Nehemiahchapter 13
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Key verse
And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.
It stands in scene C of the chapter, verses 15 to 22.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The last chapter is every reform having to be made a second time. Reading in the book of Moses, they separate the mixed multitude. Nehemiah had returned to the king; coming back, he finds that Eliashib had prepared Tobiah a great chamber in the very courts of the house of God: 'and it grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber.' The Levites' portions had gone unpaid and the singers had fled to their fields; he sets them again in their place. He shuts the gates against sabbath traffic, and contends with those who married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab, whose children could not speak the Jews' language. 'Remember me, O my God, for good.'
Context
History · Nehemiah · Nehemiah overview
Where the chapter sits
Nehemiah 13 falls in Organizing the restored community; second reform (chapters 11–13). Resettlement of Jerusalem; the Levites organized; the dedication of the walls; Nehemiah's second term finds compromises returning, sabbath violation, mixed marriages, temple-chamber misuse, and he intervenes again.
The second reform. ‘Remember me, O my God, for good.’ The book's closing line.
Before it: Covenant renewal under Ezra's teaching, chapters 8–10.
The whole shape of Nehemiah→The world behind this chapter
Nehemiah 13The history
Nehemiah had gone back to Susa to report, a Persian governor served at the king's pleasure and returned when summoned. When he came back, everything on the signed list had slipped, and the chapter goes through the failures in order.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Tobiah, the old opponent, had been given a large chamber inside the temple courts by a priest related to him by marriage, a storeroom meant for grain, incense and vessels turned into a guest apartment. Nehemiah threw the furniture out into the street. The Levites had not been paid their portions, so they had left the temple and gone back to their fields; he brought them back and reappointed treasurers.
Then the Sabbath. He found winepresses working, loads being brought in on donkeys, and Tyrian fish merchants selling in Jerusalem on the day. Tyre's dried-fish trade down the coast was long-established business. He ordered the gates shut from dusk before the Sabbath until it was over, and when traders camped outside the wall he threatened to lay hands on them.
Last, the mixed marriages had come back, and he found children who could not speak the language of Judah. He records his own conduct plainly: he contended with them, cursed them, struck some, and pulled out their hair.
What it meant to them
This is a deliberately unsatisfying ending, and it is the honest one. Everything gained in the book had to be fought for a second time within about a decade.
Four times in the chapter Nehemiah stops the narrative to pray, "Remember me, O my God, for good." That is how the historical books of the Old Testament close: a reformer with a broken covenant on his hands, asking God to remember his work, and a people still waiting for a change of heart that laws and walls could not give them.
Sources cited
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation)
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
A. Tobiah's furniture thrown out of the temple chamber
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.the Ammonite and the Moabite: The public reading turns up an old law few had thought of, Deuteronomy's ban on Ammonite and Moabite entering the congregation, and Nehemiah's memoir reports that the assembly acts on it the same day. The law behind it cites two things: the nations' refusal of bread and water to Israel in the wilderness and Balaam hired to curse them, which God turned into a blessing. Once the reading names the mixed multitude, Israel separates itself from it, a reform driven by the text with no royal decree behind it. Keil dates this reading to some occasion after Nehemiah's return rather than to the wall's dedication six months earlier, and Wesley reads it the same way.
Nehemiah 13:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Nehemiah 13:1
“Eliashib the priest . . . was allied unto Tobiah--This person was the high priest (Ne 13:28; also Ne 3:1), who, by virtue of his dignified office, had the superintendence and control of the apartments attached to the temple.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 13:1
“That day - Not presently after the dedication of the wall and city, but upon a certain day, when Nehemiah was returned from the Persian court to Jerusalem, from which he had been absent for some considerable time, in which some errors and abuses had crept in.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:3, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:3
“A separation like that made by Ezra, some 20 years previously Ezra 10:15-44, seems to be intended. The pagan wives were divorced and sent back, with their offspring, to their own countries.”
