Nehemiah (; Nəḥemyā, "Yahweh comforts")
The historicity of Nehemiah, his mission, and the Nehemiah Memoir have recently become very controversial in academic scholarship, with maximalists viewing it as a historical account and minimalists doubting whether Nehemiah existed.
Book of Nehemiah narrative
In the 20th year of Artaxerxes I (445 or 444 BC),
[On the date, see ] Nehemiah was
Cup-bearer.
Learning that the remnant of Jews in Judah were in distress and that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, he asked the king for permission to return and rebuild the city,
[Nehemiah 1:1-2:5] around 13 years after
Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem in ca. 458 BC.
[Davies, G. I., Introduction to the Pentateuch in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001), The Oxford Bible Commentary , p. 19] Artaxerxes sent him to Judah as governor of the province with a mission to rebuild, letters explaining his support for the venture, and provision for timber from the king's forest.
[Nehemiah 2:6-9] Once there, Nehemiah defied the opposition of Judah's enemies on all sides—
Samaritans,
, and
Arabs—and rebuilt the walls within 52 days, from the Sheep Gate in the North, the Hananeel Tower at the North West corner, the Fish Gate in the West, the Furnaces Tower at the Temple Mount's South West corner, the
Dung Gate in the South, the East Gate and the gate beneath the Golden Gate in the East.
Appearing in the Queen's presence[Nehemiah 2:6] may indicate that he was a eunuch,[R. J. Coggins. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 73; also F. Charles Fensham, The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 140] and in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, he is described as such: eunochos (eunuch), rather than oinochoos (wine-cup-bearer). If so, the attempt by his enemy Shemaiah to trick him into entering the Temple is aimed at making him break Jewish law, rather than simply hide from assassins.[John Barton, The Oxford Bible commentary, Oxford University Press, 2001]
He then took measures to repopulate the city and purify the Jewish community, enforcing the cancellation of debt, assisting Ezra in publicizing the law of Moses, and enforcing the divorce of Jewish men from their non-Jewish wives.
After 12 years as governor, during which he ruled with justice and righteousness, he returned to the king in Susa. After some time in Susa he returned to Jerusalem, only to find that the people had fallen back into their evil ways. Non-Jews were permitted to conduct business inside Jerusalem on the Sabbath and to keep rooms in the Temple. Greatly angered, he purified the Temple and the priests and Levites and enforced the observance of the law of Moses.
Book of Maccabees
The Second Book of Maccabees says Nehemiah is the one who brought the holy fire for the altar back from the diaspora to Jerusalem and founded a library of the Holy Scriptures just as
Judas Maccabeus did. Here, Nehemiah's political role sets an example for the Hasmonean dynasty and becomes a role model for pious, national leadership in general. The scene of reading and explaining the Torah in Neh 8 became the model of synagogue worship.
[Bergren, Theodore A. "Nehemiah in 2 Maccabees 1:10-2:18". Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Period, vol. 28, no. 3, 1997, pp. 249–270. . Retrieved 2 May 2020.] See
2 Maccabees 2:13.
Book of Sirach
Sirach hymn in praise of the fathers mentions only Nehemiah (not
Ezra) after
Zerubbabel and Joshua and praises him for his building activities (Sir 49:15).
In rabbinic literature
One rabbinic text, or
aggadah, identifies Nehemiah as
Zerubbabel, with the latter being considered an
epithet and indicating that he was born in Babylon. Another oral tradition, or
mishnah, records that Nehemiah was blamed for seeming to boast (Neh. v. 19 & xiii. 31), and disparage his predecessors (Neh. v. 15). This tradition asserts that his book was appended to the Book of Ezra, as a consequence, rather than being a separate book in its own right, as it is in the Christian Old Testament. Another Talmudic text, or
Baba Bathra, records that Nehemiah completed the Book of Chronicles, which was said to have been written by
Ezra.
[ Nehemiah by Emil G. Hirsch, David Samuel Margoliouth, Wilhelm Bacher & M. Seligsohn, in "The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day", Funk & Wagnalls, New York 1901-6.]
Veneration
Nehemias is venerated in
Catholic Church and Orthodox Church:
-
July 13 – commemoration (Catholic Church),
-
Nativity Fast – movable holiday on Sunday that falls between December 11–17.
See also
-
Governors of Yehud Medinata
-
Sanballat the Horonite
-
Tobiah (Ammonite)
Further reading
-
Barr, James. "History of Israel" in History and Ideology in the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 87
-
Holman Bible Dictionary, "Persia"
-
Cataldo, Jeremiah. "Memory Trauma in Ezra-Nehemiah" in David Chalcraft, ed., Methods, Theories and Imagination: Social Scientific Approaches in Biblical Studies, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014, pp. 147–57.
-
Lester Grabbe. Ezra, in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (ed. James D. G. Dunn, John William Rogerson, Eerdmans, 2003) pp. 320–1
-
Pakkala, Juha. "Ezra the scribe: the development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8" (Walter de Gruyter, 2004). pp. 225–7
-
Schulte, Lucas L. My Shepherd, Though You Do Not Know Me: The Persian Royal Propaganda Model in the Nehemiah Memoir (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 197–204.
-
Williamson, H. G. M. Ezra and Nehemiah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 17
-
Wright, Jacob. "Rebuilding identity: the Nehemiah-memoir and its earliest readers" (Walter de Gruyter, 2004). p. 340.
External links
