11:1 AND the princes of the people dwelt in Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city, and nine parts in the other cities. 2 And the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell in Jerusalem.

Verses 3-36 include lists of chief dwellers in Jerusalem and in the country towns and villages. Chap. 12:1-26 contains lists of priestly and Levitical houses. These lists are sufficiently described in the first general note.

12:27 And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps. And the sons of the singers gathered themselves together, both out of the plain round about Jerusalem, and from the villages of the Netophathites; also from Beth-gilgal, and out of the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the singers had builded them villages round about Jerusalem. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves; and they purified the people, and the gates, and the wall. Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great companies that gave thanks and went in procession; whereof one went on the right hand upon the wall toward the dung gate: and after them went Hoshaiah, and half of the princes of 33, 34 Judah, and Azariah, Ezra, and Meshullam, Judah, and Benjamin, and Shemaiah, and Jeremiah, and certain of the priests’ sons with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph; and his brethren, Shemaiah, and Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, and Judah, Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God; and Ezra the scribe was before them: and by the fountain gate, and straight before them, they went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the going up of the wall, above the house of David, even unto the water gate eastward. And the other company of them that gave thanks went to meet them, and I after them, with the half of the people, upon the wall, above the tower of the furnaces, even unto the broad wall; and above the gate of Ephraim, and by the old gate, and by the fish gate, and the tower of Hananel, and the tower of Hammeah, even unto the sheep gate: and they stood still in the gate of the guard. So stood the two companies of them that gave thanks in the house of God, and I, and the half of the rulers with me: and the priests, Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, and Hananiah, with trumpets; and Maaseiah, and Shemaiah, and Eleazar, and Uzzi, and Jehohanan, and Malchijah, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer. And they offered great sacrifices that day, and rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and the women also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off. And on that day were men appointed over the chambers for the treasures, for the heave offerings, for the firstfruits, and for the tithes, to gather into them, according to the fields of the cities, the portions appointed by the law for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced for the priests and for the Levites that waited. And they kept the ward of their God, and the ward of the purification, and so did the singers and the porters, according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son. For in the days of David and Asaph of old there was a chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God. And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel, and in the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the porters, as every day required: and they sanctified for the Levites; and the Levites sanctified for the sons of Aaron. 13:1 On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that an Ammonite and a Moabite should not enter into the assembly of God for ever; because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, to curse them: howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing. And it came to pass, when they had heard the law, that they separated from Israel all the mixed multitude.

4. Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of 5 our God, being allied unto Tobiah, had prepared for him a great chamber, where aforetime they laid the meal offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the corn, the wine, and the oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, and the singers, and the 6 porters; and the heave offerings for the priests. But in all this time I was not at Jerusa- lem: for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went unto the king, 7 and after certain days asked I leave of the king: and I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the 8 house of God. And it grieved me some: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of 9 Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers: and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, with the meal offerings and the 10 frankincense. And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them; so 11 that the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field. Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken? And I gathered 12 them together, and set them in their place. Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn 13 and the wine and the oil unto the treasuries. And I made treasurers over the treasuries, Shelemiah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedalah: and the next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah: for they were counted faithful, and 14 their business was to distribute unto their brethren. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the observances thereof. 15 In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses therewith; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath day: and I testified against them in the 16 day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought in fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jeru- 17 salem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is 18 this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by 19 profaning the sabbath. And it came to pass that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and commanded that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I over the gates, 20 that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers 21 of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on 22 you. From that time forth came they no more on the sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day. Remember unto me, O my God, this also, and spare me accord- ing to the greatness of thy mercy. 23 In those days also saw I the Jews that had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of 24 Moab: and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the 25 Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters 26 for your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God 27 made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did strange women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to trespass against our God in marrying 28 strange women? And one of the sons of Jolada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son 29 in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the 30 Levites. Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed wards for the priests and 31 for the Levites, every one in his work; and for the wood offering, at times appointed, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

