Neh 12:27-43 | KD | STEP | At the dedication (i.e., at the time of, בּ denoting nearness of time) they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to keep the dedication. Only a portion of the Levites dwelt in Jerusalem ( ); the rest dwelt in places in the neighbourhood, as is more expressly stated in and Neh 12:29. ושׂמחה, to keep the dedication and joy, is not suitable, chiefly on account of the following וּבתודות, and with songs of praise. We must either read בּשׂמחה, dedication with joy (comp. Ezr 6:16), or expunge, with the lxx and Vulgate, the ו before בּתודות. בּ must be repeated before מצלתּים from the preceding words. On the subject, comp. ; , and elsewhere.

‏ Nehemiah 12:27-43

At the dedication (i.e., at the time of, בּ denoting nearness of time) they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to keep the dedication. Only a portion of the Levites dwelt in Jerusalem (Neh 11:15-18); the rest dwelt in places in the neighbourhood, as is more expressly stated in Neh 12:28 and Neh 12:29. ושׂמחה, to keep the dedication and joy, is not suitable, chiefly on account of the following וּבתודות, and with songs of praise. We must either read בּשׂמחה, dedication with joy (comp. Ezr 6:16), or expunge, with the lxx and Vulgate, the ו before בּתודות. בּ must be repeated before מצלתּים from the preceding words. On the subject, comp. 1Ch 13:8; 1Ch 15:16, and elsewhere. Neh 12:28-29

And the sons of the singers, i.e., the members of the three Levitical companies of singers (comp. Neh 12:25 and Neh 11:17), gathered themselves together, both out of the Jordan valley round about Jerusalem, and the villages (or fields, חצרים, comp. Lev 25:31) of Netophathi, and from Beth-gilgal, etc. הכּכּר does not mean the district round Jerusalem, the immediate neighbourhood of the city (Bertheau). For, according to established usage, הכּכּר is used to designate the Jordan valley (see rem. on Neh 3:22); and ירוּשׁלים סביבות is here added to limit the כּכּר, - the whole extent of the valley of the Jordan from the Dead Sea to the Sea of Galilee not being intended, but only its southern portion in the neighbourhood of Jericho, where it widens considerably westward, and which might be said to be round about Jerusalem. The villages of Netophathi (comp. 1Ch 9:16) are the villages or fields in the vicinity of Netopha, i.e., probably the modern village of Beit Nettif, about thirteen miles south-west of Jerusalem: comp. Rob. Palestine; Tobler, dritte Wand. p. 117, etc.; and V. de Velde, Mem. p. 336. Bertheau regards Beth-gilgal as the present Jiljilia, also called Gilgal, situate somewhat to the west of the road from Jerusalem to Nablous (Sichem), about seventeen miles north of the former town. This view, is, however, questionable, Jiljilia being apparently too distant to be reckoned among the סביבות of Jerusalem. “And from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth.” With respect to Geba, see rem. on Neh 11:31. The situation of Azmaveth is unknown; see rem. on Ezr 2:24. For the singers had built them villages in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and dwelt, therefore, not in the before-named towns, but in villages near them. Neh 12:30

The dedication began with the purification of the people, the gates, and the wall, by the priests and Levites, after they had purified themselves. This was probably done, judging from the analogy of 2Ch 29:20, by the offering of sin-offerings and burnt-offerings, according to some special ritual unknown to us, as sacrifices of purification and dedication. This was followed by the central-point of the solemnity, a procession of two bands of singers upon the wall (Neh 12:31-42). Neh 12:31-34

