Nehemiah 13:2

Because they met not the children of Israel with bread,.... The same reason is given, and what follows in this verse is observed in Deuteronomy 23:4; [See comments on Deuteronomy 23:4] [See comments on Deuteronomy 23:5].

Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing. No JFB commentary on this verse.

Nehemiah 13:2 Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing.Ver. 2. Because they met not the children of Israel] A bare omission of observance subjected them to divine vengeance. As God requiteth the least courtesy done to his people, be it but a cup of cold water; so he repayeth the least discourtesy, or but neglect of them, to whom the glorious angels are ministering spirits, and may not think themselves too good to serve them, Hebrews 1:14. But hired Balaam against them] With the rewards of divination, Numbers 22:7, the wages of wickedness, Judges 1:11 2 Peter 2:15, which he greedily ran after; and not so much as roving at God, made the world his standing mark, till he had got a sword in his guts. Howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing] So he did the pope’ s curse to Queen Elizabeth, and before her, to Luther. Quo magis illi furunt, eo amplius precedo, saith he in a certain epistle; the more they rage and ban me the more I proceed and prosper. The pope excommunicated him, the emperor proscribed him, &c. Omnium animi tum erant arrecti, quid illa Caesaris et pontificis fulmina essent effectura. All men’ s minds were then set an end, and stood on tip-toes, as it were, to see what would be the issue, saith mine author (Scultet. Annal.). A wonderful work of our God surely, and worthy to be chronicled! Luther is conveyed out of the way by the Elector of Saxony for ten months, till he would be hid no longer. Meanwhile Pope Leo dieth, the Emperor Charles V is first called into Spain to suppress seditions there, and afterwards is so busied in his wars with the French king, that he hath no leisure to look after Luther. After this, when the French king was beaten by the emperor, and carried prisoner into Spain, he was released and sent home again, upon the condition that the emperor and he should root out the Lutheran heresy, as they called it. But our God broke their designs, and turned this curse also into a blessing. For the French king returning home, and conceiving that the conditions that he had yielded unto, to get off, were unequal, entereth into a league with the pope and the State of Venice against the emperor. The pope, that he might cover his false dealing with the emperor, sends abroad his Bull and therein calleth knave first. The emperor, on the other side, complaineth of the pope’ s malice and double-dealing, exhorteth him to peace, and concludeth that it were fitter for them to unite against the Lutherans. And when he could prevail nothing by writing, he abolished his authority throughout all Spain, sends his armies against him under the duke of Bourbon, claps him up prisoner in St Angelo, proclaims open war against the French, &c.

XIII.(1-3) Reform as to mixed marriages. (1) On that day.—Probably the season of the Feast of Tabernacles, as before. But portions were selected to be read. They read in the book of Moses.—“It was read” in the Pentateuch, and specially Deuteronomy 23. This is introduced for the sake of the action taken, and the history is given in brief, with a striking and characteristic parenthesis of Nehemiah’s own concerning the curse turned into a blessing. Therein was found written.—What to the people generally was not known. For ever.—No Ammonite or Ammonite family could have legal standing in the congregation, “even to their tenth generation;” and this interdict was to last “for ever.” It virtually though not actually amounted to absolute exclusion. (3) The mixed multitude.—For the “mixed multitude,” or Ereb, which plays so prominent a part in Jewish history, see on Exodus 12:38. The process here was that of shutting out heathens who were in the habit of mingling with the people in the services. In Nehemiah 9 it was, as we saw, the people’s separation from the practices and spirit of the heathen.

2. because they met not, &c.] Cf. Deuteronomy 23:4, ‘Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they (Heb. he) hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse thee.’ Balaam is referred to by the Deuteronomist as the prophet whose curse would be fatal; the Deuteronomist writer, like the prophet Micah (Nehemiah 6:5) follows the Jehovist account in Numbers 22-24, and shows no sign of acquaintance with the Elohist’s description of Balaam (Numbers 31:8; Numbers 31:16) as an instigator of the Midianite plot to corrupt the children of Israel. but hired] The verb in the Hebrew is in the singular ‘he hired’, as in Deuteronomy 23:4, referring possibly to Balak the son of Zippor in Numbers 22:2. against them] Literally ‘against him’, i.e. Israel, corresponding to the singular ‘against thee’ in Deuteronomy 23:4. that he should curse them] R.V. to curse them.howbeit our God] The remainder of the verse gives in general terms the substance of Deu 23:5-6.