The Closing Sections of the Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah’s narrative in the first person, broken off at Neh. 7:5 for the insertion of the 1st of the returned exiles, resumed, perhaps, in 11: 1, 2, and again interrupted by the genealogical note (11:3 to 12:26), is finally resumed with the account of the dedication of the wall (12: 27). This closing part of it consists of three sections, each ending with the precalve clause, “Remember me, O my God,” etc. (13:14, 22, 31). The first section describes the dedication of the wall, the renewed separation from for- eigners, the renewed provision for the Levites, and, parenthetically, the reaction which had taken place during Nehemiah’s absence, and which rendered these renewed arrangements necessary. It follows that the events of this section occurred partly during the interval be- tween the two administrations of Nehemiah, and partly soon after his return for his second administration. The second section describes a struggle for legalized Sabbath-keeping that oc- curred at some unknown later date. The third section is mainly concerned with two incidents in a renewed struggle against the practice of intermarriage with foreigners, but closes with a more general statement as to the work of Nehemiah. These statements touching foreign marriages perhaps cover a considerable interval of time. At all events, the latest incident mentioned, the marriage of a descendant of Joiada the high-priest with a woman of the family of Sanballat (Neh. 13:28), probably occurred some decades after the beginning of the second administration of Nehemiah. The opening chapters of Nehemiah’s narrative are relatively full, covering in all only a few months. The closing sections are relatively brief, belonging to three different points of time, and covering, in all, many years. The dedication of the wall belongs to Nehemiah’s second administration. The matters in the section (11:3 to 12:26) do not lead up to the account of the dedication. That section is in part a duplicate of 1 Chron. 9. It is a series of genealogical notes, including the names of men of at least six generations. Most of the men of the two youngest of these generations were not yet born when the wall was dedicated, and the names of those who participated in the dedication are in no way made prominent in these notes. There is a clear break between this genealogical section and what follows it. And, on the other hand, the account of the pageant at the wall is closely connected with the events related directly afterward. It was “on that day” that they made the arrangements described in 12:44. It was still “on that day” (13:1) that they read in the law in regard to the exclusion of Moabites and Ammonites from the assembly of Jehovah. It is necessarily to these events that the phrase “before this” of 13:4 applies. Hence the affirmation there made is that Nehemiah’s absence from Jerusalem took place before these events; that is, before the dedication of the wall and the reading of the law which accompanied it. And this is equivalent to saying that the dedication occurred after Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem for his second administration. Just at that time there were reasons why Nehemiah should devise such a public occasion as this. He could make use of it as a means of influencing the people for resisting the reactionary movement that had set in during his absence. This is a sufficient reply to the argument sometimes used, that it is not likely that they would so long have postponed the dedication of the wall. A city wall is not a temple, and does not necessarily demand dedication. There is no reason to think they would have dedicated it at all, save as there might be value in the dedicatory solemnities themselves.

Nehemiah’s Two Administrations. According to the record in the first ten chapters, Nehemiah accomplished two great things in the first seven months of the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. The first was the rebuilding of the wall, and the second the establishment of internal affairs on a sound basis. The points of internal administration that are most emphasized are, first, the abolishing of marriages with foreigners (Neh. 10:30); second, the stopping of trade on the Sabbath and the holy days (Neh. 10:31); third, the securing the observance of “the seventh year” (both by letting the soil rest and by releasing debts, doubtless, Ex. 23:10, 11; Lev. 25:3-7; De. 15:1, 2; Neh. 10:31); fourth, the breaking up of extortionate practices (Neh. 10:31; chap. 5); fifth, the making of business-like provision for the support of the Temple services and ministers (Neh. 10:32-39). From the close of these seven months, the first administration of Nehemiah lasted eleven or twelve years (Neh. 13:6; 5:14). The time was doubtless employed in working out the problems just mentioned, and the auxiliary problem of securing to Jerusalem a sufficient population to make it a safe city, and suitable for the national Temple and worship (Neh. 7:4; 11:1, 2). In Neh. 5:14-19, we are informed that during all this time Nehemiah lived in a generous and hospitable way in Jerusalem, but without cost to the people over whom he was governor. Doubtless those were to him trying years, but, on the whole, years of success. Steadily his people became more prosperous, and the ideas represented by Ezra and himself more influential among them. At the end of the twelve years Nehemiah went to the king, perhaps thinking that his task in Jerusalem was now accomplished. Thus his first administration closed, B.C. 433.