Nehemiah brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies of those who gave thanks, and two processions. These went each upon the wall in different directions, and stopped opposite each other at the house of God. The princes of Judah are the princes of the whole community, - Judah being used in the sense of יהוּדים, Neh 4:2. לחומה מעל, upwards to the wall, so that they stood upon the wall. העמיד, to place, i.e., to cause to take up a position, so that those assembled formed two companies or processions. תודה, acknowledgement, praise, thanks, and then thankofferings, accompanied by the singing of psalms and thanksgivings. Hence is derived the meaning: companies of those who gave thanks, in Neh 12:31, Neh 12:38, Neh 12:40. ותהלכת, et processiones, solemn processions, is added more closely to define תודה. The company of those who gave thanks consisted of a number of Levitical singers, behind whom walked the princes of the people, the priests, and Levites. At the head of one procession went Ezra the scribe (Neh 12:36), with one half of the nobles; at the head of the second, Nehemiah with the other half (Neh 12:38). The one company and procession went to the right upon the wall. Before ליּמין we must supply, “one band went” (הולכת האחת התּודה), as is evident partly from the context of the present verse, partly from Neh 12:38. These words were probably omitted by a clerical error caused by the similarity of תּהלכת to הולכת. Thus the first procession went to the right, i.e., in a southerly direction, upon the wall towards the dung-gate (see rem. on Neh 3:14); the second, Neh 12:38, went over against the first (למאל), i.e., in an opposite direction, and therefore northwards, past the tower of the furnaces, etc. The starting-point of both companies and processions is not expressly stated, but may be easily inferred from the points mentioned, and can have been none other than the valley-gate, the present Jaffa gate (see rem. on Neh 2:13). Before a further description of the route taken by the first company, the individuals composing the procession which followed it are enumerated in Neh 12:32-36. After them, i.e., after the first company of them that gave thanks, went Hoshaiah and half of the princes of Judah. Hoshaiah was probably the chief of the one half of these princes. The seven names in Neh 12:33 and Neh 12:34 are undoubtedly the names of the princes, and the ו before עזריה is explicative: even, namely. Bertheau’s remark, “After the princes came the orders of priests, Azariah,” etc., is incorrect. It is true that of these seven names, five occur as names of priests, and heads of priestly houses, viz.: Azariah, Neh 10:2; Neh 12:1; Meshullam, Neh 10:7; Shemaiah, Neh 10:8 and Neh 12:6; and Jeremiah, Neh 12:1. But even if these individuals were heads of priestly orders, their names do not here stand for their orders. Still less do Judah and Benjamin denote the half of the laity of Judah and Benjamin, as Bertheau supposes, and thence infers that first after the princes came two or three orders of priests, then half of the laity of Judah and Benjamin, and then two more orders of priests. Neh 12:38, which is said to give rise to this view, by no means confirms it. It is true that in this verse העם חצי, besides Nehemiah, are stated to have followed the company of those who gave thanks; but that העם in this verse is not used to designate the people as such, but is only a general expression for the individuals following the company of singers, is placed beyond doubt by Neh 12:40, where העם is replaced by הסּגנים חצי; while, beside the half of the rulers, with Nehemiah, only priests with trumpets and Levites with stringed instruments (Neh 12:41) are enumerated as composing the second procession. Since, then, the priests with trumpets and Levites with musical instruments are mentioned in the first procession (Neh 12:35 and Neh 12:36), the names enumerated in Neh 12:33 and Neh 12:34 can be only those of the one half of the סגנים of the people, i.e., the one half of the princes of Judah. The princes of Judah, i.e., of the Jewish community, consisted not only of laymen, but included also the princes, i.e., heads of priestly and Levitical orders; and hence priestly and Levitical princes might also be among the seven whose names are given in Neh 12:33 and Neh 12:34. A strict severance, moreover, between lay and priestly princes cannot be made by the names alone; for these five names, which may designate priestly orders, pertain in other passages to laymen, viz.: Azariah, in Neh 3:23; Ezra, as of the tribe of Judah, 1Ch 4:17; Meshullam, Neh 3:4; Neh 10:21, and elsewhere; Shemaiah, Ezr 6:13; Ezr 10:31; 1Ch 3:22; 1Ch 4:37 (of Judah), 1Ch 5:4 (a Reubenite), and other passages (this name being very usual; comp. Simonis Onomast. p. 546); Jeremiah, 1Ch 5:24 (a Manassite), Neh 12:4 (a Benjamite), Neh 12:10 (a Gadite). Even the name Judah is met with among the priests (Neh 12:36), and among the Levites, Neh 12:8, comp. also Neh 11:9, and that of Benjamin, Neh 3:23 and Ezr 10:32. In the present verses, the two names are not those of tribes, but of individuals, nomina duorum principum (R. Sal.). Neh 12:35-36