Nehemiah 13:3
“Or, perhaps, it was on the anniversary commemoration of that day, some years after, and therefore said to be on that day. They found a law, that the Ammonites and Moabites should not be naturalized, should not settle among them, nor unite with them,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 4-5)
a.was allied unto Tobiah: Eliashib the priest, in charge of the temple chambers, is by family tie allied unto Tobiah, the Ammonite adversary who mocked the wall's building in chapter four. He prepares a great chamber for him inside the temple courts, the very room that once held the meat offerings, frankincense, tithes and vessels for the Levites, singers and porters. The text does not say this Eliashib is the high priest of chapter three, but Jamieson Fausset and Brown identify him so, noting the same man's grandson is named at 13:28. Enemy and temple, kept apart through the whole book, meet under one roof the moment Nehemiah's back is turned.
Nehemiah 13:4, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:4
“Eliashib the priest - Perhaps this was a different person from Eliashib the high priest; but there is no indubitable evidence that he was not the same. If he was high priest, he was very unfaithful to the high charge which he had received; and a reproach to the priesthood.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3. (vv. 6-7)
a.was not I at Jerusalem: Nehemiah breaks his own narrative to explain the lapse: in the thirty second year of Artaxerxes he had gone back to the king in Babylon, and only after some time got leave to return. The gap gave Eliashib room to act, and Nehemiah frames it plainly, he was not at Jerusalem when the chamber was prepared for Tobiah. Coming back, he learns of the evil Eliashib had done, a chamber built for an enemy inside the courts of the house of God itself. Clarke reckons the absence at about a year, between a twelve year governorship and this second term.
Nehemiah 13:6, 3 voices
Nehemiah 13:6
“Was not I at Jerusalem - Nehemiah came to Jerusalem in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, and remained there till the thirty-second year, twelve years: then returned to Babylon, and staid one year; got leave to revisit his brethren; and found matters as stated in this chapter.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:6
“How long [Nehemiah] remained there is not expressly said, but "after certain days," which is a Scripture phraseology for a year or a number of years, he obtained leave to resume the government of Jerusalem; to his deep mortification and regret, he found matters in the neglected and disorderly state here described.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Nehemiah 13:6
“If he had been there, the high priest durst not have done such a thing. The envious one, who sows tares in God's field, knows how to take an opportunity to do it when the servants sleep or are absent, Matt. xiii. The golden calf was made when Moses was in the mount.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:7, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:7
“And I came to Jerusalem and understood the evil, etc. We read above that Tobiah was an Ammonite servant, an enemy of the people of God; therefore, Eliashib the priest acted very wrongfully; for he made a treasury in the vestibules of the house of …”
Bede· written before 735· Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiahpatristic
4. (vv. 8-9)
a.the household stuff of Tobiah: The report grieves Nehemiah sore, and his response is physical: he throws the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber with his own hand, the same directness he later shows the sabbath breakers and the mixed marriages. He then commands the rooms cleansed and restores the meat offering, the frankincense and the vessels of the house of God to their place. Gill reads the cleansing as more than sweeping, a ceremonial purification after a Gentile's lodging defiled a holy room. The act reverses Eliashib's exactly: what one priest gave to an enemy, Nehemiah's own hands take back for God.
Nehemiah 13:8, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:8
“I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah - He acted as Jesus Christ did when he found the courts of the Lord’s house profaned: He overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who sold doves.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:9, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:9
“Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers,.... By which it appears there were more than one, or that several were thrown into one; which was done not only by washing them, but as this was a ceremonial uncleanness, contracted by the habitation of an Heathen in them, their purification might be by the water of separation, Num 19:9 and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, with the meat offering and the frankincense; replaced them where they were before.”