It turned out, however, that he could not be spared, and he was recalled for a second administration (Neh. 13:6). How long he had been gone is a matter of conjecture. Some guess that it was one year, and some that it was several years; but it cannot have been many years. On his return to Jerusalem, he found disintegration in rapid progress. Tobiah had a lodging in the Temple itself. The Jews were again mingling with foreigners. The Sabbath was profaned. The provision for supporting the Temple attendants was neglected, and they had scattered, each to earn his own living. Nehemiah acted promptly and vigorously. He summarily evicted Tobiah. He commenced gathering again the scattered Levites and singers, and insisted that adequate provision should be made for them. The solemnities of the dedication of the wall afforded him an occasion for assembling and thoroughly reorganizing them, and providing for their support, and an equally good occasion for securing the ratification of his policy of excluding foreigners. Perhaps he would have lost a large part of a year’s tithes, if he had waited till the feast of booths for a national gathering that should act in these matters. The administration thus vigorously begun was doubtless a long one—how long no one knows. W. J. B.

Chaps. 11, 12. The nexus of chap. 11 is with chap. 7:4, 5. Having spoken in that place of the insufficiency of the population of Jerusalem, Nehemiah now proceeds to explain the steps which he took to remedy it. He made, it would seem, a census of the entire nation, and required each town and district to transfer one tenth of its population to the capital. The men in the various localities determined among themselves by lot who should stay and who should go, and Nehemiah no doubt made the necessary arrangements for the reception of the newcomers at Jerusalem. Forced enlargements of capitals by transfers of this kind were not uncommon in the ancient world, where the strength of states was considered to depend very greatly upon the size and predominance of the capital. Thucydides attributes the greatness and prosperity of the Athenian community to an artificial enlargement of the population of Athens which he ascribes to Theseus. Other notorious instances are those of Syracuse, Megalopolis and Tigranocerta. In Jerusalem at this time the special need of an increase in the number of the inhabitants was probably the defence of the walls. These had been rebuilt on the ancient foundations—their circuit was not much less than four miles—and to man them in case of attack, a large population was necessary. From a comparison of the numbers given in this chapter (verses 6–19) with those of 1 Chron. 9:9–22, it may be gathered that the result of Nehemiah’s arrangements was to give Jerusalem a population of about twenty thousand souls.

Having been led, in speaking of this matter, to give a sort of catalogue of the chief dwellers at Jerusalem (verses 4–19), and another of the country towns and villages occupied at this time by those Israelites who had returned from the Captivity (verses 25–35), Nehemiah is induced to insert, at this point, certain other lists or catalogues which he regards as worthy of being put on record. These lists are four in number, and occupy chap. 12 as far as verse 26.

They comprise: (1) a list of the priestly and Levitical houses which returned with Zerubbabel (verses 1–9); (2) a list of the high-priests from Jeshua to Jaddua; (3) a list of the heads of the priestly courses in the time of the high-priest, Joiakim; and (4) a list of the chief Levitical houses at the same period and afterward. Such lists possess at the present day but a very slight and secondary interest. Their formation, however, and safe preservation were, at the time, essential for the continuity of the nation’s history, and the maintenance of the priestly order in purity, and without admixture of laic elements. P. C.

11:2. The men that willingly offered themselves. Besides those on whom the lot fell, a certain number volunteered to change their residence and to transfer themselves and families from their country homes to Jerusalem. The people called down blessings upon them for their patriotism. P. C.

Chap. 12. This chapter is made up of two portions. From verse 1 to verse 26 it mainly consists of lists of the leading priests and Levites at different periods. Verses 27–47 give an account of the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. This last passage is certainly from the pen of Nehemiah, and was written probably about n.c. 433. The lists which constitute the earlier portion of the chapter are four: (1) A list of the chief priestly and Levitical families, which returned to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (verses 1–9); (2) the succession of the high-priests from Jeshua to Jaddua, high-priest in the time of Alexander the Great (verses 10, 11); (3) a list of the actual heads of the priestly families in the time of the high-priest Joiakim, the son of Jeshua (verses 12–21); and (4) a list of the chief Levitical families at the same period (verses 24–26). Of these four lists, Nos. 1, 3 and 4 may have been drawn up in the time of Nehemiah, but No. 2 in its present form must be much later.

22,23. These verses come in very awkwardly, interrupting the account of the Church officers in the time of Joiakim, which is resumed in verse 24. They appear to be an addition to the original text, made about the time of Alexander the Great, when the Books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah would seem to have first taken their existing shape. The same hand which inserted these verses probably also added to the original text verse 11. The days of Darius the Persian. Modern commentators are generally agreed that Darius Codomannus, the antagonist of Alexander the Great, is intended. This prince ascended the throne B.C. 336, and reigned till B.C. 331. B. C.

