The Wall Acquires Names

Eliashib, grandson of the Jeshua who led the first return (12:10), starts at the Sheep Gate in the north-east, near the temple, where animals for sacrifice came in; John 5:2 places the pool of Bethesda by it. Meah means “hundred”. Jeremiah 31:38 foresaw the city rebuilt “from the tower of Hananeel”. Only this gate is said to be sanctified.

Jericho lay fifteen miles away and a thousand metres lower, yet its men took the section beside the priests. The phrase “next unto him”, which will carry the chapter, appears here for the first time. The list runs anticlockwise from the Sheep Gate, and will come back to it in verse 32.

“Laid the beams thereof” is literally “roofed it”: a gate was a covered gatehouse with chambers, not a pair of doors in a gap. Doors, locks and bars complete the fittings. The Fish Gate, on the north wall, faced the road from the coast.

Meremoth son of Urijah son of Koz belongs to the priestly family of Hakkoz, which could not find its register at the first return (Ezra 2:61-62). By now Meremoth is a trusted priest who weighed Ezra’s treasure. Meshullam son of Berechiah later married his daughter to Tobiah’s son (6:18).

Tekoa, the home of the prophet Amos, lay ten miles south. The nobles “put not their necks” to the work, the image of an ox refusing the yoke. “Their Lord” may mean their human superiors or the LORD; the Hebrew plural allows either.

“The old gate” may be the gate of Jeshanah, a town to the north, or the gate of the Mishneh, the newer quarter. Meshullam son of Besodeiah has a name meaning “in the counsel of the LORD”, the intimate counsel of Psalm 25:14.

Gibeon and Mizpah were north of Jerusalem, and Mizpah had been the seat of government under Gedaliah after 586 BC (Jeremiah 40:6). “The throne of the governor on this side the river” suggests an official residence for the Persian provincial governor, and these men repaired up to it.

Goldsmiths were refiners of metal, and the apothecaries made perfumes, ointments and incense for the temple. “Fortified” translates a verb that usually means “abandoned”; many read it that way, that they left Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall, so that Nehemiah’s circuit abandoned the western hill Hezekiah had enclosed.

Jerusalem’s district was divided into two halves, each with its own ruler; Shallum ruled the other half (verse 12). Rephaiah the son of Hur held one, and the half-district rulers were Persian administrative officers who took a working share in the rebuilding too.

“Even over against his house” is the first time the phrase appears. A man who repairs the wall in front of his own home has every reason to do it properly. Hattush son of Hashabniah is a different man from the royal descendant of Ezra 8:2.

“The other piece” is literally “a second measure”, as if these men had already done one stretch not listed. A Malchiah of the sons of Harim is named among those with foreign wives in Ezra 10:31. The tower of the furnaces probably stood near the bakers’ street of Jeremiah 37:21.

Shallum’s daughters are the only women named in the work. Some interpreters read “daughters” as daughter villages, the way the Hebrew uses it of towns in Numbers 21:25, but the plain sense is his own daughters. Halohesh means “the whisperer”, perhaps a snake-charmer.

Zanoah lay about thirteen miles south-west in the Shephelah (Joshua 15:34). A thousand cubits is roughly 450 metres, far longer than any other section, which suggests this western stretch had suffered less. The gate’s fittings are listed in full: doors, locks, bars.

Beth-haccerem, “house of the vineyard”, is where Jeremiah 6:1 said a fire signal should be raised; many identify it with Ramat Rahel, a Persian-period administrative site south of Jerusalem. Malchiah son of Rechab may belong to the Rechabites of Jeremiah 35, though that is a guess.

Shallun son of Col-hozeh, “the all-seer”, does four tasks: builds, roofs, fits the doors and repairs the wall. The pool of Siloah is Shelah, whose name means “sent”, the waters of Isaiah 8:6 and the pool of John 9:7. A stepped street going down from the city of David toward it has been excavated.

The sepulchres of David were still known in Peter’s day; Acts 2:29 says “his sepulchre is with us unto this day”. “The pool that was made” is an artificial reservoir, and “the house of the mighty” may be old barracks for the royal guard. Beth-zur was a fortress town north of Hebron.

The Levites appear as a group. Keilah is the town David rescued from the Philistines, whose people would still have handed him over to Saul (1 Samuel 23:12). Its district, like Jerusalem’s, was split in two, and Hashabiah worked “in his part”.

Bavai governed the other half of Keilah, so both halves of that district are working side by side. Bavai is called “the son of Henadad”, as Binnui is in verse 24; some manuscripts read Binnui here too, which would make them one man.

The ruler of Mizpah, Ezer son of Jeshua, takes a stretch facing “the going up to the armoury”, a slope rising to the arsenal. “The turning of the wall” is an angle in the circuit, where the line changed direction on the eastern hill.

Baruch son of Zabbai is the only builder given an adverb. “Earnestly” translates a verb meaning to burn or glow; some manuscripts have a similar word meaning “toward the hill”. The section ends at the high priest’s front door.

Meremoth, already named in verse 4, takes a second stretch that runs from the door of Eliashib’s house to its far end, so the high priest’s residence was long enough to need its own section. Two sections from one man is noted without comment.

“The men of the plain” are priests living in the kikkar, the district round the Jordan near Jericho or the area around Jerusalem. The term is the one used in Genesis 13:10 of Lot’s choice of the plain of Jordan.

Three men repair beside their own homes: Benjamin and Hashub opposite, Azariah “by his house”. This part of the eastern wall ran past residences, and the list shows who lived where in 444 BC.

Binnui son of Henadad, of the Levite family named in Ezra 3:9, works to “the corner”, where the wall bent again. The corners and turnings of these verses trace the uneven line of the eastern ridge.

“The king’s high house” is the old royal palace, and “the court of the prison” is the court of the guard where Jeremiah was confined during the last siege (Jeremiah 32:2). Palal son of Uzai is found nowhere else. The palace itself had been burned in 586, but its projecting tower was repaired.

The verse records where the Nethinims lived, not what they built: on the Ophel, the ridge between the city of David and the temple. The Water Gate on the east led down toward the Gihon spring; its square is where Ezra later read the law to the whole people (8:1).

The Tekoites take a second section beside “the great tower that lieth out”. A large projecting tower found on the Ophel slope by Kathleen Kenyon was once attributed to Nehemiah’s work, though its date is now disputed.

The Horse Gate is where Athaliah was taken out of the temple and killed (2 Chronicles 23:15). The priests repair here, each opposite his own house, on the side of the city nearest the temple, where the priests had their homes.

Zadok son of Immer is of the priestly house of Ezra 2:37. Shemaiah is “keeper of the east gate”, probably the east gate of the temple court, the gate Ezekiel 44:2 saw shut because the LORD had entered by it.

“Hanun the sixth son of Zalaph” is one of the few places in the Old Testament a man is identified by birth order, a detail recorded because it was known. Meshullam son of Berechiah repairs opposite “his chamber”, a single room, perhaps a temple chamber, rather than a house.

Miphkad means “muster” or “appointment”, so this may be the inspection gate where people or troops were counted. “The going up of the corner” is literally the upper room of the corner, a chamber over the north-east angle. The merchants’ quarter lay nearby.

The goldsmiths and merchants close the circuit back at the Sheep Gate, trades that depended on a secure market next to the temple. About forty sections have been assigned, and Nehemiah never once names himself as a builder among them.