:26, and named son of Hachaliah as at 1:1. Twenty-one priestly names follow him to the close of the roll at verse 8, the priesthood sealing first as it does again at the wall's dedication. Ezra's name is absent from the seals; Wesley reads sickness or some other hindrance as the reason, since the narrative meets him again at the dedication in 12:36.

Nehemiah 10:9-13

The Levites follow the priests, headed by Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad and Kadmiel, names that reach back to the first return under Zerubbabel where Jeshua and Kadmiel already lead the Levitical courses. Their brethren follow by name through verse 13, the same office sealing the same covenant a generation after it first sang at the foundation of Ezra 3:10-11. The roll keeps the temple's two orders, priest and Levite, in their fixed order.

Nehemiah 10:14-27

The lay heads of families close the roll of seals, more than forty names beginning with Parosh and Pahathmoab, the same family names that head the registry of the first return in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7. The generation that came up under Zerubbabel and the generation that seals the covenant under Nehemiah are shown to be the same houses, not a new people but the old remnant still standing. The list's own work is this continuity; no single name here is singled out for further comment.

Nehemiah 10:28-29

Verse 28 widens the covenant past the sealed names: the rest of the people, priests, Levites, porters, singers and Nethinims, join with all they that had separated themselves from the people of the lands UNTO THE LAW OF GOD, their wives, sons and daughters, every one having knowledge and understanding. Clarke reads the clause as giving every class its representative among the seals, so that none stand outside the vow by claiming they never signed it. They clave to their brethren, the nobles, and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law and observe all his commandments, judgments and statutes, which Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read as binding the whole assembly so firmly that none could later plead ignorance of what was sworn.

Nehemiah 10:30

not give our daughters: The first ordinance named is the oldest wound in the book: they will not give their daughters to the people of the land nor take the land's daughters for their sons, the very failure Ezra 9 had confessed and the failure Nehemiah will find repeated at 13:23-28 within his own lifetime. Gill notes that this had been done before and would be done again, so the covenant names its own besetting sin first, ahead of every other ordinance. The vow is stated once, plainly, without the public grief of chapter 9's confession.

Nehemiah 10:31

The second ordinance forbids buying from the land's people on the sabbath or holy day when they bring wares to sell, a market Nehemiah will find standing open at the gates in 13:15-22 and shut himself. The same verse adds the seventh year's release, the land left to rest and every debt let go, the sabbatical law of Exodus 23 and Leviticus 25 taken up as a civic obligation rather than a memory. Henry calls the sabbath a market day for the soul and not for the body, and the ordinance treats worship and commerce as one commandment.

Nehemiah 10:32-33

The third ordinance funds the temple itself: a third of a shekel charged yearly for its service, less than the half shekel of Exodus 30:11-16 that the law had required of every man over twenty. Clarke weighs the difference and reads it as the smaller purse of a returned and rebuilding people rather than a smaller law. Verse 33 lists what the money buys, the shewbread, the continual offerings of morning and evening, the sabbaths and new moons, the set feasts, and the sin offerings that make atonement for Israel, the whole calendar of worship underwritten by a covenant now signed in coin.

Nehemiah 10:34

The fourth ordinance casts lots among the priests, the Levites and the people for the wood offering, timber brought to the house of God at appointed times to keep the altar's fire burning as the law requires. Clarke notes that the law of Moses names no wood offering directly; the Nethinim had supplied it as their appointed labor, and casting lots now spreads a duty the old order had assigned to the lowest hands. The vow writes into covenant what the returned community must otherwise scramble to supply each year.

Nehemiah 10:35-36

The fifth and sixth ordinances bring the firstfruits of the ground and of every tree yearly to the house of the Lord, and the firstborn of sons and of cattle, herds and flocks, to the priests who serve there, both laws written in Moses and both now sworn again. Gill records that later teaching narrowed the fruit-tree offering to the seven kinds of Deuteronomy 8:8, a reading beyond the plain word but carried by the tradition that received it. The firstborn clause recalls Exodus 13, where the Lord's claim on every firstborn is answered by the standing substitution of the Levites for the nation.

Nehemiah 10:37-39

firstfruits of our dough: The last ordinance brings the firstfruits of dough, the fruit of every tree, the wine and oil, to the priests, and the tithe of the ground to the Levites in every city of their labor, with the priest standing by when the Levites take the tithe, so that the Levites in turn bring up a tithe of the tithe to the treasure house, the check Numbers 18 had built into the system to keep the higher tithe honest. The corn, wine and oil are stored where the vessels of the sanctuary, the priests, the porters and the singers all have their place, the temple economy gathered under one roof. The chapter closes on the vow the covenant was written to keep, WE WILL NOT FORSAKE THE HOUSE OF OUR GOD, a sentence chapter 13 will test within Nehemiah's own return.