27-43. Dedication of the wall. It is not easy to imagine that the author would have separated the dedication of the wall from its completion by five chapters and a half, unless they had been separated in fact by an interval of some duration. The interval seems, by the notes of time contained in chaps. 12, 13, to have been one of nearly thirteen years. Nehemiah’s religious reforms were certainly subsequent to the visit that he paid to the Persian court in B.C. 432 (13:6). These reforms grew out of a reading of the law which took place at the time when Nehemiah appointed the Temple officers (13:1), and that appointment followed closely on the dedication (12:44). The dedication of a city wall was, so far as we know, a new thing in Israel; but it had been customary from a remote time to dedicate houses (De. 20:5); and natural piety extended this practice to aggregations of houses, and to the limit or fence by which they were practically made one. The priestly order had shown its sense of the fitness of such a consecration when they raised their portion of the wall, and had at once “sanctified it” (3:1). Nehemiah now, by the ceremony which he planned and carried out, placed the whole circuit of the wall under the Divine protection, confessing in this solemn act the intrinsic worthlessness of mere walls and bulwarks, unless God lends them strength and makes them a protection against enemies. P. C.

And now the time was come when, everything having been established in its rightful order, it seemed fitting that there should be a solemn dedication of the wall to Almighty God. It was not the Temple only which was viewed as a sanctuary by the more religious Jews; but the entire city was regarded as holy—as “God’s mountain” (Isa. 65:25)—as a sort of outer sanctuary guarding the inner sanctuary, and, therefore, as requiring to be set apart to God by a formal act of consecration. On the day appointed for this important ceremony, Nehemiah arranged two grand processions, which should girdle the city on the right hand and on the left, and meeting together at the Temple, should there sing praise to God, and “offer great sacrifices and rejoice” (verse 43). The Levites were summoned from their country districts, with their full array of the musical instruments, which still bore the name of their royal inventor, David (verse 36); and the minstrels gathered themselves together from their retreats in the hills of Judah and in the deep valley of the Jordan (verses 28, 29). The priests came in their full numbers, carrying the sacred trumpets (verses 35, 41), and the princes of Judah mustered in great strength (verses 31, 32, 40). Nehemiah divided the assembled multitude into “two great companies of them that gave thanks,” and placing himself at the head of the one company (verse 40), and “Ezra the scribe” (verse 36) at the head of the other, caused them to ascend the wall and make the circuit of it, part going in one direction and part in the other, rejoicing all the way and giving praise, until they met on the eastern rampart opposite the Temple, and, there taking their stand, brought the ceremony to an end by a loud antiphonal paean of praise, in which the priests blew their trumpets, the Levites sounded their harps, cymbals and psalteries, and the singers, “with Jerahiah their overseer” (verse 42), “sang loud” and “with great joy rejoiced” (verses 42, 43). At the same time, even the women and children joined in the general acclamation, so that “the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off” (verse 43). Ezra and Nehemiah, each at the head of their own half of the procession, stood facing one the other, set before the nation as their almost co-equal guides and rulers, to be alike venerated and alike obeyed. G. R.

27. To keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgiving and with singing. Solomon’s dedication of the Temple was the pattern followed. As he had made the service altogether one of praise and thanksgiving (2 Chron. 5:13), and had employed in it cymbals, trumpets, psalteries and harps (ibid., verse 12), so Nehemiah on the present occasion.

43. “That day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great joy, the wives also and the children rejoiced; so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.” The constituents of true joy are: 1. Thankfulness and praise in the remembrance of the past and in confident anticipation of the future. The people recounted the mercies of the Lord. Their dedication of the completed walls represented their preparation by the grace of God for His worship and service; their defence against assaults from without; their unity and order as a people. So ought all rejoicing to be well founded on the faith which has full possession of our hearts, and the consecrated religious life which maintains that faith in practice. 2. Purification. “They offered great sacrifices and rejoiced.” The giving out of the heart in religious worship uplifts the whole strain of the life. A great expenditure of feeling in the pleasures of this world is exhausting to the nature, but religious emotion both purifies and exalts. 3. Fellowship. All rejoiced together—high and low, rich and poor, the strong men, the wives and children. The true joy is not solitary and selfish, but reveals the unity of kindred minds and sympathizing hearts. Family life is elevated by the cultivation of the spirit of social worship and praise, both in the larger circle of the congregation and in the smaller of the household. All joys brighten in the atmosphere of religious joy.

