Nehemiah 12

This is history, to Nehemiah—an event about 90 years before his time. Babylon (in Iraq today) conquered Judah and exiled surviving Jews in 586 BC. Roughly 50 years later, in 539 BC, Persia (in Iran today) conquered Babylon. They freed the Jews and other political captives to go home. The first wave left for Judah in about 538-537 BC. Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in 446 BC. Oddly, many scholars say the list of names here is so similar to the list in verses 12-21, set in Nehemiah’s day, that it seems likely that one list got copied off the other. Many of those scholars say the second list looks like it came from an older source. The list also overlaps with the list from Nehemiah’s day in chapter 10, of the priests who signed the agreement to obey God.

Zerubbabel was a descendant of one of Judah’s last kings, Jehoiachin—from King David’s family dynasty. Persians appointed Zerubbabel governor of the new Persian province of Judah. Ideally, Zerubbabel would have been king of an independent Jewish nation of Judah. He shows up in the stories of Haggai and Zechariah as the top Jew in charge of rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple. He led the people even after Darius I became King of Persia. But then he suddenly disappeared. Some scholars guess the new Persian king removed him because Zerubbabel grew into a powerful Jewish ruler whom the people considered their rightful king.

Some students of the Bible say names may have been dropped from this list. That’s because Joiakim is the only high priest linking Jeshua in the 530’s BC to Eliashib from Nehemiah’s day, almost a century later.

Joiakim may have been the high priest when Ezra arrived in 458 BC, a dozen years before Nehemiah arrived in 446 BC. The clue is that Ezra appears in the list of priests (12:13).

The name of this person is lost in history. Possibly the person copying a worn version of the scroll was a physician filling in for a scribe on holiday. Or maybe a scribe’s kid played a joke on Dad and penned in “Henry.” Then the scribe had to replace it, but couldn’t remember the name. That’s the point. Things happen.

Which King Darius? Scholars debate it. The Hebrew text says “Darius the Persian.” That doesn’t seem to help since “the Persian” add-on title appears again only with the name of Cyrus “the Persian” (Daniel 6:28). Some say the context of 12:22 suggests the writer was talking about Darius III, the last king of Persia (336-330 BC); enter the Greeks. Other scholars argue for Darius II (424-404 BC), a couple of decades after Nehemiah’s arrival in Jerusalem.

Also known as the Book of the Annals.

They look like small harps.

Purification rituals usually included one or more of these: washing clothes, ritual bath (different than a bubble bath with rubber ducks), a time of waiting—often until sunset, ritual sprinkling like in an infant baptism, fasting from food and not engaging in sex. Guidelines: Exodus 19:10-15; Leviticus 16:28; Numbers 8:5-19. A woman remains ritually unclean during her menstrual period, “for at least seven days” (Leviticus 15:19).

First Chronicles 25.

Perhaps the gate closest to Jerusalem’s only source of water in Bible times, Gihon Spring, hidden inside a small cave and the foot of a ridge outside the southeastern wall.

The City of David was a small part of Jerusalem at Nehemiah’s time. It was the Jerusalem at David’s time, a small walled town on a ridgetop in the southeast part of Jerusalem.

These are often called “first fruits.” But does that mean the crops harvested first or the crops judged best? This was farmer’s market produce given as salary to priests and Levites. Asked the question about “first” versus “best,” they might answer, “Both.”  Like us, they would want the best, and they would want it last Thursday, in time for Shabbat—the Sabbath Day of rest and no cooking over a fire of any kind.