Nehemiah 12

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The priests and the Levites

¹ Now these are the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, ² Amariah, Malluch, Hattush, ³ Shecaniah, Rehum, Meremoth, ⁴ Iddo, Ginnethoi, Abijah, ⁵ Mijamin, Maadiah, Bilgah, ⁶ Shemaiah, Joiarib, Jedaiah, ⁷ Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah and Jedaiah. These were the heads of the priests and of their brothers in the days of Jeshua.

⁸ And the Levites: Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mattaniah, who was in charge of the songs of thanksgiving, he and his brothers. ⁹ And Bakbukiah and Unni, their brothers, stood opposite them in their watches.

The high priests and the heads of families

¹⁰ Jeshua fathered Joiakim, Joiakim fathered Eliashib, and Eliashib fathered Joiada; ¹¹ Joiada fathered Jonathan, and Jonathan fathered Jaddua.

¹² And in the days of Joiakim the priests, the heads of fathers' houses, were: of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah; ¹³ of Ezra, Meshullam; of Amariah, Jehohanan; ¹⁴ of Melichu, Jonathan; of Shebaniah, Joseph; ¹⁵ of Harim, Adna; of Meraioth, Helkai; ¹⁶ of Iddo, Zechariah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam; ¹⁷ of Abijah, Zichri; of Miniamin; of Moadiah, Piltai; ¹⁸ of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jonathan; ¹⁹ of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi; ²⁰ of Sallai, Kallai; of Amok, Eber; ²¹ of Hilkiah, Hashabiah; of Jedaiah, Nethanel.

²² As for the Levites, in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan and Jaddua the heads of fathers' houses were recorded, and the priests also, until the reign of Darius the Persian. ²³ The sons of Levi, heads of fathers' houses, were written in the book of the chronicles until the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib.

²⁴ And the heads of the Levites were Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of Kadmiel, with their brothers opposite them, to praise and to give thanks, according to the commandment of David the man of Elohim, watch beside watch. ²⁵ Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon and Akkub were gatekeepers keeping watch at the storehouses of the gates. ²⁶ These were in the days of Joiakim the son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and in the days of Nehemiah the governor and of Ezra the priest, the scribe.

The dedication of the wall

²⁷ Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with song, with cymbals, harps and lyres. ²⁸ And the sons of the singers gathered together, both from the district around Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites, ²⁹ also from Beth-gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth; for the singers had built themselves villages around Jerusalem. ³⁰ And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people, the gates and the wall.

³¹ Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall, and I appointed two great thanksgiving choirs and processions. One went to the right on the wall, toward the Dung Gate. ³² After them went Hoshaiah and half of the leaders of Judah, ³³ and Azariah, Ezra and Meshullam, ³⁴ Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah and Jeremiah, ³⁵ and some of the sons of the priests with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph, ³⁶ and his brothers, Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah and Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of Elohim. And Ezra the scribe went before them. ³⁷ At the Fountain Gate, straight ahead of them, they went up by the stairs of the City of David, by the ascent of the wall above the house of David, as far as the Water Gate on the east.

³⁸ The second thanksgiving choir went the opposite way, and I followed it with half of the people, on the wall, above the Tower of the Ovens, as far as the Broad Wall, ³⁹ and above the Ephraim Gate, by the Old Gate, by the Fish Gate, the Tower of Hananel and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate; and they stopped at the Gate of the Guard. ⁴⁰ So the two thanksgiving choirs stood in the house of Elohim, and I also, and half of the officials with me; ⁴¹ and the priests Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah and Hananiah, with trumpets; ⁴² and Maaseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, Malchijah, Elam and Ezer. And the singers sang aloud, with Jezrahiah as their overseer. ⁴³ And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for Elohim had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and the children also rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.

The portions for the priests and the Levites

⁴⁴ On that day men were appointed over the chambers for the treasuries, for the contributions, for the firstfruits and for the tithes, to gather into them from the fields of the cities the portions required by the Torah for the priests and for the Levites; for Judah rejoiced over the priests and the Levites who stood in service. ⁴⁵ And they kept the charge of their Elohim and the charge of the purification, as did the singers and the gatekeepers, according to the commandment of David and of Solomon his son. ⁴⁶ For in the days of David and Asaph, of old, there were heads of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving to Elohim. ⁴⁷ And all Israel, in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the gatekeepers, as each day required; and they set apart what belonged to the Levites, and the Levites set apart what belonged to the sons of Aaron.

Notes

• 12:12 Verses 12-21 give the heads of the same priestly families a generation later, in the days of Joiakim. Several names differ from verses 1-7 (Melichu for Malluch, Shebaniah for Shecaniah, Harim for Rehum, Meraioth for Meremoth, Ginnethon for Ginnethoi, Miniamin for Mijamin, Moadiah for Maadiah, Sallai for Sallu), some of them only spelling variants; Hattush is not listed, and in verse 17 no head is named for Miniamin, as if a name had dropped out. In verse 14 the Hebrew is to be read (the qere) "Melichu"; it is written "Malluchi." The Ezra and Jeremiah of verse 1 are priestly families from the first return, probably not Ezra the scribe or Jeremiah the prophet.
• 12:22 The high priests run from Jeshua, who came back with Zerubbabel, to Jaddua (verses 10-11). "Darius the Persian" is probably Darius II (423-404 BC), though some think of Darius III (336-330 BC). A letter in Aramaic from the Jewish community at Elephantine in Egypt, dated to the seventeenth year of Darius (407 BC), is addressed to the governor of Judah and mentions "Johanan the high priest" in Jerusalem, probably the Johanan of verses 22-23; many think the Jonathan of verse 11 is the same man. Josephus, writing in the first century AD, long after these events, tells of a high priest Jaddua who went out to meet Alexander the Great (Antiquities 11.8); whether that story is historical is debated. "The book of the chronicles" (verse 23) was probably a record kept at the house of Elohim, not the books of Chronicles as we have them.
• 12:27 "Dedication" is chanukkah, the word used for the dedication of the altar and of the house (see the notes on Numbers 7:10 and Ezra 6:17). The wall finished in fifty-two days (6:15) is now given to Elohim with the music David had appointed for the house: cymbals, harps and lyres (1 Chronicles 15:16; 25:1), "according to the commandment of David the man of Elohim" (verse 24).
• 12:31 "Thanksgiving choirs" translates todot, literally "thanksgivings," the same word as the thank offering (Leviticus 7:12) and the songs of thanks. Nehemiah sent the two companies in opposite directions along the top of the wall: one south and east by the Dung Gate, the Fountain Gate and the Water Gate (verses 31, 37), the other north by the Ephraim Gate, the Fish Gate and the Sheep Gate (verses 38-39); both met at the house of Elohim (verse 40). They probably started near the Valley Gate on the west, where Nehemiah's night inspection had begun (2:13), but the starting point is not stated. Most of these gates and towers appear among those rebuilt in chapter 3.
• 12:43 The word "joy" (simchah, with its verb) comes five times in this verse, and the source of it is named: "Elohim had made them rejoice." When the foundation of the house was laid, the shout of joy could not be told apart from the weeping, "and the sound was heard far away" (Ezra 3:13); now the joy of Jerusalem itself was heard far away, and women and children shared in it, as the Torah gave the feasts to the whole household (Deuteronomy 16:14).

Nehemiah 11 · Nehemiah 13

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