B. The Levites had fled to their fields: remember me, O my God
1. (vv. 10-11)
a.the portions of the Levites: With the priesthood corrupted, the failure of its provision is no surprise: the portions of the Levites had not been given them, so the Levites and singers had abandoned the temple service and gone back to their own fields to live. Nehemiah's question cuts to the point, why is the house of God forsaken, an echo of the very covenant the people had signed at 10:39 promising never to forsake it. He gathers the scattered Levites and singers and sets them back in their place. Henry reads the picture as a warning for every age: a minister who must farm to eat will not long stay at the altar.
Nehemiah 13:10, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:10
“The portions of the Levites had not been given - Hence we find they were obliged to abandon the sacred service, and betake themselves to cultivate the land for their support. This was the fault of the rulers, who permitted all these abuses.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:11, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:11
“Then I contended with the rulers;.... The ecclesiastical rulers, the priests that were appointed over those chambers, Neh 12:44, he expostulated with them warmly, and chode them severely for their conduct: and said, why is the house of God forsaken? no care being taken of the maintenance of the ministers of it, contrary to the promise made Neh 10:37, and l gathered them together; the Levites and singers that were dispersed in the countries round about: and set them in their place; in the temple, and in the course of their ministry there.”
Nehemiah 13:11
“Why is the house of God forsaken? - They had all solemnly promised, Neh 10:39, that they would never forsake the house of their God; but, alas, how soon is this forgotten! Nehemiah used their own words here by way of reproof.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 12-14)
a.the tithe of the corn: Once the portions are restored, all Judah brings the tithe of the corn, the new wine and the oil into the treasuries again, obedience following correction. Nehemiah appoints treasurers over the stores, Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe and Pedaiah the Levite, chosen because they were counted faithful, their office to distribute fairly to the rest. The chapter's first refrain follows: Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God. Clarke reads the plea as a man asking mercy rather than claiming merit, since a strict reckoning would wipe out his good works along with his failures.
Nehemiah 13:12, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:12
“Then brought all Judah the tithe of corn, and the new wine, and the oil, into the treasuries. When they saw a reformation made, and things were going in their proper channel, and a right use would be made of their tithes, these given to proper persons, who were now reinstated in their office.”
Nehemiah 13:12
“His zeal provoked theirs; and, when they saw the Levites at their work, they could not for shame withhold their wages any longer, but honestly and cheerfully brought them in. The better church-work is done the better will church-dues be paid.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:13, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:13
“Faithful - By the consent of those who knew them. Such he now sought out the more diligently, because he had experience of the perfidiousness of the former trustees.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:14, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:14
“Wipe not out my good deeds - If thou wert strict to mark what is done amiss, even my good deeds must be wiped out; but, Lord, remember me in thy mercy, and let my upright conduct be acceptable to thee!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
C. Winepresses on the sabbath, and the gates shut at dusk
1. (vv. 15-16)
a.treading wine presses on the sabbath: Nehemiah's next target is commerce on the sabbath: men treading wine presses on the sabbath, loading grain, wine, grapes and figs onto asses and carrying every kind of burden into Jerusalem to sell. Men of Tyre settle in the city and sell fish and other wares on the sabbath to the children of Judah, a foreign colony trading inside the walls Nehemiah had just rebuilt. Henry ties the sabbath breaking directly to the wider decay of religion he had already found among the priesthood, one profanation feeding the next. Wesley notes the aggravation in the detail: this trading happens in Jerusalem itself, the city where God's house stood and the nation's courts sat.
Nehemiah 13:15, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:15
The desecration of the Sabbath is first brought into prominence among the sins of the Jewish people by Jeremiah Jer 17:21-27. It could not but have gained ground during the captivity, when foreign masters would not have allowed the cessation of labor for one day in seven. On the return from the captivity, the sabbatical rest appears to have been one of the institutions most difficult to re-establish. In the day - Some render, “concerning the day.”
