Deeper Commentary
Nehemiah 13:1 On that day- This could mean just "at that time", but it may refer to the day of the dedication of the wall (Neh. 12:27) when they brought the Levites to Jerusalem. But the priests and Levites were the teachers of the people. The fact they were not living in Jerusalem because tithes hadn't been given them meant that there was little teaching of God's word, with the result that the masses were Biblically ignorant.
They read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God forever- Possibly this too was all choreographed, as if to give the impression that in their Bible study, they discovered a gem. When the reality was that Nehemiah, following Ezra, wanted to get all non-golah Jews excluded from the community and presented this part of the Mosaic law as justification for it. As noted above, it seems there was a huge Biblical ignorance, partly due to the Levites not teaching the people. They "found written" what they ought surely to have been aware of. The prohibition was actually for 10 generations- and that period had passed since Dt. 23:4-7 was spoken. In any case, Nehemiah uses this legislation as an excuse to exclude any mixed race person (:3). And that is not what was written "in the book of Moses". Here we have a classic case of 'finding' something in God's law which is not there; and turning our interpretation of God's word into God's word itself. And this is a classic case of seizing upon a phrase from scripture, and then expanding from the specific (Moabites and Ammonites were to be excluded for ten generations) to the universal [all mixed race were to be excluded]. Whilst at the same time carefully ignoring all the other evidence that a interracial marriage was not of itself condemned by God [the consequent idolatry was], and the offspring of such marriages were never excluded by the Mosaic law. The "mixed multitude" were allowed to be part of Israel and were redeemed by God from Egypt (Ex. 12:48,49), Hebrew soldiers could marry Gentile virgins whom they captured, "the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you" was to be accepted so long as they followed God's laws (Lev. 18:26), "You shall have one law for him... who is native-born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger who lives as a foreigner among them" (Num. 15:29).
I have earlier discussed how Ammonites and Moabites didn't hardly exist as ethnic identities at this time. Tobiah, meaning Yah is good, was married to a Judean woman and had a son and grandson who had 'Yah' in their names. I suggested earlier that Nehemiah calls him an Ammonite when he may simply have been a non-golah Jew who was more open to Gentile involvement in Yahweh worship. This definition of "Ammonite" may simply mean someone whom Nehemiah considered someone who shouldn't enter the congregation, that is, be counted within the definition of the new "Israel" that he and the golah Jews were creating. In any case, Nehemiah eagerly interprets the already expired "ten generations" as "forever". So a verse from Dt. 23 is used out of context to expel all the "mixed multitude" (:3).
The prohibition
on Moabites and Ammonites entering the congregation is in the same context
as saying that a eunuch cannot either: "He who is wounded in the
testicles, or has his privy member cut off, must not enter into the
assembly of Yahweh... An Ammonite or a Moabite must not enter into the
assembly of Yahweh" (Dt. 23:1,3). But Nehemiah was a eunuch, and his
initial passion for those excluded from the assembly was because of his
own experience- excluded, but still very much with Yahweh. But the years
of politics had eroded this. And now he excludes Ammonites and Moabites,
and their Jewish wives and children, when he himself was equally excluded.
This is indeed hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is always the outcome of focusing
on one stream of spirituality without seeing the fuller picture. Sadly it
seems he dies impenitent, for he even asks God to reward him for his
supposed good deeds in doing this. And even worse, there is evidence that
Tobiah wasn't even an Ammonite, he was just called an Ammonite by
Nehemiah. And he twists this prohibition of Ammonites beyond the tenth
generation, and applies it to any Gentile or anyone married to a Gentile,
or even, it seems, to anyone married to a non-golah Jew.
Nehemiah 13:2 Because they didn’t meet the children of Israel with bread
and with water, but hired Balaam against them, to curse them; however our
God turned the curse into a blessing- The interpretation or
additional comment was added by the Levites as they read the law, as a
kind of midrash. See on :1. The turning of curse into blessing was what
had been the intended result of Judah's exile; the intention was that they
would return and work with God in reestablishing His Kingdom in
Israel with all the attendant blessings.
Nehemiah 13:3 It came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they
separated from Israel all the mixed multitude- This reads as if they
heard what they hadn't realized before in God's law, and then obeyed it
immediately. The idea isn't that they threw these foreigners out of the
territory of Judah, but rather that they didn't allow them to participate
in the signs of covenant relationship (as in Neh. 9:2).
The accounts of Judah’s separation from the surrounding peoples reads similarly to that of the purges from idolatry during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land (Ezra 6:21); by Ezra 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by Ezra 10:11 likewise; then they separate (Ezra 10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Nehemiah 9:2; 13:3. They obviously found it extremely difficult to be separated from the surrounding world unto God’s law (Nehemiah 10:28). There was a powerful logic- either separate from the world around, or be separated from the people of God (Ezra 10:8). It’s a separation- one way or the other.
The Gentiles or racially mixed were separated from "Israel", i.e. those counted as in the community of God's people. But God comforts the sons of Gentiles whose had been separated from His people (s.w.) that He did in fact accept them. And they in fact were His people, unlike those who had excluded them (s.w. Is. 56:3 "Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the LORD, speak, saying, The LORD hath utterly separated me from his people").
