Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 13

In this chapter, Nehemiah visits the king of Persia and returns to find the people sinning in many matters.

The storytelling in this part of the chapter is not entirely linear, so I think it’s worth taking a moment to figure out what is happening and when.  Verses 1-3 tell us that “on the same day” as the prior dedication of the wall, they read aloud from the book of Moses and “they excluded all foreigners from Israel” (v. 3).  Because it was “the same day”, we can reasonably infer that Nehemiah was present, because the previous chapter was very clear that Nehemiah was present at the dedication (v. 31 and following).  In verse 4, it says that “prior to this” Eliashib gave a special room in the temple to Tobiah.  We would assume that meant “before the dedication” that happened on the previous day.

However, verse 6 tells us that “during all this time” Nehemiah was not in Jerusalem.  “This time” is referring to the “time” when the priest Eliashib gave the special room to Tobiah.  However, the implication is that Nehemiah must have left Jerusalem before they dedicated the wall.  The book of Nehemiah does not tell us what year the wall was finished; all we know is that Nehemiah came to Jerusalem in the 20th year of Artaxerxes (Neh 2:1) and returned to the king in the 32nd year (v. 6).  So he was in Jerusalem for twelve years.  My assumption is that he finished the wall before those twelve years were up, and it seems likely they would have celebrated the dedication at that time.

Verse 6 leaves us in a bit of conundrum, though.  If Nehemiah was present at the dedication and was absent when Eliashib gave the room to Tobiah, it suggests that Nehemiah was present until the wall was completed, left to return to Artaxerxes and then came back to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication.  This fits into the story reasonably well, since Sanballat frequently attacked Nehemiah’s relationship with the king, so it stands to reason that Nehemiah would return to the king to assure him of Nehemiah’s continued loyalty.  The last direct mention of Nehemiah before this chapter was in Neh 10:1 when he signed his name on the covenantal document.  Later verses in that chapter referred to things “we” did, suggesting Nehemiah was still physically present.  Chapter 11 does not include any references to Nehemiah and in chapter 12 they celebrate the dedication festival.  The only possible gap in Nehemiah’s physical presence in the city is chapter 11, after the priests gathered to read the Law and before the dedication of the wall.

Even though the text doesn’t say it, it’s likely that Nehemiah took a brief interlude where he personally travelled back to Susa to visit the king, and that he’s writing about the Judeans in the third person based on what he later learned upon his return.  This is the gap of time when he wasn’t present and when everything started going wrong.  Once Nehemiah came back, they celebrated the dedication of the wall.

Chapter 13 is basically Nehemiah telling us about a bunch of things that happened while he was gone, and what he did to fix them, but the actual point when Nehemiah left the city was most likely during the events of chapter 11.  I think it’s a little surprising that Nehemiah would have left the city before dedicating the wall, since as we have learned the wall of Jerusalem is Nehemiah’s central focus.  I suspect that Nehemiah was forced to return to the king, whether by the date that he had set (Neh 2:6) or as a reaction to Sanballat’s agitation, and even though the wall saga was not finished, Nehemiah was driven by circumstance.  He returned when he could and they dedicated the wall afterwards.  I think Nehemiah restructured the narrative, putting the dedication of the wall first in chapter 12 because he was trying to keep the wall narrative more compact.  The events in this chapter happened mostly earlier, but he reordered the chronology because they are not central to the wall narrative.

Anyway, the content of this chapter is focused on four major controversies which Nehemiah sought to resolve upon his return to Jerusalem.  The way I imagine this story is Nehemiah walking out the gate and, like a parent going out for a night on the town, telling the kids (everyone else) who were staying behind to “be good while I am gone”.  As it always goes in such situations, when Nehemiah returned he found the metaphorical house in complete disarray.  This whole chapter is about all the things that got messed up while Nehemiah was not around to keep things running in proper order, and what Nehemiah did to fix the problems he found when he returned.

The first controversy is the room that Eliashib the priest gave to Tobiah in the temple.  This is a clear offense in Nehemiah’s mind because Tobiah is one of his main enemies (second only to Sanballat, see e.g. Neh 4:3, 4:7).  It is an affront for Tobiah, an enemy of the Jews, to be given a room in the temple which is their most sacred place.  Verse 4 tells us that Eliashib is “related” to Tobiah.  Neh 6:17-18 established Tobiah’s familial ties with leaders of Judah, and it is likely that Tobiah was related to Eliashib through one of those marriages.  Nehemiah strongly disapproves and since Nehemiah is governor, Tobiah gets booted out.

The second controversy begins in verse 10.  Basically what happened is that the people stopped paying the tithe to the Levites, so the Levites went back to their normal jobs, farming.  Without a tithe the Levites are just ordinary people who have to get ordinary jobs.  Nehemiah fixes the problem by getting “the officials” (presumably the men responsible for collecting the tithe) to go do their jobs (v. 11).

