The Pulpit Commentary — Nehemiah — Section 114

nnd Benjamitc chiefs. Athaiah, or Uthai, ns 21). The son of Kilkiah. Renlly the grand- the nRme is given in 1 Chron. ix. 4. The son (Ezra vii. I). The eon of Me ■hullam. son of Unie.h. The Rncestors e.ssigned to Or "Sha.\lum" (ibid. ver. 2). The ruler of Athaiah here and in 1 Chron. ix. are wholly the house of God. /. e. tho high priest ; or, different, with the single exception of Pharcz ra!her, the f~mi_ly which furnished the high or Perez, the son of Judah. Roth lists are priests. at tins time. The actunl high priest of course abbreviations of a far longer one, ,vas Ehashib, the son of Joinkim, and grand- and it has happened that the two writers son of Jeshua (see eh, xii. 10; xiii. 4). have in no ca.se selected for mention the same Ver. 12. -Their brethren that did the name. work of the house. The priests of ordinary Ver. 5. -ll[aaseiah is called "Asaiah" in rank, who-divided originally into twenty- 1 Chron., and designated simply as " the four, but now apparently into twenty-two Shilonite," or descendant of Shelah, the courses (eh. xii. 2-7)-had the caro of th~ youngest son of Judah. Zechariah, the son temple service in turn, amounted to the of Shiloni. Rather, "the Shilonite." The largo number of (822+242+128=) 1192 word ben, "son," has been intruded into persons, of whom between fifty and sixty the text by a copyist, who thought that would be employed in some work connected " Shiloni " was a personal name. with the service at one time. (The parallel Ver. 6.-Valiant men. Or, "fighting passage of Chronicles raises the total to men "-men able to bear arms and serve in 1760.) the wars. Ver. 14.-Their brethren, mighty men of Ver. 7.-And these are the sons of Ben- valour. Not "men of great coura~e," as jamin. A verse equivalent to 1 Chron. ix. Ilp. Patrick explains, but "very able men 6 would seem to have fallen out here. N ehe- for the work of the service of the house of miab cannot have intended to leave out the God," as our translators render the parallel descendants of Zerah, who formed more passage of Chronicles (I Chron. ix. 13). than one-half of the Jewish element in the Zabdiel, the son of one of the great men. JJOpulation of Jerusalem, and furnished 690 Rather, as in the margin, "the ,son of fighting men. Sallu the son of Meshullam. Haggedolim." Compare 1 Chron. ix. 7. The other names Vers. 15, 16.-Also oftheLevites: Shema- in the genealogy are different, the two writers iah. Compare l Chron. ix. 14. Snemaiah singling out for mention different ancestors. was a descendant of Merari. Together with Ver. 8.-Neither Ga.bbainor Sallaiismen- Shabbethai and Jozabad (ver. 16), he had tioned in Chronicles, where the Benjamite the superintendence of the outward business chiefs inferior to Shallu are Ibneiah, Elah, of the house of God; or, in other words, of and Meshullam (1 Chron. ix. 8). Nine hun- its worldly affairs and money matters. As dred and twenty-eight. Nine hundred and in the Christian Church a special order was fifty-six, according to Chronicles (1 Chron. appointed "to serve tables" (Acts vi. 2-5), ix.. 9). Probably in one place or the other so in the Jewish the secular business of the the figures have suffered corruption. templewasintrusted to a few carefully-selected Ver. 9.-Their overseer. Probably the persons of the inferior order of the ministry, commandant of the city under Nehemiah. who were known to have a. special capacity See 2 Kings xxv. 19, where pakid has this for such matters (see 1 Chron. xxvi. 29). • sense. 1udah . . . was aecond. Next in Ver. 17.-Matta.niah . ... was the prin• authority to Joel cipal to begin the thanksgiving in prayer. Ver. 10.-0f the priests: 1ede.i.a.h the son I. e. the " leader of the choir," or " pre- of 1oiarib, Jachi.n. Rather, "Of the priests, centor." Bakbukiah was second to him J edaiah, J oiarib, J achin." The word ben, among his brethren; i. e. was his chief "son," has once more accidentally crept in assistant. Abda (or "Obadiah," 1 Chron. (comp. 1 Chron. ix.. 10). The writer here ix. 16) held the third place. passes from personal to family names. Jeda- Ver. 18.-All the Levites . . . were two iah and J oiarib were two of the chief priestly hundred fourscore and four. The small families, and are nsually mentioned together proportion borne by the Levites to the (1 Chron. x:xiv. 7; Neh. xii 6, 19, &c.). priests, which has been already noticed (see .Te.chin was a priestly family of much less comment on Ezra. viii. 15), is here again distinction, descended probably from the apparent. They do not quite amount to head of the twenty-first course in David's one-third of the priests. time (1 Chron. xxiv. 17). Ver. 19.-The porters, Akkub, Talmon. Ver. 11.-Seraia.h (called "Azaria.h" in On these familiar names, see the comment 1 Chron. ix. 11) designates the high priestly upon Ezra ii. 42. An hundred and seventy• family of this time, as in eh. x. 2; xiL 1, 12. two. In 1 Chron. ix. 22 the number is said The "Seraiah" who gave name to it was pro- to have h,e11 212. bably the high priest taken prisoner by Nebu- Ver. 21.-The Nethinims dwelt in Ophel, llQI"Qdan, and put to death (2 Kings x.xv. 18- See above, eh. iii. 26. Ophel, the southern CH. XJ. 1-36.] THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH. 119