Nehemiah 13:16, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:16
“Friendly relations subsisted between the Phoenicians and the Jews, after the captivity Ezr 3:7. It was, however, a new fact, and one pregnant with evil consequences, that the Tyrians should have established a permanent colony at Jerusalem. Its influence on the other inhabitants weakened the hold of the Law upon men’s consciences, and caused it to be transgressed continually more and more openly.”
2. (vv. 17-18)
a.contended with the nobles of Judah: Nehemiah confronts the nobles directly, the men whose example let the markets open: what evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? He presses the argument from the nation's own history, did not your fathers do this very thing, and did not our God bring all this evil upon the city for it, so that further sabbath breaking only adds to a wrath already spent once. Gill reads the nobles as the city's civil rulers rather than the priesthood contended with earlier, a second front in the same reform. The appeal to the exile as sabbath judgment reaches back to Jeremiah's own charge before Judah ever left the land.
Nehemiah 13:17, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:17
“Then I contended with the nobles,.... The rulers of the city, the civil magistrates, sharply reproved them for their neglect of duty: and said unto them, what evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? by suffering servile works to be done in it, and things sold on it.”
Nehemiah 13:17
“Nobles - Their chief men and rulers; whom he charges with this sin, because though others did it, it was by their countenance or connivance: probably too by their example.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:18, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:18
“Did not your fathers thus,.... Profane the sabbath in like manner: and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon our city? suffered them to be carried captive into a strange land, and their city destroyed for their sins, and for this of sabbath breaking among the rest, see Jer 17:21, yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath; additional judgments to those that had been already upon them for the same evil with others.”
3. (vv. 19-20)
a.the gates should be shut: Nehemiah moves from argument to enforcement: as the gates of Jerusalem grow dark before the sabbath he orders that the gates should be shut, not to open again until the sabbath has passed, and he posts his own servants there to keep any burden from entering. The merchants and sellers of every kind of ware, turned away from the gates, camp outside the city walls once or twice rather than lose the trade. Jamieson Fausset and Brown read the closed gates as the decisive step after argument had failed with both priests and nobles, a governor finally using his office's power. Adeney notes the same firmness that finished a wall in fifty two days now polices a sabbath.
Nehemiah 13:19, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:19
“The gates were closed at the sunset of the day before the Sabbath; since the Sabbath was regarded as commencing on the previous evening.”
Nehemiah 13:20, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:20
“For the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware,.... The Tyrians particularly, Neh 13:16 lodged without Jerusalem once or twice; one sabbath day or two, not being able to get into the city, such strict watch and care being taken to keep the gates shut; this they did, hoping the Jews would come out to them and buy their goods, though they were not admitted to bring them within the city.”
4. (vv. 21-22)
a.lodge ye about the wall?: Nehemiah warns the merchants camped outside, why lodge ye about the wall, and threatens to lay hands on them if they do it again, and the text records that they stop coming on the sabbath after that. He then charges the Levites to purify themselves and stand watch at the gates, so the sabbath is guarded by the men whose office it already was to keep it holy. The chapter's second refrain follows, Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy. Clarke reads the closing plea as proof Nehemiah expected nothing from his own good deeds, resting the whole appeal on mercy instead of merit.
Nehemiah 13:21, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:21
“The lodging of the merchants with their merchandise just outside Jerusalem during the Sabbath, marked their impatience for the moment when they might bring their wares in. This was thought by Nehemiah to be unseemly, and to have an irreligious tendency.”