The third controversy begins in verse 15 when Nehemiah observes men of Judah working on the Sabbath.  Nehemiah fights back by “admonishing” the men of Judah who worked on the Sabbath and forcing the gates of Jerusalem to be closed over the Sabbath.  Foreigners, men from Tyre and other “merchants” (v. 20) were coming to Jerusalem to sell their wares over the Sabbath.  While these foreigners do not need to observe the Sabbath, it is unlawful for the people of Judah to buy goods on the Sabbath (a kind of work), so the foreign merchants coming to sell goods over the Sabbath are inducing the Jews to sin.  Nehemiah locks them out by closing the gate, but to be extra sure (and possibly out of anger) Nehemiah takes the extra step of threatening the merchants and ordering them to not even come to the city on the Sabbath (v. 21).  Verse 22 implies that the Levites were responsible as gatekeepers to prevent commerce on the Sabbath.  The second controversy, when the people stopped paying the tithe, is why the gatekeepers (Levites) left to go back to their ordinary jobs.  There were no gatekeepers to help preserve the Sabbath and as a direct consequence, the people failed to observe the Sabbath as Nehemiah complains.  This shows how failure to observe one part of the Law can undermine observation of other parts of the Law.

The fourth and final controversy begins in verse 23.  Intermarriage with foreigners is the problem again.  This was the big moral crisis in Ezra’s book (Ezra 9-10) and verse 3 in this same chapter tells us that Israel “excluded all foreigners” after reading the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers 22-24.  However, it appears that wasn’t enough because later in the very same chapter the people are again intermarrying with foreigners and their children were learning foreign languages and not the language of the Jews.

The book concludes by telling us one of the priests himself had married a foreign wife and Nehemiah “drove him away from me”.  The book concludes on a rather mixed note; even though Nehemiah is seeking to “purify” the priesthood, it feels like he is fighting a losing battle against those cultural forces.  Every step that Nehemiah takes to purify the priesthood or enforce the Law, it feels like the priests and the people take four steps in the opposite direction.  Nehemiah is a man of great diligence and faithfulness, but how much can he preserve the nation if the whole nation sins in his absence?

The very last words in the book show Nehemiah’s emphasis on proving his own faithfulness and dedication to God.  It’s only really here, at the very end of the book, when Nehemiah finally reveals what was his inner motivation for writing this all down.  As it turns out, Nehemiah was not writing for the benefit of posterity, he wasn’t writing to explain the social and political conditions of post-exilic Jerusalem, or any of these other things.  He was writing to call God’s attention to his acts of faithfulness and ask God to reward him with “good” in his life.

We had a brief preview of this philosophy in Neh 5:19 and 6:14, but it only really emerges in force here in this last chapter when Nehemiah repeats the same phrase four times (v. 14, 22, 29, 31). Considering the overall effect, I feel like the entire book of Nehemiah is written like a kind of pseudo-prayer, in some parts recounting the history of Judah during Nehemiah’s governorship and in other parts describing Nehemiah’s deeds on behalf of the LORD, but in all parts it is seeking to communicate Nehemiah’s heart and lifestyle to the LORD as part of his overall petition for the LORD’s blessing in his life.

Most of the book is a historical narrative, but the conclusion of Nehemiah is a prayer: “LORD”, Nehemiah says, “you know all these things I just wrote about, all these good things I have done; remember these things.  I wrote this whole book, LORD, so that you would know the good things I have done and that you would remember them and do good for me in return.”  At its heart, this is a prayer, even though most of the book is not written in the literary style of a prayer.  It is a prayer disguised as a historical narrative.

I think it’s funny how these brief comments here at the end of the book can so heavily influence our understanding of the previous 12 chapters.  For so long reading through the book, I was mostly focused on the events Nehemiah was describing rather than asking why; what is Nehemiah’s motivation?  Clearly he was motivated to help rebuild the wall, but that doesn’t address why Nehemiah wanted to go to the considerable effort and expense of writing about it.  Even though I think the ending feels rather sudden, I also think it does a lot to wrap up that lingering question: Nehemiah was writing this book as a memorial to his efforts, that he might offer it up (both his efforts and the book) as an offering to the LORD.

Throughout the study of Nehemiah, I have frequently asked the question, “what can we learn from this chapter?”  In the first chapter, we learned that Nehemiah understood God’s season for his people, the moment of his favor, and Nehemiah prayed and then acted.  Nehemiah was a man of prayer and action, pursuing what he understood about God’s will for his people and how to bless his people.  In this chapter, we learn that all of Nehemiah’s prayers and actions are wrapped together into this great bundle and offered wholly to the LORD.  Nehemiah takes all his efforts, prayers, struggles and victories and gives them to the LORD and he says, remember me.  Do not forget the labor of your servant.  I think for us, the lesson is that we can follow Nehemiah’s example.  We should understand God’s will for us and our people (friends, church, nation, etc.).  We should pray, and we should act, and at the end of every deed we should offer it to the LORD and say, “LORD, this is an offering to you.  Everything we have done, we do for you; remember us.”  Nehemiah doesn’t say it directly, but I believe that his life is the kind of offering the LORD desires from us, and I believe that Nehemiah received (and perhaps will receive) the blessing he asked for.  I can only hope that each one of us would also offer an acceptable sacrifice of our lives and deeds, and that we too would be remembered and receive the LORD’s blessing.

In the next book, we will begin the book of Esther!