Nehemiah 10: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter records the written agreement that the people of Judah sealed after their public confession. It first lists the names of those who put their seals on it: Nehemiah the governor, the priests, the Levites, and the leaders of the people. The rest of the people then joined them in a sworn promise to keep the law of Moses, spelling out specific terms: no marriages with the surrounding peoples, no trading on the Sabbath, letting the land rest and canceling debts every seventh year, a yearly payment for the service of God's house, and the regular delivery of wood, firstfruits, firstborn, and tithes. It closes with the words, "we will not neglect the house of our God."

Claim by Claim

1. 10:1
   • Those who set their seal to the document are now listed.
   • Nehemiah, who was the governor, son of Hachaliah, sealed it.
   • Zidkijah sealed it.
2. 10:2
   • Seraiah sealed it.
   • Azariah sealed it.
   • Jeremiah sealed it.
3. 10:3
   • Pashur sealed it.
   • Amariah sealed it.
   • Malchijah sealed it.
4. 10:4
   • Hattush sealed it.
   • Shebaniah sealed it.
   • Malluch sealed it.
5. 10:5
   • Harim sealed it.
   • Meremoth sealed it.
   • Obadiah sealed it.
6. 10:6
   • Daniel sealed it.
   • Ginnethon sealed it.
   • Baruch sealed it.
7. 10:7
   • Meshullam sealed it.
   • Abijah sealed it.
   • Mijamin sealed it.
8. 10:8
   • Maaziah sealed it.
   • Bilgai sealed it.
   • Shemaiah sealed it.
   • The men just listed were the priests.
9. 10:9
   • The Levites who sealed are now listed.
   • Jeshua the son of Azaniah was among them.
   • Binnui, of the sons of Henadad, was among them.
   • Kadmiel was among them.
10. 10:10
    • Their kinsmen also sealed.
    • Shebaniah was among them.
    • Hodijah was among them.
    • Kelita was among them.
    • Pelaiah was among them.
    • Hanan was among them.
11. 10:11
    • Micha was among them.
    • Rehob was among them.
    • Hashabiah was among them.
12. 10:12
    • Zaccur was among them.
    • Sherebiah was among them.
    • Shebaniah was among them.
13. 10:13
    • Hodijah was among them.
    • Bani was among them.
    • Beninu was among them.
14. 10:14
    • The chief men of the people are now listed.
    • Parosh was among them.
    • Pahathmoab was among them.
    • Elam was among them.
    • Zatthu was among them.
    • Bani was among them.
15. 10:15
    • Bunni was among them.
    • Azgad was among them.
    • Bebai was among them.
16. 10:16
    • Adonijah was among them.
    • Bigvai was among them.
    • Adin was among them.
17. 10:17
    • Ater was among them.
    • Hizkijah was among them.
    • Azzur was among them.
18. 10:18
    • Hodijah was among them.
    • Hashum was among them.
    • Bezai was among them.
19. 10:19
    • Hariph was among them.
    • Anathoth was among them.
    • Nebai was among them.
20. 10:20
    • Magpiash was among them.
    • Meshullam was among them.
    • Hezir was among them.
21. 10:21
    • Meshezabeel was among them.
    • Zadok was among them.
    • Jaddua was among them.
22. 10:22
    • Pelatiah was among them.
    • Hanan was among them.
    • Anaiah was among them.
23. 10:23
    • Hoshea was among them.
    • Hananiah was among them.
    • Hashub was among them.
24. 10:24
    • Hallohesh was among them.
    • Pileha was among them.
    • Shobek was among them.
25. 10:25
    • Rehum was among them.
    • Hashabnah was among them.
    • Maaseiah was among them.
26. 10:26
    • Ahijah was among them.
    • Hanan was among them.
    • Anan was among them.
27. 10:27
    • Malluch was among them.
    • Harim was among them.
    • Baanah was among them.
28. 10:28
    • The rest of the people joined in as well.
    • The priests joined in.
    • The Levites joined in.
    • The gatekeepers joined in.
    • The singers joined in.
    • The temple servants joined in.
    • All who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God joined in.
    • Their wives joined in.
    • Their sons joined in.
    • Their daughters joined in.
    • Everyone who joined in had knowledge and understanding.
29. 10:29
    • They joined firmly with their kinsmen, their nobles.
    • They entered into a curse.
    • They entered into an oath.
    • They bound themselves to walk in God's law.
    • God's law was given through Moses the servant of God.
    • They bound themselves to keep and do all the commandments of the LORD their Lord.
    • They bound themselves to keep and do his judgments.
    • They bound themselves to keep and do his statutes.
30. 10:30
    • They swore they would not give their daughters to the peoples of the land.
    • They swore they would not take the daughters of those peoples for their sons.
31. 10:31
    • The peoples of the land might bring merchandise or any food to sell on the sabbath day.
    • They swore they would not buy from them on the sabbath.
    • They swore they would not buy from them on a holy day.
    • They swore they would let the land rest in the seventh year.
    • They swore they would release every debt in the seventh year.
32. 10:32
    • They laid commandments upon themselves.
    • They obligated themselves to give a third of a shekel each year.
    • The money was for the service of the house of their God.
33. 10:33
    • The money was for the showbread.
    • The money was for the continual grain offering.
    • The money was for the continual burnt offering.
    • The money was for the offerings of the sabbaths.
    • The money was for the offerings of the new moons.
    • The money was for the appointed feasts.
    • The money was for the holy things.
    • The money was for the sin offerings that make atonement for Israel.
    • The money was for all the work of the house of their God.
34. 10:34
    • They cast lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people.
    • The lots concerned the wood offering.
    • The wood was to be brought into the house of their God by their fathers' houses.
    • The wood was to be brought at appointed times year by year.
    • The wood was to be burned on the altar of the LORD their God.
    • This is as it is written in the law.
35. 10:35
    • They swore to bring the firstfruits of their ground to the house of the LORD year by year.
    • They swore to bring the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree to the house of the LORD year by year.
36. 10:36
    • They swore to bring the firstborn of their sons.
    • They swore to bring the firstborn of their cattle.
    • This is as it is written in the law.
    • They swore to bring the firstlings of their herds and of their flocks to the house of their God.
    • These were to be brought to the priests who minister in the house of their God.
37. 10:37
    • They swore to bring the first of their dough to the priests.
    • They swore to bring their offerings to the priests.
    • They swore to bring the fruit of every kind of tree to the priests.
    • They swore to bring new wine and oil to the priests.
    • These were to be brought to the chambers of the house of their God.
    • They swore to bring the tithes of their ground to the Levites.
    • The Levites are the ones who collect the tithes in all the cities where they till the ground.
38. 10:38
    • The priest, a descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites take the tithes.
    • The Levites shall bring up a tithe of the tithes to the house of their God.
    • That tithe of the tithes shall go to the chambers of the treasure house.
39. 10:39
    • The children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of grain, new wine, and oil to the chambers.
    • The vessels of the sanctuary are in those chambers.
    • The ministering priests are there.
    • The gatekeepers are there.
    • The singers are there.
    • They declared they would not forsake the house of their God.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1