I argued on Neh. 3:1,32; 4:1; 6:2 that Nehemiah built the wall
around the temple area in order to try to create a ritually pure space
that would not be contaminated. But at the end of his life he realizes
that this had done nothing to make God's people separate from sin or from
Gentiles. They had married them, and neglected God's law. His life's great
project had not in fact achieved anything spiritual. And many lives lived
sadly yield the same conclusion. The separation was done after hearing the
reading and explanation of the law. But Moses' law never required
separation if a Gentile was married. That was the interpretation, that got
confused in the minds of illiterate people with the "law" itself.
Just as many today who are Biblically illiterate will confuse
interpretation of God's word with His word itself. Nehemiah is repeating
the mistake of Ezra, and has ended up losing his initial passion for the
rejected Jews (as discussed in Neh. 1). Separation from the "mixed multitude" naturally invites
unfavourable comparison with the way Israel left Egypt together with a
"mixed multitude" of Gentiles and intermarried Gentiles. All Israel had
intermarried over the generations, so the argument about preserving ethnic
purity was wrong from the start. The same word for "mixed" is found in Ps.
106:34,35: "They didn’t destroy the peoples as Yahweh commanded them, but
mixed themselves
with the nations, and learned their works". I suggested on
Neh. 1:2 that Nehemiah originally had a passion to undo the bad behaviour
of Ezra in 'disfellowshipping' for intermarriage and marginalizing the
Jews who had remained in the land after the Babylonian invasion. I
discussed this in depth on Ezra 9,10. But he ends up doing just the same.
This explains why the account of Nehemiah's dealing with intermarriage
reads so similarly to that of Ezra's dealings with the issue. The point is
that Nehemiah, like many men, ended up doing that which he earlier hated.
Just as the young reformers in a church end up in later years acting just
like the brethren whose behaviour they once realized was so wrong. And as
people who start on the far left of politics in their youth end up on the
far right, and vice versa. This is a human trait. In spiritual contexts,
it reflects a lack of attention to and respect of God's word as the sole
guiding light and source of principle.
Nehemiah 13:4 Now before this- This may refer to the "this" of :6,
the interval between Nehemiah's first and second rulerships in Jerusalem.
Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the rooms of the house of our God, being allied to Tobiah- The same high priest of :28 and Neh. 3:1. His name is significantly absent from the list of those who signed the covenant of purity in Neh. 10. The alliance (s.w. Ruth 2:20) to Tobiah was presumably through marriage of a family member; Tobiah had married a daughter of Shecaniah; and his son Jehohanan had married a daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. Both Shecaniah and Meshullam are mentioned in Neh. 3:20,30 as high ranking priests.
Nehemiah 13:5 had prepared for him a great room, where before they laid
the meal offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of
the grain, the new wine, and the oil, which were given by commandment to
the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the wave offerings for
the priests- This "great room", LXX "treasury", was the storehouse
and vault for all the valuable things. As explained on :8, Tobiah turned
this into his own private residence. The tithes were effectively given to
him and not to the Levites; and so this discouraged people from paying
them, and the Levites left Jerusalem to farm land which could give them
subsistence food. And so the great potentials of Ez. 40-48, where the
holiness of the temple chambers is emphasized, were all precluded from
fulfilment.
Nehemiah 13:6 But in all this, I was not at Jerusalem; for in the two and
thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king: and after
certain days asked I leave of the king- Whilst Nehemiah writes this
to clear himself of any wrong doing, it is also a tacit admission that the
reforms and such spirituality as there was were due to his sole influence.
Without his personal presence, the people returned to their usual sins.
Nehemiah 13:7 When I returned to Jerusalem-
It is possible that Malachi's prophecy fits between Nehemiah 12 and 13. Malachi means messenger, and he presents as the messenger of the Lord who would suddenly come to his temple and judge Israel (Mal. 3:1). Possibly the coming of that "lord" to the temple was in a way fulfilled in Nehemiah. But Nehemiah didn't bring the people the new covenant, instead he made a covenant with the people that they would continue keeping the old covenant. Nehemiah could have been a Messiah figure, but he wasn't. He was not so much a "type of Christ" as a man who failed to live up to his Christ-like potential. And looking back on his life in these memoirs, he realized that. Just as looking back at our lives, we say time and again: "I was not Christ-like in that. I am not and was not Jesus. I was not the Christ to you... and you, and them". And we throw ourselves upon His grace.
"Returned" is literally "came". When Nehemiah speaks of them having been redeemed by Yahweh’s “strong hand” (Neh. 1:10), he is using the language of Is. 40:10, regarding how Yahweh would come to Zion and save Israel from Babylon and restore them to the land “with strong hand”. Nehemiah saw the prophecy could have been fulfilled then. The way Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2; Neh. 7:5-7), Ezra (Ezra 7:8; 8:32) and Nehemiah (Neh. 2:11; 13:7) are described as ‘coming to Jerusalem’ may hint that they could have fulfilled this coming of Yahweh to Zion; they could have been Messianic figures (Neh. 2:11; 13:7).
And understood the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a room in the courts of God’s house- As Nehemiah understood it, Tobiah the Ammonite was given a chamber in the temple for him to use as an office for undermining God’s people (Neh. 13:7). This precluded the fulfilment of the restoration prophecies. There were to be “holy chambers” in the temple for the Levites (Ez. 46:19 and very often in Ezekiel 40-48). The uncircumcised Gentiles were not to be brought into the sanctuary (Ez. 44:7). It was God’s intention that when Judah returned from Babylon, the uncircumcised would not come into Zion (the temple), and the Kingdom would be established (Is. 52:1,11). There was to be no Canaanite in the house of Yahweh (Zech. 14:21).