Nehemiah 13:22, 4 voices
Nehemiah 13:22
“Spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy - By some Nehemiah has been thought to deal with God too much on the principle of merit. That he wished God to remember him for good, is sufficiently evident; and who does not wish the same? But that he expected heaven because of his good deeds, does not appear. Indeed, the concluding clause of this verse proves the contrary, and shows that he expected nothing from God but through the greatness of his mercy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:22
“Cleanse - Because the work they now were set upon, though common in its nature, yet was holy in design of it, and had respect unto the sabbath: and, because the day in which they were to do this was the sabbath-day, for the observation whereof they were obliged to purify themselves.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:22
“Note, The best saints, even when they do the best actions, stand in need of sparing mercy; for there is not a just man that doeth good and sinneth not. (2.) The plea: According to the greatness (or multitude) of thy mercies. Note, God's mercy is what we must depend upon, and not any merit of our own, when we appear before God.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:22
“The king that sits on the throne of judgment scatters away all evil with his eyes. (3.) He charged the Levites to take care about the due sanctifying of the sabbath, that they should cleanse themselves in the first place, and so give a good example to the people, and that they should some of them come and keep the gates,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D. Children who could not speak the Jews' language, and a priest chased away
1. (vv. 23-24)
a.married wives of Ashdod: The last reform returns to the crisis Ezra had already fought once: Jews who had married wives of Ashdod, Ammon and Moab, the same nations named in the chapter's opening reading. The children of these marriages could no longer speak the language of Judah, only the speech of Ashdod or whichever mother raised them, a household split in two tongues under one roof. Clarke pictures brothers in the same family unable to understand each other, half raised in Hebrew and half in a foreign speech. Gill notes Ashdod itself was not one of the seven nations under the old conquest ban, yet intermarriage with it still corrupted the people's language and worship alike.
Nehemiah 13:23, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:23
“In those days also I saw Jews that married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. Ashdod, or Azotus, as it is called in Act 8:40, was one of the five cities of the Philistines; which, though none of the seven nations with whom marriage was forbid, yet it was very unfit and improper to marry with them, Jdg 14:”
Nehemiah 13:23
“Judah has dealt treacherously, and broken covenant with God, the covenant made in Ezra's time with reference to this very thing; he has profaned the holiness of the Lord by marrying the daughter (that is, the worshipper) of a strange god.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:24, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:24
“Half in the speech of Ashdod - There were children in the same family by Jewish and Philistine mothers. As the Jewish mother would always speak to her children in Hebrew or Chaldee, so they learnt to speak these languages; and as the Ashdod mother would always speak to her children in the Ashdod language, so they learnt that tongue. Thus there were, in the same family, children who could not understand each other; half, or one part, speaking one language, and the other part another.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 25-27)
a.plucked off their hair: Nehemiah's response is the sharpest in the book: he contends with the offenders, curses them, strikes some of them and plucked off their hair, then puts them under oath never to intermarry with these nations again. The gesture stands beside Ezra's own response to the same sin a generation earlier: at Ezra 9:3 he plucked off his own hair in grief, while here Nehemiah plucks the hair of the guilty, the same crisis met by two reformers of very different temperament. He argues from Israel's own history: did not Solomon himself sin by these very things, a king beloved of God and given all Israel, yet outlandish women caused even him to sin. Henry reads Solomon's fall as proof that no office and no past favor with God protects a man once foreign wives turn his heart.
Nehemiah 13:25, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:25
“I contended with them - Proved the fact against these iniquitous fathers, in a legal assembly. And cursed them - Denounced the judgments of God and the sentence of the law upon them. Smote certain of them - Had them punished by whipping. And plucked off their hair - Had them shaven, as a mark of the greatest ignominy. And made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give - Caused them to bind themselves by an oath, that they would make no intermarriages with those who were not of the seed of Israel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:25
“Cursed - Caused them to be excommunicated and cast out of the society of God's people. This and the following punishments were justly inflicted upon them, because this transgression was contrary both to a plain law of God, and to their own late solemn covenants.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:26, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:26
“He was beloved of God, but his marrying strange wives threw him out of God's favour, and went near to extinguish the holy fire of grace in his soul: he was king over all Israel; but his doing this occasioned the loss of ten of his twelve tribes.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:27, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:27
“Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil,.... To suffer it to be done, and connive at it, and not punish for it: to transgress against our God; his law, his mind, and will: in marrying strange wives? forbidden by him, Deu 7:1.”