Sealing a document meant pressing a personal seal-stone or signet ring into soft clay or wax attached to it. It served as a signature, making the man legally bound by what the document said. "Tirshatha," the King James word behind "governor," is a Persian title for the official who administered the province on the king's behalf.

10:8

Priests were descendants of Aaron, the only men permitted to offer sacrifices and handle the holy objects. The names in verses 2-8 are largely priestly family names rather than individuals.

10:9

Levites were members of the tribe of Levi who were not descended from Aaron. They worked at the temple as assistants (handling the collection of tithes, teaching, music, and maintenance) but did not offer sacrifices.

10:14

Most of the names in verses 14-27 are clan names, not personal names. "Parosh," "Pahathmoab," "Elam" and the rest appear in the earlier lists of families who returned from exile, so the man signing was signing on behalf of his whole extended family.

10:28

Gatekeepers guarded the temple entrances and controlled who and what came in. Singers were the trained temple musicians. "Temple servants" translates a Hebrew word meaning roughly "the given ones", a hereditary class, apparently of foreign descent, who did the heavy manual work of the sanctuary. "The peoples of the surrounding lands" means the population already living in the region, who had not been in exile in Babylon.

10:29

In ancient legal practice an oath was routinely reinforced by a self-curse: the person swearing named the disasters that should fall on him if he broke his word. The curse and the oath here are two halves of one formal act, not two separate things.

10:30

Marriage between families was also an alliance between households, and a household normally took on the gods and customs of the family it married into. The returned community was small and surrounded by larger neighboring groups, so who married whom was treated as a question of whether the community would survive as a distinct people at all.

10:31

The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, on which all work and trade stopped. The rule about the seventh year comes from the law of Moses: farmland was to be left unplanted for a year, and debts between Israelites were to be released rather than collected.

10:32

A shekel was a weight of silver, roughly two fifths of an ounce, and by this period also a coin. The law of Moses had set the temple contribution at half a shekel; a third of a shekel here probably reflects the different coin standards in use under Persian rule.

10:33

"The bread set out before God" was twelve loaves kept on a table inside the sanctuary and replaced each week. A grain offering was flour, oil and incense burned on the altar; a burnt offering was an animal burned whole. The new moon, the first day of each lunar month, was marked with its own sacrifices. A sin offering was the sacrifice that ritually cleansed a person or the nation of wrongdoing; the older English word for this is "atonement," which means covering over or wiping away.

10:34

Casting lots meant drawing marked stones or sticks, much like drawing straws, to settle a matter without argument. The altar fire burned continually and consumed an enormous amount of fuel, so supplying wood was a real and costly duty; the law of Moses required the fire be kept burning, and the community here organized a rota to do it.

10:35

"Firstfruits" were the first portion of a crop to ripen, handed over before any of the rest of the harvest was used. Giving it acknowledged that the whole harvest came from God.

10:36

Under the law of Moses a firstborn son was not handed over to the temple but bought back from it by a fixed payment of silver. Firstborn animals of the kinds used in sacrifice went to the priests.

10:37

The "first of our ground meal" was a portion taken from each batch of dough before baking. Storerooms were the chambers built around the temple courts where these goods were kept, since the priests and Levites were paid in produce rather than money. A tithe is a tenth. The Levites owned no farmland of their own, so this tenth was their income, collected locally in the farming towns.

10:38

The Levites in turn owed a tenth of everything they collected to the priests, a rule set out in the law of Moses. A priest went along at collection time so the accounting could not be disputed.

10:39

"The containers used in the holy place" were the bowls, dishes, shovels and other utensils needed for the sacrifices, which were valuable and kept under guard. The priests, gatekeepers and singers lived on the temple grounds while on duty, which is why the stored produce that paid them was kept there.