Nehemiah 13:8 it grieved me severely- Hearts that bleed will feel not only for the world,
but for our brethren too. Think of Nehemiah: "I came to Jerusalem, and
understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah, in preparing him a
chamber in the 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 (Neh. 13:8). His
grief led him to discipline Tobiah. Grief should likewise be the motive
for ecclesial discipline today (as in 1 Cor. 5:2). The same word is
translated "sad" in Neh. 2:3: "Why should not my countenance be sad
[grieved], when the city, the place of my fathers sepulchers, lieth waste,
and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?". The King observed that his
"sorrow of heart" was written all over his face, even though he was trying
to conceal it. His sadness for His weak people was engraven in His body
language. It could not be hidden, even though he became as it were a fool
for Christ’s sake.
Nehemiah 13:9 Then I commanded, and they cleansed the rooms; and there
brought I again the vessels of God’s house, with the meal offerings and
the frankincense- But there is no mention of the tithes being brought
back there (cp. :5) because they were not being paid. This was an attempt
to cleanse the temple to try to obey the principle that
the house of the restored Kingdom was not to be profaned (Ez. 44:7). But
Judah profaned the Sabbath (Nehemiah 13:17,18), and profaned the temple by
their marriage with Gentiles and their “weariness” with the temple
ordinances (Mal. 1:12; 2:10,11). They got bored with the things of the
Kingdom, and so they had no part in it. And so the possibility of the
fulfilment of Ez. 40-48 was precluded despite Nehemiah's efforts.
"Vessels of [God's] house" is the same Hebrew phrase translated "household
stuff" in :8. Nehemiah is contrasting the household vessels ["stuff"] of
Tobiah with those of God's house. But he seems to me to overstate his
case; for the vessels of the temple were not stored there; those chambers
were for storing the tithes. But he wishes to present Tobiah's pots and
pans as the antithesis of the holy vessels of Yahweh.
Nehemiah 13:10 I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been
given them; so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had
fled everyone to his field- I suggested on :5 that this was because
Tobiah was keeping them for himself. The
priests returned to mind their own fields because the tithes weren’t paid
to them, and so this precluded the fulfilment of the restoration prophecy
of Jer. 31:14: “And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness".
Nehemiah 13:11 Then I contended with the rulers and said, Why is God’s
house forsaken?- I suggested on :8 that Tobiah had effectively turned
God's house into his own house. The people had allowed this to happen,
thinking that loyalty to Tobiah was better than strict loyalty to Yahweh. They
vowed not to forsake the house of their God, and yet Nehemiah concludes
with the record that this is exactly what they did (Neh. 10:39; 13:11).
Nehemiah was heartbroken that the temple was “forsaken”, because the
“Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his
field” because the tithes weren’t paid to them. Thus they had precluded
the fulfilment of the restoration potential of Jer. 33:18: “Neither shall
the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and
to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually”.
I gathered them together, and set them in their place- GNB interprets this as meaning "I brought the Levites and musicians back to the Temple and put them to work again". With the tithes no longer going to Tobiah, they went to the Levites.
But as discussed on :8, Nehemiah is recording what he did to these people and the accusations he made against them. Here in :11 and also in his contention with the nobles in :17,18, there is no record of their responses. They didn't plead guilty. Nehemiah just accuses them and lashes out at them. Their response, according to his memoirs, was silence. There was an obvious answer as to why the people hadn't paid their tithes. They were overtaxed by the Persians, and Nehemiah was the Persian tax collector / governor who is not recorded as trying to ease the tax burden for Judah. And there was a famine, because of the peoples' disobedience and lack of Godly spirit- for which Nehemiah had to also bear some blame. And so they had hardly enough to eat, let alone to pay tithes. Hence the silence from those whom Nehemiah now scolds.
Nehemiah 13:12 Then brought all Judah the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil to the treasuries- This can be read positively, or negatively, in that perhaps the hint is that there were tithes of other things which ought to have been brought, but weren't. This is Nehemiah’s imagination of the people's obedience, for Mal. 3:10 challenges them to actually bring the tithes into the storehouse- and see if God would not hugely bless them for doing so. As soon as Nehemiah returned to Persia, the people stopped even any pretence of doing it.
Nehemiah 13:13 I made treasurers over the treasuries, Shelemiah the
priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah. Next to them
was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were counted
faithful, and their business was to distribute to their brothers-
This was instead of the tithes coming to the treasury, which Tobiah had
made his personal home; and the obvious implication is that he had not
been faithful in these things. Effectively this was a rejection of
Eliashib the high priest who had previously been over the treasuries (:4).
The corruption of the high priest meant that again, the potentials of the
high priest in Zechariah's prophecies were being disallowed.
