The Holy City Must Become an Inhabited City

One in ten is a tithe of people, set beside the tithes of produce just pledged in 10:37. The lot left the choice to God, as Proverbs 16:33 says of it. The rulers are already resident, so the burden of moving falls on ordinary households.

“Willingly offered themselves” is the verb of the freewill offering, used for gifts to the temple in Ezra 1:6 and 2:68, and for Deborah’s volunteers, “the people willingly offered themselves” (Judges 5:2). Settling in Jerusalem is counted as an offering.

1 Chronicles 9:2–34 carries a parallel list of the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the exile, with many of the same names in a slightly different form; the two seem to draw on a common record. “His possession” is the family holding, which most kept.

Perez was Judah’s son by Tamar (Genesis 38:29) and the ancestor of David (Ruth 4:18–22). Athaiah’s pedigree runs back six generations to Mahalaleel, a name last seen in the line before the flood (Genesis 5:12).

Shiloni probably means “the Shelanite”, of the line of Shelah, Judah’s third son (Numbers 26:20). So Judah’s settlers come through two of his sons, Perez in verse 4 and Shelah here. Col-hozeh, “the all-seer”, is also the father of Shallun who repaired the Fountain Gate (3:15).

Four hundred and sixty eight from the whole house of Perez. “Valiant men” is anshe chayil, which can mean men of means or of fighting quality; the city needed both. The number is small for David’s own clan, which is why the lot was needed.

Sallu’s pedigree is seven generations deep, the longest in the Benjamin list. 1 Chronicles 9:7 names the same Sallu son of Meshullam, a sign that the two lists share a source.

Benjamin sends 928, twice Judah’s 468. Jerusalem had been assigned to Benjamin in the first allotment (Joshua 18:28), and the tribe’s towns lay close by to the north. Gabbai and Sallai are otherwise unknown.

“Second over the city” may mean deputy, or it may mean in charge of the Mishneh, the Second Quarter, the newer district where Huldah the prophetess lived (2 Kings 22:14, where the King James calls it “the college”). Joel son of Zichri is over the Benjamites.

Jedaiah, Joiarib and Jachin are the names of the second, first and twenty first priestly courses (1 Chronicles 24:7, 24:17). The parallel in 1 Chronicles 9:10 lists them as three names, which suggests “the son of” here is a slip and three priestly houses are meant.

Seraiah’s line runs back through Zadok, Solomon’s priest, to Ahitub. “Ruler of the house of God” is nagid, a title used of the chief officer of the temple. 1 Chronicles 9:11 gives the name as Azariah son of Hilkiah, the name of Seraiah’s own father in 1 Chronicles 6:13–14.

Eight hundred and twenty two priests who “did the work of the house”, the daily round of the altar. Adaiah descends from Pashur son of Malchiah, the official who urged the king to put Jeremiah to death (Jeremiah 38:1–4). The descendants of Jeremiah’s enemies serve in the rebuilt house.

Two hundred and forty two “chief of the fathers”, heads of priestly families, and Amashai traces his line to Immer, the house of 7:40. Adding verses 12 to 14 gives 1,192 priests living in the city.

Priests who are “mighty men of valour” may be men of standing rather than soldiers. The King James reads Zabdiel as “the son of one of the great men”; the Hebrew is ben haggedolim, and many take Haggedolim as a proper name, so his father would be a man called Haggedolim.

Shemaiah is traced back through Hashabiah and Bunni; 1 Chronicles 9:14 adds that the family belonged to the sons of Merari, one of the three Levite clans. Hashub, his father, may be one of the repairers of that name.

Shabbethai and Jozabad both helped explain the law in 8:7. A Jozabad son of Jeshua weighed the temple silver with Meremoth when Ezra arrived (Ezra 8:33), and a Shabbethai took a position in the dispute over foreign marriages (Ezra 10:15). “Outward business” is work outside the sanctuary itself.

“The principal to begin” is literally “the head of the beginning”: Mattaniah strikes up the thanksgiving. Abda descends from Jeduthun, so two of David’s three singing families (1 Chronicles 25:1) are now in the city, where the register of 7:44 had only Asaph.

Two hundred and eighty four Levites against 1,192 priests. The imbalance of the register in chapter 7 persists in the city itself, and chapter 13 will show the Levites leaving altogether when their portions stop.

