TOTC Ezra and Nehemiah

Author:Derek Kidner [Kidner, Derek]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bibles, More Translations, Bible Study, Bible Study & Reference, Christian Books & Bibles, Commentaries, Religion & Spirituality, Old Testament, Old Testament Study, Criticism & Interpretation, Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Judaism, Sacred Writings, Encyclopedias & Subject Guides, Reference, Religion, Religious Studies & Reference
ISBN: 9781783592371
Amazon: B00RXJ77LG
Publisher: IVP
Published: 2009-02-19T22:00:00+00:00

Nehemiah 9:38–10:39. The binding declaration

This chapter63 clinches the confession just made. Those who prayed have asked for mercy but do not mean to trade on it, as their ‘binding declaration’ (9:38, NEB) makes clear.

9:38. The term covenant is not in the text, which uses the word ʾămānâ, ‘a firm (promise)’ (cf. 11:23, and comment); but the verb translated ‘make’ is kārat, ‘to cut’, which has strong associations with covenant-making. The three classes of signatories64 will divide up the ensuing list of names, though the priests will precede the Levites there.

The inverted commas should not have been closed at 9:37, for this passage (including the list of names) is as definitely a ‘we’-passage as the prayer which has led up to it.

10:1–27. The signatories

1. There is an ‘and’ (omitted in RSV) between Nehemiah and Zedekiah, but not between or before the names that follow in verses 2–8; which indicates that these first two are a group apart, evidently representing the civil power.

2–8. There are twenty-one priestly names here, of which at least fifteen are names of families. This is clear from chapter 12, whose list of the original homecomers from Babylon has many of the names found again here (Seraiah, Jeremiah, Amariah, etc.), and which goes on to mention separately the individuals who, at a certain period, were heads of these ‘fathers’ houses’ (see on 12:1–7).65 This accounts, incidentally, for the non-appearance of Ezra’s name among the signatories, since he was a member of the family which heads the list, the house of Seraiah (which also included the high priest): cf. Ezra 7:1(–5) with 1 Chronicles 6:(3–)14.

9–13. Of these seventeen Levite names, some may indicate family groups of long standing (e.g., the first three names coincide with those Levites in 12:8a who came home with Zerubbabel66), but several are of contemporary individuals. Six of them, possibly seven, were among the teaching group at Ezra’s reading of the law (Neh. 8:7), and Sherebiah has met us not only there but (if it is the same man) as a prominent member of Ezra’s original expedition (Ezra 8:18). Hashabiah was with him (Ezra 8:19), and was one of the builders of Nehemiah’s wall (Neh. 3:17)—if, again, it is the same person in each context.

14–27. The chiefs of the people are listed predominantly (perhaps entirely) in terms of the families they represented; in fact the first twenty-one names (Parosh to Magpiash, 14–20a) closely follow the list in Ezra 2:3–30, with a few variants of order and spelling. Nehemiah, it will be remembered, had used that document in enrolling his community (Neh. 7:5). Some of the remaining twenty-three names, in 20–26, have also appeared as fathers’ names, i.e. family names, in the list of wall builders in Nehemiah 3.67 Of the many new families since Zerubbabel’s time (Ezra 2), some will probably have arisen as branches of older ones, and others as more recent arrivals.

10:28, 29 The general oath of obedience

This picks up and fills out the declaration made in 9:38 by the whole company and sealed on their behalf by their leaders.

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