Nehemiah 13:14 Remember me, my God, concerning this, and don’t wipe out my
good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its
observances-
"Remember me" (Neh. 5:19; 13:14,22,31) could appear rather selfish and self congratulatory. Especially when he asks for his good deeds to be remembered. He hopes he will be saved because of his good works, done for the temple and its "observances", although the Hebrew word more means "defence" or "guarding". He alludes to his building a wall around the house of God to defend its holiness. This is an incidental confirmation of my repeated suggestion that his wall was around the temple area, and not around the entire secular city. In Neh. 5:19 he asks God to remember him for all he has done for "this people", the golah Jews. His work for the temple and for the creation of a new definition of "Israel" was all either wrong or at best misplaced idealism. Just as so often think that their misguided 'defence of the faith' is all they have to really show to God at the end of their days. And Nehemiah hardly comes over as very positive in his hope for salvation; quite unlike David in the psalms. There is no sense of salvation by grace, or of the irrelevance of works in relation to salvation. He prays for those who had not been reformed [or, more to the point, had not agreed with his ideas] to be remembered for evil. And for him to be remembered for good. There is no appeal to God's saving grace, no begging for forgiveness for sinners, nothing of the spirit of Moses, David, Paul or the Lord Jesus. Nehemiah begins: "I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against You. Yes, I and my father’s house have sinned" (Neh. 1:6). But unlike Paul, whose awareness of personal sinfulness increased over the course of his ministry, Nehemiah ends up commending his good works to God and making no serious confession of sin. It could be that in the two "Remember me..." passages of :14 and :31, with another "remember me" exactly in the middle of that section (:22), we have Nehemiah's final appeal for his own salvation- and he appeals on the basis of what he recalls of his exclusion of people, breaking up of marriages and dividing God's people.
The central part appears to be an appeal to grace, but putting it all together, he sees the receipt of God's grace as dependent upon his works: "Remember me, my God, for this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your loving grace [hesed]" (:22). But he makes this appeal for God's "grace" on the basis that he has done "grace", hesed: "don’t wipe out my good deeds [hesed] that I have done for the house of my God, and for its observances" (:14). He sees hesed as something he has done through his works. He really doesn't get it.
It is utterly facile to consider Nehemiah as a success story. He is wrongly held up as a wonderful example of an effective leader who achieved so much. By those who surface read the first few chapters of his memoirs. But his final memoir show that he didn't see himself like this. He was a failure in terms of his life's work. He fought the wrong battles, built his walls in the wrong places, and left a legacy of division, pride and legalism that would morph into the system that crucified God's Son. He himself may well be saved. But he went so far away from his original broken heart for the excluded Jews who were suffering and were excluded from the community, as he was as a eunuch. Those who insist on reading Bible characters as all so awesome and positive are missing the way that the Biblical record presents us with problem based learning, asking us to learn from failure, and to see in the Lord alone the example of perfect humanity. Those who read the Bible like this tend to be very self congratulatory themselves, seeing their church friends and denomination as also of awesome spiritual success. This 'plastic', unrealistic view of Bible characters leads them to themselves present as plastic, goody two shoes people and churches. And this has turned off countless secular people from the church, seeing it as plastic, irrelevant, hypocritical, self congratulatory, self righteous and unrealistic.
Nehemiah seems to have been personally fearful of his own salvation, concluding by throwing himself upon God's grace in :22. He was very works oriented, and it could be that he wrote up his memoirs or autobiography in this book almost to as it were remind God of all his good works. This at best is a spiritually immature attitude. Or we could assume that he here understood that although salvation is by grace, in that we all receive the same penny of salvation no matter how hard we work; it is all the same true that the nature of our eternity will reflect our works. And therefore he asks that his works be remembered. For this principle is true; who we shall eternally be is a reflection of our works in this life. We now in this tiny fraction of eternity are molding the nature of our eternity. Which is a truth to live by absolutely every moment.
Nehemiah asks for his good deeds not to be blotted out just as he asks for
the sins of the Samaritan opposition not to be blotted out (Neh. 4:5). He
clearly had a legalistic mindset, where good and bad deeds as it were
balance each other out. He had not clearly grasped the idea of salvation
by pure grace which was offered to sinners who accepted the new covenant
which the exiles were being invited to accept.
Nehemiah 13:15 In those days I saw in Judah some men treading winepresses
on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys; as also
wine, grapes, and figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into
Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: and I testified against them in the day in
which they sold food-
We note that what was being harvested and processed on the Sabbath was the very same produce that was being paid as "the tithe of the grain and the new wine and the oil" (:12; confirmed in Neh. 10:33,39, and Ezra 6:9; 7:17).). Quite possibly they justified this working on the Sabbath to process these things as being because they were going to give it as their tithe or offering to the temple. And Jer. 17:25-27 suggests that in the restored Kingdom, restored as God intended, Gentiles would bring or carry their offerings into the temple on the Sabbath: "bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, meal offerings and frankincense, and bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of Yahweh". So the bearing of burdens into Jerusalem on the Sabbath was not of itself an issue- if they were indeed tithes and offerings. Quite possibly, the poorer majority of people were so strapped by the Persian taxes that this was the best they could do in order to also pay tithes to the temple. But Nehemiah appears not to care for this; he objects to this liberal interpretation of Sabbath law- for always, the principle had been in Jewish interpretation that work for God could be done on the Sabbath. And the Lord upheld that view. So we see Nehemiah operating a hyper legalistic standard on some things, whereas on others he goes to a lower standard. Such as reducing the half shekel temple tax to a third of a shekel. All done arbitrarily, when he wasn't even an active priest.
Isaiah repeatedly stated that the surrounding nation would come to Zion and share in her joy. Ex. 23:12 had commanded that the Gentile who lived with Israel must keep the Sabbath. If the Jews had not done their pleasure on the Sabbath, then the Messianic Kingdom could have come (Is. 58:13,14). But instead the Gentiles who lived around Jerusalem traded with the Jews on the Sabbath (Neh. 13:16 RSV), they intermarried, and Israel / Zion was not a city set on a hill to enlighten the surrounding world; because they preferred to be influenced by the world around them, rather than vice versa.
