The Covenant Reaches the Household and the Storehouse

Nehemiah seals first, under his Persian title. Zidkijah is otherwise unknown. Ezra is missing from the list entirely; his family was the priestly house of Seraiah (Ezra 7:1), which heads the priests in the next verse, so he may be counted under his house’s name rather than his own.

Most of the priestly names in verses 2 to 8 are houses rather than individuals, and they match the heads of priestly families in 12:1–7. Seraiah was the name of the high priest Nebuchadnezzar executed at Riblah (2 Kings 25:18–21); his line survived him. This Jeremiah is a priestly house (12:1, 12:12), not the prophet.

Pashur is the large priestly house of 7:41. Malchijah held the fifth of David’s twenty four priestly courses (1 Chronicles 24:9). Amariah’s house appears again in 12:13, where its head in the next generation is Jehohanan.

Shebaniah is spelled Shechaniah in 12:3, and Malluch is Melicu in 12:14; the same houses under two spellings. Hattush is also the name of a descendant of David who came back with Ezra (Ezra 8:2), but this Hattush is priestly (12:2).

Meremoth son of Urijah weighed the temple silver when Ezra arrived (Ezra 8:33) and repaired two sections of wall (3:4, 3:21). His grandfather was Koz, one of the priestly families whose descent could not be proved in 7:63; Meremoth serving as a priest suggests the claim was later accepted.

Daniel is a priest of the line of Ithamar who came with Ezra (Ezra 8:2), not the prophet of Babylon. Ginnethon is the Ginnetho of 12:4. A Baruch son of Zabbai repaired “earnestly” in 3:20, the only builder the book singles out for his zeal.

Abijah held the eighth priestly course (1 Chronicles 24:10); Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, was “of the course of Abia” when the angel met him in the temple (Luke 1:5). Mijamin held the sixth. Meshullam is one of the commonest names in the book.

Maaziah held the last of the twenty four courses and Bilgai is the Bilgah of the fifteenth (1 Chronicles 24:14, 24:18). The Mishnah (Sukkah 5:8) records that in later centuries Bilgah’s ring in the temple slaughter court was fixed in place as a penalty on the house. Twenty one priestly names close the list.

Jeshua and Kadmiel were the Levite heads of the first return (7:43; Ezra 3:9); Jeshua is given his father’s name here to keep him apart from the high priest of the same name. The sons of Henadad repaired the wall, and Binnui son of Henadad is named at 3:24.

Kelita, Hodijah, Pelaiah and Hanan were all among the Levites who explained the law to the crowd in 8:7, so the teachers sign what they taught. Ezra 10:23 notes that Kelita was also called Kelaiah, and places him among those who put away foreign wives.

Micha is the name of the grandfather of Mattaniah, who leads the thanksgiving in 11:17, so this house belonged to the singers of Asaph. A Levite Hashabiah ruled half the district of Keilah and repaired for his district in 3:17.

Sherebiah is the Levite Ezra 8:18 calls “a man of understanding”, found when Ezra had no Levites for his caravan. Shebaniah appears for the second time among the Levites (verse 10), whether two men or one written twice. Zaccur’s son Hanan will be made a treasurer in 13:13.

Hodijah is here for the second time among the Levites, and a lay Hodijah follows in verse 18: three uses of a name that means “splendour of the LORD”. Beninu, “our son”, appears nowhere else in the Bible. The Levites number seventeen names in all.

The lay leaders begin with the families of the register, in almost the same order: Parosh, Pahath-moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani, as in 7:8–15. They sign as houses, the head putting the family’s name to the oath.

Azgad and Bebai are two more houses from the register (7:16–17), here with their order swapped. Bunni is also a Levite name (9:4), a reminder that the same name could run in both lay and Levite families.

Bigvai and Adin follow each other here as they do in 7:19–20. Adonijah, “the LORD is my Lord”, sits where Adonikam, “my lord has arisen”, stands in that register, and many take the two names as one family.

Azzur is also the name of the father of Hananiah of Gibeon, the prophet who broke Jeremiah’s yoke and died within the year (Jeremiah 28:1, 28:17). A common name in Benjamin, in all likelihood, rather than the same family.

Hashum and Bezai stand in the same order here as in the register (7:22–23). Hashum was also among the men at Ezra’s left hand on the platform (8:4), a family active at both the reading and the sealing.

Anathoth is a town (7:27), yet here it seals like a person. Either a man carried the town’s name or the townsmen signed as a body. Nebai may be the Nebo of 7:33.

Magpiash may be the Magbish that Ezra 2:30 lists and Nehemiah’s copy of the register left out. Hezir is the name of the seventeenth priestly course (1 Chronicles 24:15), and a tomb in the Kidron Valley still carries a Hebrew inscription naming “the sons of Hezir” as priests. This Hezir is listed among the laymen.

