Alastair's Adversaria - Biblical Reading and Reflection: Nehemiah 7

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

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Nehemiah chapter 7. Now when the wall had been built and I had set up the doors and the gatekeepers, the singers and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother Hennani and Hananiah the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and god-fearing man than many. And I said to them, let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. And while they are still standing guard, let them shut and bar the doors, appoint gods from among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that they are still standing guard. Some at their guard posts and some in front of their own homes. The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt. Then my guard put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy. And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written in it. These were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon had carried into exile. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his town.

They came with Zerubbibah, Jesua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Rehemiah, Nehemiah, Mordechai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvi, Nehem, Beanna. The number of the men of the people of Israel, the sons of Perrosh, 2,172. The sons of Sheffathe, 372. The sons of Ere, 652. The sons of Pahath Moab, namely the sons of Jesua and Joab, 2,818. The sons of Elam, 1,254. The sons of Zatu, 845. The sons of Zaki, 760.

The sons of Binui, 648. The sons of Bebi, 628. The sons of Asgad, 2,322. The sons of Adonikam, 667. The sons of Bigvi, 2006. The sons of Aden, 655. The sons of Aeta, namely of Hezekiah, 98. The sons of Hashem, 328.

The sons of Bezai, 324. The sons of Heiroth, 112. The sons of Gibbon, 95. The men of Bethlehem and Notofa, 188. The men of Anathothoth, 128. The men of Beth Asmabeth, 42. The men of Kiryath Jiram, Kaffaira and Beiroth, 743. The men of Rima and Giba, 621.

The men of McMas, 122. The men of Bethel and Aai, 123. The men of the other Nibo, 52. The sons of the other Elam, 1,254. The sons of Haim, 320. The sons of Jericho, 345. The sons of Lode, Hayd, and Ono, 721, the sons of Senea, 3,930. The priests, the sons of Judaya, namely the house of Jesua,

973. The sons of Ima, 152. The sons of Pasha, 1,247. The sons of Haim, 1,017. The Levites, the sons of Jesua, namely of Cadmiel of the sons of Hodeva, 74. The singers, the sons of Asaph, 148. The gatekeepers, the sons of Shalom, the sons of Atah, the sons of Talmon, the sons of Akhub, the sons of Hataita, the sons of Shob, 138. The temple servants, the sons of Zheha, the sons of Hesufa, the sons of Tabayoth, the sons of Kyrus, the sons of Padan, the sons of Labena, the sons of Hageaba, the sons of Shalmy, the sons of Hainan, the sons of Gidil, the sons of Geha, the sons of Reza, the sons of Nekhoda, the sons of Ghasam, the sons of Uzzar, the sons of Pasei, the sons of Meunim, the sons of Nefu Shisim, the sons of Nefu Shisim, the sons of The sons of Backbook, the sons of Hakufa, the sons of Ha'er, the sons of Pazlith, the sons of Mahida, the sons of Harsha, the sons of Barcos, the sons of Cicera, the sons of Tema, the sons of Naziah, the sons of Hatifa, the sons of Hattae, the sons of Solomon's servants, the sons of Sotai, the sons of Sophorath, the sons of Sophorath, the sons of Sophorath, the sons of Sophorahim, the sons of Sophorahim, the sons of Sophearthiom, the sons of Scythiom, the sons of Sons of Amon, all the temple's servants and the sons of Solomon's servants were 32. The following were those who came up from Telmila, Telhasha, Kirob, Adon, and Ima,

but they could not prove their father's houses nor their descent, whether they belonged to Israel. The sons of Deliah, the sons of Tobiah, the sons of Nekota, 642. Also of the priests, the sons of Habeah, the sons of Hacchaz, the sons of Baselai, who had taken a wife of the daughter. of Baselai the Gileadite and was called by their name. These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but it was not found there, so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. The governor told them that they were not to partake of the most holy food until the priest with Eurim and Thummim should arise. The whole assembly together was 42,360, besides their

male and female servants, of whom there were 7,337, and they had 200 of them. and forty-five singers, male and female. Their horses were 736, their mules 245, their camels 435, and their donkeys 6,720. Now some of the heads of father's houses gave to the work. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 daryks of gold, 50 basins, 30 priest garments, and 500 miners of silver, and some of the heads of father's houses gave in to the treasury of the work, 20,000 daryks of gold, and 2,200 miners of silver. And what the rest of the people gave was 20,000 daryks of gold, 2,000 miners of silver, and 67 priests garments. So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple's servants, and all Israel lived in their towns.

And when the seventh month had come, the people of Israel were in their towns. Following the completion of the wall's construction, Nehemiah committed the security of Jerusalem to the charge of reliable men, or possibly just a reliable man, an established procedure for the gatekeepers. That verse one mentions the singers and Levites is somewhat surprising. Charles Fensham is among the commentators who holds that this is most likely a gloss that was added upon the word for gatekeepers, as that term is most typically used for those guarding the gates of the temple and its precincts. Hugh Williamson raises the possibility that, given the low population of the city,

at the time, responsibility for its defence lay in large measure in the hands of the singers and Levites, other trained forces who could supplement a smaller contingent of lay guards. If the city and not merely its temple were largely guarded by Levites and singers, it might also imply an extension of holiness, formerly focused more narrowly upon the temple complex, to include the wider city around it. This will become much clearer in Chapter 11. The whole city is in some sense now set apart. The great work that had been undertaken in rebuilding the wall would be in vain if the people did not adequately guard the city. Appointing trustworthy men over this duty and determining wise security procedures was essential at this point. Commentators are divided on the question of whether Hananiah is another name

for Hanani. It is possible to read the text as Hanani, that is Hanani, the governor of the castle. The fact that the next verse speaks of them is used as an argument against this position, although advocates of it, such as Andrew Steinman, argue that the them might also refer to the gatekeepers, singers and Levites mentioned in verse 1. Hanani is also mentioned back in chapter 1 verse 2 of the book. There Hananiah travel from Jerusalem to Susa, giving Nehemiah a report of the beleaguered state of the city of Jerusalem, one that first led him to come to the city. I am inclined to see Hananiah as two different people. The instructions of verse 3 are most naturally read, as instructions to those overshunders.