Is. 65:21 had prophesied that "They shall build houses and inhabit them
themselves; and they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit".
But
very few houses were built in Zion, because the people preferred to live
on their farms, in their cieled houses, outside the city (Nehemiah 7:4).
They planted vineyards, but sold the fruit to others- on the Sabbath. Jer. 31:5 had prophesied
of the restoration:
“Again you shall plant
vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall
enjoy its fruit”.
They did this at the restoration, but became so obsessed with treading out
the grapes that they did it even on the Sabbath, and thereby disallowed
the fulfilment of the Kingdom prophecies which were dependent upon
them keeping the Sabbath (Is.
58:13).
Nehemiah 13:16 There also lived men of Tyre therein, who brought in fish
and all kinds of wares, and sold on the Sabbath to the children of Judah,
and in Jerusalem- The prophesied abundance of fertility in the land,
according to the restoration prophecies, would have removed the need or
even attraction of buying delicacies from Gentiles. But they were not
interested in obeying the restoration prophecies nor making them come
about, and so they were prone to these temptations to trade in luxuries on
the Sabbath.
The men of Tyre lived within the city. They were perhaps trading partners of other men of Tyre who brought their goods outside the city. This surely shows that Nehemiah's power was compromised. He couldn't actually throw all Gentiles out of Jerusalem as he surely wanted to. Likewise we note that in :8, Nehemiah was powerless to throw Tobiah himself out of the apartment. He just threw his stuff out. This lack of power would explain his anger outbursts and frustration.
We note that there was a "Fish gate" built in the temple walls by Nehemiah, presumably named because this was where the imported fish was regularly brought. The sea was some way away, and fish was a luxury, imported item- only for the wealthy. And yet there was a famine at the time, according to Haggai and Malachi. So we are left with the impression of the wealthy, golah Jews, supported by money from Persia, enjoying a luxurious standard of living. Whilst at the same time apparently arguing for a hyper conservative application of Mosaic law.
Nehemiah 13:17 Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them,
What evil thing is this that you do, and profane the Sabbath day?-
I argued on Neh. 4:14 that "the nobles and rulers" were a group that were originally with Nehemiah, but turned against him. The wealthier nobles were particularly involved because it was luxury items such as fish (:16), wine and figs (:15) which were being traded. Judah profaned the Sabbath (:18), and profaned the temple by their marriage with Gentiles and their “weariness” with the temple ordinances (Mal. 1:12; 2:10,11). They got bored with the things of the Kingdom, and so they had no part in it. For the house of the restored Kingdom was not to be profaned (Ez. 44:7).
Nehemiah 13:18 Didn’t your fathers do thus, and didn’t our God bring all
this evil on us, and on this city? Yet you bring more wrath on Israel by
profaning the Sabbath- Here and in :26, Nehemiah appeals to
historical precedent as a reason not to repeat mistakes. This is how the
Bible, which is largely history, becomes a living word to us. The breaking
of the Sabbath is repeatedly listed as a major reason for the exile (Jer.
17:21-27; Ez. 20:13; 22:8,26); the land had to lay desolate 70 years to
enjoy the Sabbaths she had been denied by such disobedience ( Lev.
26:34,43). This emphasis is perhaps because the Sabbath taught the
rejection of all trust in human works, and total faith and trust in God's
saving grace. Thus the Sabbath became a unique sign between God and His
people; to desecrate it was to deny His grace.
Throughout Nehemiah 9, I argued that the prayer composed by Nehemiah and the Levites for "Israel" to pray is seriously deficient. It asks for nothing, not even for forgiveness, and laments the sins of their ancestors, blaming them for the exile. Just as the exiles had done in Ez. 18. Now Nehemiah is driven in :18 and :26 to accept that the generation before him had themselves sinned just as their ancestors had done. This, perhaps, is some final progress by Nehemiah. Although it was good for his personal spiritual path, it was a realization all too late. The memoir closes with his realization that his generation were sinning just like their ancestors. But with no recognition of that by them. Turn the page, and you are in the hypocritical Judaism of the first century that crucified the Lord.
As discussed on
:11, all this is Nehemiah's narrative. His record makes no note of their
response. They are silent. We get the impression they considered any
reasoning with him to be pointless. This confirms my suggestion that
Nehemiah railroaded the people into the covenant of Neh. 10. Therefore, as
soon as he left, they broke every aspect of it. Unsurprisingly. The
"nobles" had worked hard to support his wall rebuilding project. But it
seems he didn't like their power. And now he ends his ministry by ranting
and raving at them. As discussed on :11, he now comes to the end of his
days with no allies, no friends. Just an angry older man. With no family.
And leaving a legacy that led to the crucifixion of God's Son, their
Messiah; after having divided God's people into "Jews" and Samaritans.
When the Samaritans were upholding a community far closer to the picture
given in the prophets of how God wanted the post-exilic community to look.