The princes of the congregation were followed by certain “of the sons of the priests” (seven in number, to judge from Neh 12:41) with trumpets; also by Jonathan the son of Zechariah, who, as appears from the subsequent ואחיו, was at the head of the Levitical musicians, i.e., the section of them that followed this procession. His brethren, i.e., the musicians of his section, are enumerated in Neh 12:36, - eight names being given, among which are a Shemaiah and a Judah. “With the musical instruments of David, the man of God:” comp. 2Ch 29:26; 1Ch 15:16; 1Ch 23:5; Ezr 3:10. “And Ezra the scribe before them,” viz., before the individuals enumerated from Neh 12:32, immediately after the company of those who gave thanks, and before the princes, like Nehemiah, Neh 12:38. Neh 12:37-42

After this insertion of the names of the persons who composed the procession, the description of the route it took is continued. From “upon the wall, towards the dung-gate (Neh 12:31), it passed on” to the fountain-gate; and נגדּם, before them (i.e., going straight forwards; comp. Jos 6:5, Jos 6:20; Amo 4:3), they went up by the stairs of the city of David, the ascent of the wall, up over the house of David, even unto the water-gate eastward. These statements are not quite intelligible to us. The stairs of the city of David are undoubtedly “the stairs that lead down from the city of David” (Neh 3:15). These lay on the eastern slope of Zion, above the fountain-gate and the Pool of Siloam. לחומה המּעלה might be literally translated “the ascent to the wall,” as by Bertheau, who takes the sense as follows: (The procession) went up upon the wall by the ascent formed by these steps at the northern part of the eastern side of Zion. According to this, the procession would have left the wall by the stairs at the eastern declivity of Zion, to go up upon the wall again by this ascent. There is, however, no reason for this leaving of the wall, and that which Bertheau adduces is connected with his erroneous transposition of the fountain-gate to the place of the present dung-gate. לחומה המּעלה seems to be the part of the wall which, according to Neh 3:19, lay opposite the המּקצוע הנּשׁק עלת, a place on the eastern edge of Zion, where the wall was carried over an elevation of the ground, and where consequently was an ascent in the wall. Certainly this cannot be insisted upon, because the further statement דויד לבית מעל is obscure, the preposition ל מעל admitting of various interpretations, and the situation of the house of David being uncertain. Bertheau, indeed, says: “ועד in the following words corresponds with מעל before דויד לבית: a wall over the house of David is not intended; and the meaning is rather, that after they were come as far as the wall, they then passed over the house of David, i.e., the place called the house of David, even to the water-gate.” But the separation of מעל from דויד לבית is decidedly incorrect, ל מעל being in the preceding and following passages always used in combination, and forming one idea: comp. Neh 12:31 (twice) and Neh 12:38 and Neh 12:39. Hence it could scarcely be taken here in Neh 12:37 in a different sense from that which it has in Neh 12:31 and Neh 12:38. Not less objectionable is the notion that the house of David is here put for a place called the house of David, on which a palace of David formerly stood, and where perhaps the remains of an ancient royal building might still have been in existence. By the house of David is meant, either the royal palace built (according to Thenius) by Solomon at the north-eastern corner of Zion, opposite the temple, or some other building of David, situate south of this palace, on the east side of Zion. The former view is more probable than the latter. We translate לבית ד מעל, past the house of David. For, though לחומה מעל must undoubtedly be so understood as to express that the procession went upon the wall (which must be conceived of as tolerably broad), yet למגדּל מעל, Neh 12:38, can scarcely mean that the procession also went up over the tower which stood near the wall. In the case of the gates, too, ל מעל cannot mean over upon; for it is inconceivable that this solemn procession should have gone over the roof of the gates; and we conclude, on the contrary, that it passed beside the gates and towers. Whether the route taken by the procession from the house of David to the water-gate in the east were straight over the ridge of Ophel, which ran from about the horse-gate to the water-gate, or upon the wall round Ophel, cannot be determined, the description being incomplete. After the house of David, no further information as to its course is given; its halting-place, the water-gate, being alone mentioned.

