Nehemiah 13 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Nehemiah 13:4-14

4 Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, 5 and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.

6 But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission 7 and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. 8 I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. 9 I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.

10 I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. 11 So I rebuked the officials and asked them, ‘Why is the house of God neglected?’ Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts.

12 All Judah brought the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil into the storerooms. 13 I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites.

14 Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.

A. Find Out:

1. Who, in what role, had done what? v.4,5
2. Where had Nehemiah been? v.6
3. When did he hear about this and what did he do? v.7-9
4. What else did he hear about and do about it? v.10,11
5. When then happened & what did Nehemiah do to facilitate it? v.12,13
6. What did he ask of the Lord? v.14

B. Think:

1. How had Eliashib’s activity hindered the work of the Temple ?
2. What was particularly galling about it?
3. What was the end outcome of Nehemiah’s changes?

C. Comment:

  So much of what we have been learning about in the recent pages of this book has to do with bringing order back into running the Temple . Now it appears that Nehemiah had returned to the king (v.6), presumably to report back to him, and while he was gone, Tobiah – presumably the same one as who had collaborated with others against Nehemiah previously – had used his influence somehow to get Eliashib the priest, who had been put in charge of the storerooms of the Temple (v.4,5), to let him use some of those rooms, presumably for his own business. That would have meant they could no longer be used to store the food meant for the Levites serving in and around the Temple.

  When he gets back, Nehemiah hears about this (v.7) and threw all Tobiah’s things out of the main room (v.8) and had the room ceremonially cleaned (v.9) so it could be returned to its proper use.

  Perhaps it had been because of this, but Nehemiah also learns that the Levites had not been ‘paid’ their supplies and they and the singers had returned to their own homes (v.10). So Nehemiah reinstates them (v.11) and provision for the Levites is reinstated (v.12) and new officials put in charge of the food supplies (v.13). Nehemiah concludes this section by asking for the Lord’s blessing for having acted in this way and ensuring the proper function of the Temple (v.14)

D. Application:

1. Actions have consequences and small things cane have big effects.
2. How might my actions to day affect those around me?

Passage: Nehemiah 13:15-22

15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. 16 People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. 17 I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing – desecrating the Sabbath day? 18 Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.’

19 When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day. 20 Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem. 21 But I warned them and said, ‘Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.’ From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath. 22 Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy.

Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love.

A. Find Out:

1. What wrong did Nehemiah see and what did he do about it? v.15
2. What similar thing did he see going on? v.16
3. So what did he do about that? v.17,18
4. How did he deal with the problem? v.19
5. How did he have to persevere with it? v.20,21
6. What final thing did he do to ensure it worked? v.22

B. Think:

1. How did Nehemiah correct by warnings?
2. But how did he also correct by actions?
3. What, ultimately, was the problem?

C. Comment:

  These verses finish (v.22b) in the same way that the previous block finished (v.14) with a direct appeal to the Lord. These things being dealt with were specifically things to do with honouring the Lord. The previous section (v.1-13) had been about honouring Him by making provision for the Levites so the Temple would be properly serviced. Now he deals with the matter of the Sabbath not being observed.

  First he finds Jews in Judah carrying out their agricultural business on the Sabbath (v.15) and he simply warns them against doing it. But then he finds traders actually in Jerusalem trading on the Sabbath (v.16). This time he rebukes the leaders of the people (v.17), reminding them that it was just such behaviour that had brought about the Exile and the previous destruction of Jerusalem (v.18).

  But words were not enough. It also needed action, so first of all he had the gates of the city shut immediately before Sabbath began and only opened after it ended (v.19), putting his own men as guards. When outside traders turned up and waited for the gates to open on the Sabbath, he went out and told them to go (v.20,21) and so they eventually stopped coming on the Sabbath. To ensure this was maintained he instructed the Levites to take over guarding the gates on the Sabbath (v.22).

D. Application:

1. Keeping the Sabbath was about honouring the Lord.
2. Failure to keep it was a sign of disregarding the Lord.

Passage: Nehemiah  13:23-27

23 Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. 24 Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. 25 I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: ‘You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. 27 Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?’

A. Find Out:    

1. What had men of Judah done? v.23
2. With what consequence? v.24
3. What was Nehemiah’s response? v.25
4. What bad example did he refer to? v.26
5. How did he refer to their actions? v.27

B. Think:

1. How was Israel ‘s future at risk?
2. Why was Solomon a warning to this people?

C. Comment:

  Before we note the detail of the content we must overcome our 21st century misunderstandings of the OT history of Israel . One of the strongest requirements of the Lord for Israel was not to marry foreigners. There was no way that Israel could remain the people of God if they took on board the ways of other peoples, and Solomon had been a classic example of a man who took many foreign wives and was led astray from God by them (v.26)

  Thus Nehemiah now finds that (presumably in the years since the first return after the Exile) men of Judah had married women from the local pagan nations (v.23) with the result that their resulting children now spoke those languages but not the language of the people of God (v.24). They had lost their identity and could no longer be called God’s chosen people.

  This horrifies Nehemiah and he is so moved that he even turns to violence and violent denunciations of these men (v.25) and reminds them what had happened to foolish Solomon (v.26).

  He describes their activity as ‘terrible wickedness’ and charges them with being ‘unfaithful to God’. We may be slow to understand this but this involved the very identity and future of Israel . Israel were still God’s chosen people and still had a part to play in His plans and so anything which threatened their existence, as this clearly did, was to be strongly opposed. Hence Nehemiah’s strong response.

D. Application:

1. Israel were called to be a unique light to the rest of the world.
2. We too, as Christians, as called to be a light to the world.

Passage: Nehemiah 13:28-31

28 One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.

29 Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.

30 So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. 31 I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the firstfruits.

Remember me with favour, my God.

A. Find Out:

1. What relational problem needed remedying? v.28
2. Why had it been wrong? v.29
3. So what did Nehemiah do? v.30
4. What further procedures did he establish? v.31

B. Think:

1. What actually was the problem spoken of here?
2. What was Nehemiah trying to achieve?

C. Comment:

  At various times in this book, we are faced with the problem of either mixed marriages or mixing with foreign peoples (see 2:20, 7:64,65, 10:28,30, 13:1-3,4,7,23-27 and now 13:28) The Law declared that a priest may only marry from God’s people (Lev 21:14). The Lord had warned His people generally against intermarrying with foreign women who would lead His people astray (Ex 34:15,16) and indeed against marrying foreign wives generally (Deut 7:3,4) This was repeated later on (Josh 23:12,13).

  Thus we come to the end of the record of this time when the walls had been rebuilt and Nehemiah (and Ezra) had gone about a period of restoring the Law and the practices required of it – especially in respect of those who served in and maintained the Temple.

  Earlier on we were told about Eliashib the priest who had become too close to Tobiah, who had been against Nehemiah all the way through, and had even let him use rooms in the temple. Now we find that one of his grandsons had married a daughter of Sanballat. Sanballat was a Babylonian name suggesting his origin was either from there or from a foreign family taken to Babylon (mixing peoples was a technique to adulterate their identity). Sanballat was another of those who had been against Nehemiah throughout and was also therefore an enemy of God. For one of the priests to marry into his family was breaking all the prohibitions of the Law. As a final act of purification Nehemiah expelled him from the priesthood and checked and purified the rest.

D. Application:

1. God’s laws were not optional for Israel . He had good reasons.
2. Disobedience would hinder the blessing of Go