Nehemiah 13:19 It came to pass that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to
be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and
commanded that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. I set
some of my servants over the gates, so that no burden should be brought in
on the Sabbath day-
The allusion is to Jer. 17:27 "If you will not listen to Me to make the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem". The terms "sabbath day" and "gates of Jerusalem" each occur seven times in Jer. 17:19-27. The point is that the gates were destroyed because of abuse of the sabbath. So they had rebuilt the walls that had been burnt exactly because of what they were now doing. They were no better than their ancestors, and were only still in the land by grace. The period of the exile had been structured in order to as it were pay back to the land the 70 sabbath years that had not been kept (2 Chron. 36:21). The exile was therefore related to sabbath breaking. To return to the land and again break the sabbath was just not learning anything at all. All their lamenting of their ancestors' sins in Neh. 9 is now shown to be fake. And Nehemiah realizes this- at the end of his life.
An indication that Nehemiah could have been a Messiah figure is to be found in Mal. 1:10 RV, which laments that even if one man could be found to shut the temple doors properly, then God’s pleasure would have returned to Israel. It was Nehemiah who shut the doors (Neh. 13:19- i.e. organized the temple services?), but presumably the implication is that he didn’t continue as required.
“The people of the land” hung around the gates of the city on the Sabbath in order to do some trading of goods. By allowing this, the Jews precluded the fulfilment of Ez. 46:3: “Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the LORD in the Sabbaths and in the new moons”. Is. 60:10 had prophesied that "Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you". The reality was that the walls were built from a motive not of glorifying Zion in fulfilment of prophecy, but for defence against the Gentiles. But the gates had to be shut to keep the Gentiles out, lest they yet further corrupted the Jews who were eager to trade with them on the Sabbath rather than convert them to the God of Israel. Instead of bringing their goods through the gates to lay before Yahweh, they brought in their goods to sell to His people in trade. But returned Judah didn’t act as a nation of priests, the food the Gentiles brought in to Zion was to be sold for profit to the Jews. They failed to be a missionary nation, and rather were mere trading / economic partners on an equal footing [cp. the church today?]. The prophecy that the gates would be always open will now only come true in the future Kingdom of God on earth (Rev. 21:25,26).
Due to the Jews’ abuse of the Sabbath and their refusal to believe Yahweh would be the promised wall of protecting fire to them, the gates could not be open continually, and had to be shut at night (Neh. 7:3; 13:19). And Antiochus quite soon after Nehemiah’s time destroyed them [which shows how the spirituality involved in what we do, e.g. the building of the wall, is the essential thing, rather than the achievement of anything in itself]. The implication of the prophecies about Zion’s open gates was that whosoever would could then come at any time to seek Yahweh. But men were potentially turned away from Him, and His Kingdom not realized... just because greedy, materialistic Jews wanted to have a few more coins in their pocket as a result of their trading on the Sabbath. And so with us, our meanness, our disabling of adverts to be placed, preaching to be done... by our selfishness, our desire to have more than we need to cover us in the case of any eventuality, all this effectively shuts up the Kingdom against men. If the Pharisees could do just this, it is possible for us to do it. The salvation of others has been delegated into our hands.
Nehemiah 13:20 So the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged
outside of Jerusalem once or twice- The impression we get from here
and :21 is that Nehemiah alone scared these people away; again we sense
that there was little real spirituality amongst the returned exiles, and
Nehemiah was a singular force in reforming things.
Nehemiah 13:21 Then I testified against them and said to them, Why do you
stay around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you. From
that time on, they didn’t come on the Sabbath-
"I will lay hands..."
again suggests as on :20 that Nehemiah alone was threatening action. He
appears to have had no significant group of spiritual supporters in the
community of returned exiles, again reflecting how the great potentials of
the restoration prophecies weren't fulfilled.
We may well ask, What should Nehemiah have done? I suggest he should have told them not to trade on the Sabbath, but instead of chasing them away, invited them to enter the temple and worship Yahweh. Instead he threatens them with physical violence.
Nehemiah 13:22 I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves,
and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day-
The Levites were concerned with the temple and sanctuary. Here they are told to act as guards at the "gates". Clearly the wall [in which were the gates] was around the temple area, not the entire city of Jerusalem. This confirms my earlier argument that the wall Nehemiah built was around the temple area and not the entire secular city.
They were to "come" and live in Jerusalem, abandoning the lands they were farming for themselves. This was perhaps why the Levites needed reminding here to keep the Sabbath. The majority of those who did return, only did so in order for purely personal benefit- of having their own house and land. They ‘went up’ to the land, but not to Zion. With reference to Is. 40:9, "get up to the high mountain” of Zion, Hag 1:7-9 exhorted them: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. Ye looked for much [i.e. they expected the promised Kingdom blessings], and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house”. Their focus was on their own lands and farms rather than the glory of Zion. They stood related to the things of God’s kingdom, but never ventured beyond their own personal self-interest. They would not accept that God manifestation rather than human salvation and pleasure was the essential purpose of their God.
Remember me, my God, for this also, and spare me according to the
greatness of Your loving grace- Nehemiah was inspired by Samson (Jud.
16:28 = Neh. 13:22,31), implying that despite his tendency to
judgmentalism and self-righteousness, he did also appreciate his own
desperate weakness and need for grace- perhaps because he finally
recognized his self-righteousness.
Nehemiah 13:23 In those days I also saw Jews who had married women of
Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab- The Jews who returned from exile were
not spiritually strong. These Gentile peoples had perhaps been moved into
Palestine by the Babylonians, or came there to trade. Although I
have suggested on Ezra 9:1 that the "Jews" guilty of intermarriage refer
to the Jewish community who had remained in the land after the exile.