The route taken by the second company is more particularly described. - Neh 12:38 and Neh 12:39. “And the second company of them that gave thanks, which went over against, and which I and the (other) half of the people followed, (went) upon the wall past the tower of the furnaces, as far as the broad wall; and past the gate of Ephraim, and past the gate of the old (wall), and past the fish-gate, and past the tower Hananeel and the tower Hammeah, even to the sheep-gate: and then took up its station at the prison-gate.” למואל (in the form with א only here; elsewhere מול, Deu 1:1, or מוּל), over against, opposite, sc. the first procession, therefore towards the opposite side, i.e., to the left; the first having gone to the right, viz., from the valley-gate northwards upon the northern wall. וגו אחריה ואני (and I behind them) is a circumstantial clause, which we may take relatively. The order of the towers, the lengths of wall, and the gates, exactly answer to the description in Neh 3:1-12, with these differences: - a. The description proceeds from the sheep-gate in the east to the valley-gate in the west; while the procession moved in the opposite direction, viz., from the valley-gate to the sheep-gate. b. In the description of the building of the wall, Neh 3, the gate of Ephraim is omitted (see rem. on Neh 3:8). c. In the description, the prison-gate at which the procession halted is also unmentioned, undoubtedly for the same reason as that the gate of Ephraim is omitted, viz., that not having been destroyed, there was no need to rebuild it. המּטּרה שׁער is translated, gate of the prison or watch: its position is disputed; but it can scarcely be doubted that המּטּרה is the court of the prison mentioned Neh 3:25 (המּטּרה חצר), by or near the king’s house. Starting from the assumption that the two companies halted or took up positions opposite each other, Hupfeld (in his before-cited work, p. 321) transposes both the court of the prison and the king’s house to the north of the temple area, where the citadel. בּירה, βᾶρις, was subsequently situated. But “this being forbidden,” as Arnold objects (in his before-cited work, p. 628), “by the order in the description of the building of the wall, Neh 3:25, which brings us absolutely to the southern side,” Bertheau supposes that the two processions which would arrive at the same moment at the temple, - the one from the north-east, the other from the south-east, - here passed each other, and afterwards halted opposite each other in such wise, that the procession advancing from the south-west stood on the northern side, and that from the north-west at the southern side of the temple area. This notion, however, having not the slightest support from the text, nor any reason appearing why the one procession should pass the other, it must be regarded as a mere expedient. In Neh 12:40 it is merely said, the two companies stood in the house of God; and not even that they stood opposite each other, the one on the north, the other on the south side of the temple. Thus they may have stood side by side, and together have praised the Lord. Hence we place the prison-gate also on the south-eastern corner of the temple area, and explain the name from the circumstance that a street ran from this gate over Ophel to the court of the prison near the king’s house upon Zion, which, together with the gate to which it led, received its name from the court of the prison. Not far from the prison-gate lay the water-gate in the east, near which was an open space in the direction of the temple area (Neh 8:1). On this open space the two companies met, and took the direction towards the temple, entering the temple area from this open space, that they might offer their thank-offerings before the altar of burnt-offering (Neh 12:43). Besides, the remark upon the position of the two companies (Neh 12:40) anticipates the course of events, the procession following the second company being first described in Neh 12:40-42. At the end of Neh 12:40 the statement of Neh 12:38 - I and the half of the people behind - is again taken up in the words: I and the half of the rulers with me. The סגנים are, as in Neh 12:32, the princes of the congregation, who, with Nehemiah, headed the procession that followed the company of those who gave thanks. Then followed (Neh 12:41) seven priests with trumpets, whose names are given, answering to the sons of the priests with trumpets (Neh 12:36) in the first procession. These names are all met with elsewhere of other persons. These were succeeded, as in Neh 12:36, by eight Levites - eight individuals, and not eight divisions (Bertheau). And the singers gave forth sound, i.e., of voices and instruments, - whether during the circuit or after the two companies had take their places at the temple, is doubtful. The president of the Levitical singers was Jezrahiah. Neh 12:43

The solemnity terminated with the offering of great sacrifices and a general festival of rejoicing. In the matter of sacrificing, the person of Nehemiah would necessarily recede; hence he relates the close of the proceedings objectively, and speaks in the third person, as he had done when speaking of the preparations for them, Neh 12:27, etc., only using the first (Neh 12:31, Neh 12:38, Neh 12:40) person when speaking of what was appointed by himself, or of his own position. The זבהים were chiefly thank-offerings which, terminating in feasting upon the sacrifices, - and these feasts in which the women and children participated, - contributed to the enhancement of the general joy, the joy which God had given them by the success He had accorded to their work of building their wall. For a description of their rejoicing, comp. 2Ch 20:27; Ezr 6:22, and Neh 3:13.