Nehemiahchapter 7
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Speaks with:Ezra 2×57Nehemiah 6×41 Chronicles 24×4Ezra 8×31 Chronicles 9×3Nehemiah 8×3
Summary
Chapter summary
With the doors hung and the porters, singers, and Levites appointed, Nehemiah gives charge of Jerusalem to his brother Hanani and to Hananiah the governor of the castle, 'for he was a faithful man, and feared God above many.' The gates are to be opened late and barred early, with watches set, every man over against his own house. But the city is large and wide and the people few, and the houses not yet builded. God puts it into his heart to reckon the people by genealogy. And he finds the register of those who came up at the first, reproduced here in full, the same roll as Ezra 2, down to the 42,360 of the assembly.
Context
History · Nehemiah — Nehemiah overview
- A. 1–4 Gates shut till the sun is hot, a great city with few people
- B. 5–38 The register of those who came up at the first
- C. 39–60 Priests, Levites, singers, porters, and Nethinim
- D. 61–73 Those with no pedigree, and the gifts given for the work
The outline
A.Gates shut till the sun is hot, a great city with few peoplevv. 1 to 4
Read vv. 1 to 4 →B.The register of those who came up at the firstvv. 5 to 38
Read vv. 5 to 38 →C.Priests, Levites, singers, porters, and Nethinimvv. 39 to 60
Read vv. 39 to 60 →D.Those with no pedigree, and the gifts given for the workvv. 61 to 73
Read vv. 61 to 73 →
The world behind this chapter
Nehemiah 7The history
The security orders are the first thing. Gatekeepers, singers and Levites appointed; the gates not opened at first light as any normal city would but kept shut until the sun was hot, then barred while the keepers were still on duty; and residents posted as watchmen, each opposite his own house. Ancient cities opened at dawn; Jerusalem's late opening is the order of a man who expects trouble at the hour when everyone is still sleepy.
Then he states the problem: "the city was large and great, but the people were few therein, and the houses were not builded." A wall around an empty city is a shell. The Jerusalem of this period was small and thinly settled, a fraction of the pre-exilic town.
So he finds the register of those who came up at the first return and copies it out — the same list as Ezra 2, with the small numerical variations you expect between two ancient copies of a long list of numbers. It ends with the note about the priests whose genealogy was missing and the governor's ruling that they wait for a priest with Urim and Thummim.
What it meant to them
Reproducing the old roll was a deliberate act. The people who had come back first, before there was a wall or a temple or a governor, were the community's charter, and the new city was going to be filled from those families.
It also set up the next move. With the register in hand, chapter 11 could cast lots to bring one family in ten into Jerusalem to live. The list was not nostalgia; it was the population plan.
Sources cited
- K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
- Edwin Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible
- Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament (public domain)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Nehemiah 7. 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 Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.