3. (vv. 28-29)
a.son in law to Sanballat: The corruption reaches the high priest's own family: a son of Joiada, grandson of Eliashib the high priest, has become son in law to Sanballat the Horonite, the very enemy who opposed the wall from its first stone. Nehemiah chases him out, and Clarke identifies him with Manasseh, whom Josephus says later became high priest of a rival temple Sanballat built on Mount Gerizim for him. Nehemiah's prayer turns harder here than anywhere else in the chapter: Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites. Henry reads the prayer as a plea for God to act rather than a curse Nehemiah pronounces himself, leaving the reckoning in God's hand.
Nehemiah 13:28, 3 voices
Nehemiah 13:28
“One of the sons of Joiada - This was Manasseh, brother of Jaddua, son of Joiada, and grandson of Eliashib the high priest. I chased him from me - Struck him off the list of the priests, and deemed him utterly unworthy of all connection and intercourse with truly religious people.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:28
“Josephus says that this expelled priest was Manasseh, and that when Nehemiah drove him away he went to his father-in-law Sanballat, who built him a temple upon Mount Gerazim, like that at Jerusalem, and promised him he should be high priest in it, and that then was laid the foundation of the Samaritans' pretensions, which continued warm to our Saviour's time.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:28
“Probably some other of his family had married Tobiah's, and (would you think it?) the high priest thought the alliance an honour to his family, and was very proud of it, though really it was his greatest disgrace, and what he had reason to be ashamed of.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:29, 3 voices
Nehemiah 13:29
“Remember them, O my God,.... The priests, and punish them: because they have defiled the priesthood; by marrying strange wives, and rendering themselves unfit to officiate in it: and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites; made with Levi, Aaron, and Phinehas, see Num 24:11, of the corruption of which, complaint is made, Mal 2:4.”
Nehemiah 13:29
“Because they have defiled the priesthood - God, therefore, will remember their iniquities against them, and punish them for their transgressions. These words of Nehemiah are to be understood declaratively.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Nehemiah 13:29
"Lord, convince and convert them; put them in mind of what they should be and do, that they may come to themselves." Or, "Remember them to reckon with them for their sin; remember it against them." If we take it so, this prayer is a prophecy that God would remember it against them.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
4. (vv. 30-31)
a.cleansed I them from all strangers: The chapter closes on a summary of the whole second term: thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and set the priests and Levites back in their courses, every one to his own business. He restores the wood offering at its appointed times and the firstfruits, the practical supply lines of temple worship put back in place. The book's last words are its third and final refrain, Remember me, O my God, for good, the same prayer sounded at 13:14 and 13:22, and this time without any accusation to answer, only a plea for God's favor. Gill notes that with this prayer both Nehemiah's memoir and the whole historical narrative of the Hebrew canon end, a book that began with a report of ruined walls closing on a man still asking to be remembered.
Nehemiah 13:30, 2 voices
Nehemiah 13:30
“Thus cleansed I them from all strangers,.... Both people and priests from strange wives, obliging them to put them away, or flee their country: and appointing the wards of the priests and the Levites, everyone in his business: to do the work of their office in their courses and turns.”
Nehemiah 13:30
“It was no loss to them to part with one that was the scandal of their cloth; the work would be done better without him. When Judas had gone out Christ said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, John xiii. Here are Nehemiah's prayers on this occasion.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Nehemiah 13:31, 1 voice
Nehemiah 13:31
“For the wood-offering - This was a most necessary regulation: without it the temple service could not have gone forward; and therefore Nehemiah mentions this as one of the most important services he had rendered to his nation. See Neh 10:34. Remember me, O my God, for good - This has precisely the same meaning with, O my God, have mercy upon me! and thus alone it should be understood. Of Nehemiah the Jews speak as one of the greatest men of their nation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Nehemiah 13. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 10 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Bede, Commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; Matthew Henry and W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther (Expositor's Bible).
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