seeing the security of the city, as the guards seem to be spoken of as if they were not members of the group being addressed. The guarding of the gates of the city, as we will see in chapter 13, is not merely a matter of military security, but also has moral importance, as those overseeing the gates determine who and what is and is not to be permitted to enter the city. Once again, this could be related to the extension of the principle of holiness in Jerusalem. Committing such a charge to trustworthy and god-fearing men bodes well for the secure, and well-being of the city. There are few tasks more necessary than maintaining healthy boundaries for a community, and keeping the gates of the city was one of the ways in which this task was performed.

The meaning of the instructions given in verse three is another point on which commentators differ. It is most likely that the instructions are not to be understood as to leave the gates barred until the sun is completely up, but that during the warmest part of the day when regular activities would be largely suspended and people would enjoy a siesta, special care, should be taken so as not to leave the city vulnerable to attack. To make the city more secure, guards from among Jerusalem's population were to be appointed, and as in the building of the wall, many of the men were to be given charge chiefly over guard posts nearest to their own homes.

Nehemiah was faced with a further challenge. Despite the great physical size of the city of Jerusalem, it was sparsely populated, and although it now had a rebuilt and well-defended wall, the houses within the city had not been rebuilt, but were largely in ruins. Now that the defences of the city had been re-established, however, it would be easier to encourage people to rebuild houses within its walls. It's possible that after an initial influx of people in the first waves of return, the city of Jerusalem had languished and had been left in ruins. The lack of security of the city and economic factors may have led many of the initial returnees to move elsewhere. Decades later, only a small population remained there.

Steinman speculates that its population may have dwindled to as low as 1,000 men by this time. Repopulating Jerusalem would be a concern for Nehemiah now that its walls were rebuilt. With the city of Jerusalem underpopulated and in ruins, Judah was like a body without its head. To deal with this problem, Nehemiah determined to assemble the people and their leaders and enroll them by genealogy. This would give Nehemiah a sense of the number of the people and of their places of origin. In particular, he would have a clearer indication of how many had to be. ancestral roots in Jerusalem. A good place to begin was with the record of the first of the returnees. Williamson argues that the list was likely not of the places to which people

returned, but rather of the places from which they had first been exiled. This is largely the same list that we find in Ezra Chapter 2, where it is given in the context of those first waves of returning exiles. Now, however, the great tasks that lay before the returnes have been completed. The temple and the city's wall have both been rebuilt. Looking back to the initial numbering of the people at this point, provides a bookend or inclusio for the greater tasks that unite the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The details from verse 6 onwards are drawn from the book of the genealogy that Nehemiah used, a book that likely dated from the years during or immediately after the first waves of return.

The list here is largely identical to that of Ezra Chapter 2, but there are several variations in the names, numbers and ordering. A few of these might be variations in species. spelling or be alternative names for figures. However, many of the variations are best explained as textual corruption through scribal errors, whether occurring to the original document or documents, or subsequently to the texts of Ezra Nehmeier, and perhaps also as evidence that Ezra and Nehmeier were working with different versions or additions of the source. If, as Williamson has argued, the list was a composite one, it's possible that there were different versions of it in circulation,

perhaps dating from different stages of the initial waves of return. The character of many of the discrepancies, where numbers are largely the same, save for a difference in one element, such as 2,818 and 2,812, or 845 and 945, or 3,630, and 3,930, gives weight to the claim that scribal errors are responsible for the vast majority of them. The discrepancies do not seem to follow a tidy pattern, with one generally having the larger numbers, for instance. Of the 17 discrepancies in the numbers, seven are under 10 and six are over 100,

all 300 or less, save for a huge difference of 1,100 between the numbers of the sons of Asgard. That many of these discrepancies could be accounted for through births and deaths, strains credulity. If the higher numbers generally belong to one or other of the accounts, we might argue that it came from a later edition of the original, after more had returned, or as more had been born of the original population.

It is much harder to explain how the sons of Asgad might have increased by 1,100, and the sons of Senea by 300, while the sons of ERA decreased by 123 and of Zatu by 100, all while most numbers remained the same or largely stable. Despite the differences in the subtotals given for various clans and towns, the total number of the assembly is the same as that of Ezra Chapter 2. 22,360. O'Ded-Lipschitz has observed that once you subtract the number of those who couldn't prove their lineage and the servants from the total number of returnees in Nehemiah, one gets a total of 30,447. This, he maintains, needs to be related to the fact that the number of the settlers in

Jerusalem given in Nehemiah Chapter 11 makes a total of 3,04. As one out of every 10 had to live in Jerusalem, it seems that these two numbers are related, and that the number of the initial returnees provided the basis for the number of those who were selected to live in Jerusalem. By recalling the people to their ancestral origins at this point, Nehemiah is pursuing the ongoing work of return and resettlement, ensuring that they truly reclaim their roots as a people. The re-establishment of Jerusalem at the heart of the people is foundational to this. A question to consider. Why does Nehemiah's enrolling and ordering of the people, not violate earlier commands against censuses.