Quite possibly the real concern was not
at all spiritual; but rather that in line with the rulings in Num. 27,36
about Zelophehad's daughters, and the records of the practice of the
Jewish community in Elephantine, a woman could inherit her husband's land.
The fear was that land now in the possession of golah Jews could possibly
pass over to their wife as an inheritance. The archives of Elephantine
record the case of an Egyptian woman named Tamut who married a Judean man
and inherited his land when he died. We recall that the “wives” in Neh. 5
complain that “we are having to pledge
our
fields, our
vineyards, and our
houses”. Women clearly could own property. Most cultures or ethnic groups
who disallowed 'marriage out' [exogamy] did so exactly because of this
concern about losing land. The Jerusalem temple system had excluded all
non golah Jews. It relied upon the tithes from the golah Jews, produced on
their farmland. If that land passed to non golah Jews, who perhaps were
already supporting the sanctuary at Gerizim, there would be serious
financial impact for them. No wonder they didn't want that land going to
other Jews whom they had excluded. Malachi's concern about marital matters
at this time was that the golah Jews and priests were having affairs with
women other than the wife of their youth (Mal. 2:10-16); not with who the
issue of who you married. Again we have to remember that the prohibition
on marriage to Gentiles was because this would lead to worshipping their
gods. Marriage to Gentiles alone was not a problem. We think of Moses,
Ruth, Rahab, the laws allowing Israelite soldiers to marry Gentile
captives. There was no need to reject people from Ashdod on a racial
level. Those people were specifically mentioned as becoming part of
"Judah" as God defined it: "Ashkelon... Gaza... Ekron… Ashkelon will be
left deserted. People of mixed race will live in Ashdod... I will humble
all these proud Philistines... All the survivors will become part of my
people and be like a clan in the tribe of Judah. Ekron will become part of
my people, as the Jebusites did" (Zech. 9:5-7).
Nehemiah 13:24 And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod, and
could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of
each people- This would imply that the Jewish men had married women
whose language they didn't understand. There is also the implication that
only speaking broken Hebrew was counted as not speaking Hebrew. This
language issue would have precluded them from hearing the law of Moses
explained or hearing the history of Israel read. This issue of
language would suggest that the "Jews" in view are those who had been
several generations in the land- the Jews who had remained there after the
exile, not those who had returned from Babylon. Another possibility arises
from reflecting that there was no language of Ashdod. Quite possibly, it
was a matter of dialect [or perhaps, a form of Aramaic] rather than a
totally different language to Hebrew. And Nehemiah is inflating this in
order to prove that division was necessary.
Nehemiah 13:25 I contended with them and cursed them, and struck certain
of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, You shall
not give your daughters to their sons, nor take their daughters for your
sons, or for yourselves- To have hair plucked off was if Nehemiah was
trying to force them to repent; but we cannot force repentance in others,
even if we try to force them to go through the external motions of it, in
this case, the plucking off of hair as repentance for marriage out of the
faith. Ezra rends his clothes and plucks off
his hair, as
if he has married out of the Faith (Ezra 9:4 cp. Neh. 13:25; likewise the Lord
received the same sinner's treatment, Is. 50:6). Jeremiah too speaks as if
he has committed Israel's sins; Moses' prayer for God to
relent and let him enter the land was only rejected for the sake of his
association with Israel's sins (Dt. 3:26). The Lord would have meditated
upon the way righteous men had taken upon themselves the sins of their
people.
But on what basis did Nehemiah think he use physical violence? He who claimed such careful obedience to Mosaic law could only be forcing an interpretation of Dt. 25:1,2: "If there is a controversy between men, and they come to judgment and the judges judge them, then they must justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. If the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence according to his wickedness, by number". But there is no record of judges judging and then deciding upon a judgment of a certain number of beatings. And is marriage out of the faith really in this context of "a controversy between men"? And where was the Mosaic justification for pulling out another man's hair? It seems to me that Nehemiah's lashing out, now at the end of his life and as an old man, was all because he died angry and frustrated. As do so many legalists, bitterly disappointed in the state of their community and their own failure to have reformed it. Those who read Nehemiah as a wonderful reformer are simply not taking all this into account.
Nehemiah 13:26 Didn’t Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? Yet
among many nations was there no king like him that was beloved of his God,
and God made him king over all Israel. Nevertheless foreign women caused
even him to sin- Here and in :18, Nehemiah appeals to
historical precedent as a reason not to repeat mistakes. This is how the
Bible, which is largely history, becomes a living word to us. And this was
the tragedy of the children of the intermarried Jews being unable to read
or hear Hebrew; this history wouldn't be available to them. The power of
women is here emphasized, as if unbelieving wives are as it were stronger
than all the special love of God poured out upon a man. This stands in
stark contrast to the prevailing culture, which viewed women as powerless
and the man as supremely dominant in a marriage. God's continual warning
about the influence of wives is actually a deconstruction of this; and the
Jewish men who married Gentile women likely believed in their cultural
views of women more than they did God's word. They assumed those women
were powerless to influence them. God's word accords far more value and
meaning to every human person, including Gentile females.
Nehemiah 13:27 Shall we then listen to you to do all this great evil, in
breaking covenant with our God in marrying foreign wives?- See on
:26. Perhaps the nobles had made some official statement that marrying
Gentile women was acceptable, and Nehemiah is saying that this should not
be listened to. Or perhaps he was saying that their example in marrying
these women was effectively a voice beckoning others to do likewise, which
should be ignored. For in marital and moral matters, the voice of example
is indeed very loud. This verse is in my view the strongest single
argument against marriage out of the faith, because it seems to state that
in this case, these men would be breaking covenant with Yahweh by marrying
those not in that covenant.