A hundred and seventy two gatekeepers now, against 138 in the older register (7:45). Akkub and Talmon are family names that run from the first return to Nehemiah’s own day (12:25).

“In his inheritance” is nachalah, the word Joshua uses for the tribal allotments. The rest of Israel, priests and Levites included, live on their family lands as though the division under Joshua still held.

Ophel is the ridge between the City of David and the temple mount, and 3:26 places the temple servants there, close to their work. Ziha’s family heads the list of temple servants in 7:46; Gispa appears only here.

Uzzi is a great grandson of Mattaniah son of Micha, the singer of verse 17, so this line is written a few generations after that one. The singers of Asaph are set “over the business of the house”, overseers as well as musicians.

Persian kings did fund temple service: Darius ordered daily supplies for the sacrifices (Ezra 6:9), and Artaxerxes exempted singers and other temple staff from tax (Ezra 7:24). A royal order for a daily portion fits that pattern. Which king gave it the verse does not say.

Zerah was Perez’s twin, the son whose hand came out first with a scarlet thread tied on it (Genesis 38:28–30). Pethahiah, from that line, is Judah’s agent at the Persian court. So both of Tamar’s twins are represented: Perez inside the city, Zerah at the king’s side.

Kirjath-arba is the old name of Hebron (Joshua 14:15), still in use five centuries after Joshua changed it. Jekabzeel is the Kabzeel of Joshua 15:21, the home town of Benaiah, David’s captain (2 Samuel 23:20). This Dibon is a Judean village, not the Moabite city.

Moladah and Beth-phelet are towns of the southern Negev (Joshua 15:26–27), and Moladah had been given to Simeon (Joshua 19:2). Jeshua, as a town, is otherwise unknown; it bears the same name as the high priest of the return.

Hazar-shual means “enclosure of the fox”. Beer-sheba, “the well of the oath” (Genesis 21:31), was the southern limit of the land in the phrase “from Dan even to Beer-sheba”. Settlement now reaches that far again.

Ziklag is the town Achish of Gath gave David, which the Amalekites burned while he was away (1 Samuel 27:6; 30:1). Mekonah is named nowhere else. The returnees are living in towns that belonged to David’s outlaw years.

En-rimmon, “spring of the pomegranate”, joins two names listed separately in Joshua 15:32. Zareah is Zorah, Samson’s birthplace (Judges 13:2). Jarmuth’s king was one of the five Amorite kings who fought Joshua at Gibeon (Joshua 10:3).

Lachish and Azekah were the last two fortified cities of Judah still standing when Babylon closed in (Jeremiah 34:7). One of the ostraca found at Lachish says its garrison was watching for the signals of Azekah and could no longer see them. “From Beer-sheba unto the valley of Hinnom” spans the whole of Judah’s settlement.

Bethel had belonged to the northern kingdom, and Josiah pulled down its altar (2 Kings 23:15). Here it is a town of Benjamin. Aija is Ai. The Hebrew is abrupt; “from Geba” probably means the Benjamites lived from Geba northward.

Nob was the city of priests Saul destroyed through Doeg the Edomite (1 Samuel 22:19), and Isaiah pictures the Assyrian shaking his fist at Jerusalem from there (Isaiah 10:32). Ananiah has been identified with Bethany, Beth-anya, though that rests on the name alone.

This Hazor is a village of Benjamin, not the great Canaanite city in Galilee. Gittaim is where the men of Beeroth fled after Saul’s time (2 Samuel 4:3), the town of Rechab and Baanah who murdered Ishbosheth.

Zeboim here is a Benjamite town near the valley of that name (1 Samuel 13:18), not the city destroyed with Sodom. Hadid appeared in the register with Lod and Ono (7:37). Neballat occurs only here.

The valley of craftsmen is Ge-harashim (1 Chronicles 4:14), named for the craftsmen who lived there. Ono, where Sanballat tried to lure Nehemiah (6:2), is now settled by men of Benjamin.

The Hebrew is compressed and probably means that some divisions of Levites that had belonged in Judah were settled with Benjamin. Levites had no tribal territory (Numbers 18:23–24) and lived scattered among the other tribes, which is why their placement needs its own line.