Meshezabeel means “God delivers”. A Meshezabeel was grandfather of the Meshullam who repaired the wall (3:4), and another was father of Pethahiah, the Judean who stood at the Persian king’s hand (11:24). Jaddua is also the name of a later high priest (12:11).

Pelatiah is the name of the prince who dropped dead while Ezekiel prophesied against the leaders of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 11:13). Anaiah stood at Ezra’s right hand at the reading (8:4). Hanan appears for the second time in this chapter.

Hoshea was Joshua’s name before Moses changed it (Numbers 13:16). A Hashub son of Pahath-moab repaired a section and the Tower of the Furnaces (3:11), and another Hashub repaired opposite his house (3:23).

Hallohesh means “the whisperer”, perhaps a snake charmer, a word Psalm 58:5 uses of charmers. His son Shallum, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repaired a section of wall “he and his daughters” (3:12), the only women the book mentions at the work.

Rehum is also the name of the Persian official who wrote to Artaxerxes to stop the building of Jerusalem (Ezra 4:8), a different man. Maaseiah is a common priestly and lay name; one stood on Ezra’s right at the reading (8:4).

Hanan appears a third time in this chapter (verses 10, 22 and here), which is why the lists so often add a father’s name. Anan, a shortened form, occurs only here. The repetition shows how few names a small community drew on.

Baanah was one of the twelve leaders of the first return (7:7), and Malluch and Harim both have priestly namesakes in verses 4 and 5. The lay list ends at forty four names, making eighty four seals in all with Nehemiah.

The rest of the people are listed in the order of the register in chapter 7: priests, Levites, porters, singers, temple servants. Wives, sons and daughters join by oath though not by seal. From verse 30 the text changes to “we”, the voice of the covenant document itself.

“Clave” is the verb of Genesis 2:24, a man cleaving to his wife: the people hold fast to their leaders. A “curse and an oath” pairs the self-curse on the one who breaks faith with the sworn promise, as in Deuteronomy 29:12, “thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath”.

The clause restates Deuteronomy 7:3, “thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son”. There the peoples were Canaanites; here “the people of the land” are the neighbours of Judah in Persian times. The pledge fails in 13:23–28.

No law of Moses spells out a ban on buying on the sabbath; the covenant draws the line itself. Amos 8:5 had pictured merchants impatient for the sabbath to end. The seventh year joins two laws that the Torah keeps apart: the fallow year of Exodus 23:10–11 and the release of debts in Deuteronomy 15:1–2.

Exodus 30:13 set a half shekel for each man at a census; the community here sets itself a third of a shekel, yearly. By the time of Jesus the temple tax was again a half shekel, the didrachma collectors asked Peter about (Matthew 17:24). “Charge ourselves” means no king or governor imposed it.

The shewbread is literally “bread of the row”, twelve loaves set in two rows each sabbath (Leviticus 24:5–8). The continual burnt offering is the tamid, a lamb at morning and at evening (Numbers 28:3–8). The list runs from the daily to the weekly to the monthly to the yearly.

No wood offering is prescribed in the law, so “as it is written” must point to the fire that “shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out” (Leviticus 6:13). The Mishnah (Taanit 4:5) later lists the days of the year fixed for family wood offerings, among them the sons of Parosh and of Pahath-moab.

Firstfruits of the ground are commanded in Exodus 23:19, and Deuteronomy 26:1–11 describes the basket and the words spoken over it. Adding the fruit of “all trees” extends the rule well past grain, following Leviticus 19:23–25 on fruit trees.

“Cattle” here covers animals that cannot be offered, such as the ass, whose firstborn was to be redeemed with a lamb (Exodus 13:13). The “firstlings of our herds and of our flocks” are the clean animals that go to the altar. The verse keeps the two categories distinct.

The firstfruits of dough is the portion of Numbers 15:20–21, a cake from the first of the kneading. The tithes stay with the Levites in the farming towns, as Numbers 18:21 gives them, so the grain did not all have to be carried to Jerusalem. “Chambers” are the storerooms round the temple courts.

The tithe of the tithes, a tenth of the Levites’ tenth, is the priests’ share (Numbers 18:26). A priest going with the Levites at the collection is a new check the law does not require, a witness on the spot. The chain goes field, Levite, priest, treasury.

Corn, new wine and oil, dagan, tirosh and yitshar, are the tithe triad of Deuteronomy 14:23. The chambers also hold “the vessels of the sanctuary”, the vessels returned from Babylon (Ezra 1:7–11). The final promise is a negative one, and 13:11 will ask why it was broken.