Nehemiah's argument is that because these men had married those whom he considered foreigners, even though they were likely just non-golah Jews, they were teaching Israel to break covenant with Yahweh. He casts them as false teachers, who must not be listened to, because they were enticing Israel to commit a "great evil". I have previously argued that marriage to Gentiles wasn't wrong in itself; we think of Moses, Ruth, Rahab etc. The Samaritan community included Jews and Gentiles in a multi-ethnic community, worshipping Yahweh and following Torah. That in fact is the picture we have of God's intention for the restored Kingdom after the exile. What was wrong with intermarriage was the idolatry which this could lead to. No idolatry is recorded, the only accusation is that their children didn't speak the pure Hebrew of the golah Jews. I suggest that Nehemiah is framing these men as false teachers, leading Israel to commit heinous evil and to break covenant with Yahweh. According to the Mosaic law, such people should be killed by stoning (Dt. 13:6-10). Nehemiah likes to present himself as gracious in not having these men executed. But he is imputing sin to them; just as religious legalists tend to. 'You did this, which implies this, and it logically follows that you therefore believe that, and so that implies you are this... terrible person'. I saw the same in my own life's path. I disagreed with a position on baptism and fellowship... and this led to a series of other conclusions about me, concluding I was an atheist, Muslim, homosexual, Communist, sociopath etc. None of which were at all true. And I saw so many treated likewise. And I discern in all of us a tendency to demonize the one we disagree with, imputing sin- whereas we are saved by the grace of imputed righteousness. And we must reflect that in our dealings with our brethren.
Nehemiah 13:28 One of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high
priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him
from me- Eliashib and his sons were originally supportive of
Nehemiah's wall rebuilding (Neh. 3:1). But here we learn that Eliashib himself was connected by marriage with Tobiah. We
have presented here the apostasy of the high priestly family. They had
broken covenant with God (:27) and yet were the spiritual leaders of the
returned exiles. We are given the impression of deep corruption of the
people. This man was chased from Nehemiah, perhaps meaning he was not
allowed any place in the leadership. Yet
Nehemiah's overly physically aggressive attitude to people (see on :25)
leads us to imagine Nehemiah physically threatening this man so that he
ran away from Nehemiah.
Nehemiah 13:29 Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the
priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites-
In Mal. 2:8, Malachi's comment is that they had indeed broken the priestly covenant- but not because of who they let their children or grandchildren marry: "You are turned aside out of the way; you have caused many to stumble in the law; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi".
LXX "for their false connection with the priesthood". The son of Joiada who had married Sanballat's Gentile daughter therefore had no connection with the priesthood, in God's eyes. The "covenant of the priesthood" was "everlasting" (Num. 25:13), just as the old covenant was; but it was eternal from God's side. The fact is that the Levites broke the eternal covenant by their sins. We may query whether Nehemiah's request that their sins be "remembered" was in fact in harmony with God's way of not wishing to "remember" sin against people. And even if He does, why would Nehemiah ask Him to do so? It seems another indication of a somewhat legalistic and judgmental attitude in Nehemiah.
Nehemiah 13:30 Thus I cleansed them from all foreigners, and appointed
duties for the priests and for the Levites, each one in his work- The
cleansing seems to have involved making the spiritual leadership break up
from their foreign wives. But the idea here may also be that despite the
apostasy of the leadership, Nehemiah organized the ordinary priests and
Levites to get on with the Lord's work- which is a lesson for us all when
spiritual leadership goes wrong morally, or becomes dysfunctional.
We note that Nehemiah thought that divorcing a Gentile wife meant
being cleansed from foreigners (Neh. 13:30 "Thus I cleansed them from all
foreigners"). This implies he thought interracial marriage was a
defilement of itself. He wrongly assumed that the Jewish blood line was
pure- when it never was. For intermarriage had been so common. No mention
is made of whether these Gentiles were idolatrous or not.
Nehemiah 13:31 And for the wood offering, at times appointed, and for the
first fruits- It was this humble service, which was supposed to be
the work of the Nethinim, which nobody much wanted to do. Ezra had had
huge problems getting any Levites to come to Jerusalem to do such menial
work. Nehemiah had already tried to sort out who would gather firewood in
Neh. 10:34; but clearly it remained an abiding problem. As it is to this
day; for there are very few real 'workers' amongst the people of God.
Remember me, my God, for good- This repeated and even desperate request to be remembered for good in the last day was perhaps what influenced the penitent thief to ask the same of the dying Lord Jesus. Nehemiah is the last book of the Old Testament. In my judgment, Nehemiah has set up the situation that came to full climax at the Lord's time- an Israel dominated by a legalistic elite who were misteaching God's law, spiritually abusing the mass of the people, and despising the Samaritans. That legalism, like all legalism, came to full term in the crucifixion of God's Son. This is not to say that Nehemiah will not be saved, nor that no legalist can be saved. For we all have elements of legalism. But this is where legalism leads in its full term. The Jews of the Lord's day argued that "This people who know not the law are cursed"- because they thought Jesus of Nazareth was their Messiah and Saviour. This is how far wrong Bible students can go... and it is a sober lesson.
On Neh. 7:7 I commented
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