44-47. Nehemiah’s arrangements for the Temple service, and appointment of officers. The good resolutions of the people at the time of the renewal of the covenant would have borne comparatively little fruit had they not been seconded and rendered effective by formal action on the part of the civil authority. The people, in the first flush of their zeal, had bound themselves to undertake the conveyance of the tithes, firstfruits and freewill offerings from the country districts to Jerusalem, and the deposition of them in the Temple treasuries (10 : 37-39). But in practice this was found too great a burden (13 : 10). Nehemiah therefore appointed special officers to collect the tithes and other dues throughout the entire territory, and to bring them to Jerusalem, and lay them up in the proper chambers (verse 44). Over the chambers he appointed treasurers, whose duty it was, not only to collect the ecclesiastical dues, but also to distribute the proceeds among the individuals entitled to share in them (13 : 13). Having in this way provided for the sustenance of the clerical body, he was able to insist on their regular performance of all their duties; and the success of his arrangements was such, that under him the Temple service was restored, not merely to the condition established by Zerubbabel (verse 47), but to one not markedly different from that which had been attained in the time of David and Asaph (verse 46). The priests, Levites, singers and porters respectively performed their duties to his satisfaction, purifying themselves, and taking the service in their turns, “according to the commandment of David and Solomon” (verse 45).

13 : 1-31. Nehemiah’s efforts for the reform of religion. After having exercised the office of governor for twelve years, from B.C. 444 to B.C. 432, Nehemiah had had occasion to visit the Persian court, either to consult Artaxerxes personally on certain matters connected with his province, or for some other reason unknown to us. During his absence various evil practices, to which some reference has been already made in connection with the renewal of the covenant (10 : 30-39), acquired so much strength, and came to such a head, that, on Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem at the expiration of a year (verse 6), he felt it necessary to take active steps to put an end to them. In the first place, intermarriages between the Jews and the neighboring heathen, like those which Ezra had dissolved twenty-five years previously (Ezra 10 : 16-44), had again occurred, and a new generation was growing up which could not speak its own language correctly (verse 24). The family of the high-priest, Eliashib, shared in this trespass. He himself was allied by marriage to the Ammonite chief, Tobiah (verse 4), and one of his grandsons had taken to wife a daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan (verse 28). Secondly, the strict observance of the Sabbath had fallen into disrepute. Further, the payment of the tithes was very irregular; and the Levites, who ought to have found their daily food provided for them in the Temple, not receiving their “portions” there, were forced to absent themselves from the daily service, and to support themselves by cultivating their own plots of ground (verses 10, 11). Finally, the Temple had ceased to be regarded as sacred to the Almighty; a portion of it had been converted into a dwelling-house by the order of the high-priest himself (verse 5), and the Ammonite, Tobiah, had been allowed to take possession of it. Nehemiah tells us in this chapter the mode wherein he dealt with these various evils, treating of the mixed marriages in verses 1-3 and 23-28; of the profanation of the Sabbath in verses 15-22; of the non-payment of the tithes in verses 10-13; and of the desecration of the Temple in verses 4-9. The chapter is remarkable for the number of “interjectional prayers” which it contains (verses 14, 22, 29, 31), and for the plainness and roughness of the language (see especially verses 9, 17, 21, 25, 28). The authorship of Nehemiah is universally admitted. P. C.

It is tolerably clear that Ezra could not have remained at Jerusalem when Nehemiah took his departure, or the disorders of which we are about to speak would never have arisen. The simultaneous absence from Jerusalem of both Ezra and Nehemiah would necessarily bring Eliashib to the front. Accordingly, he seems to have come forward, and taken the direction of affairs. He proceeded to authorize a general relaxation of the Mosaic ordinances, and especially of those by which Nehemiah had set most store. The people should be free to contract marriage with whomsoever they preferred, and would incur no punishment for doing so. Wives were at once taken by many of the Jews from among the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Philistines of Ashdod. They were brought to Jerusalem and encouraged to teach their children their own forms of speech. A strange jargon began to be heard in the streets of the holy city, where infantile tongues babbled half in the Aramaic, “half in the speech of Ashdod” (13 : 24), and their mothers addressed them in the one language, their fathers in the other! Such seems to have been the rage for these marriages, that many Jews, carried away by it, wrongfully and cruelly put away their lawful native wives to take to themselves these aliens. To diminish the influence of the priests and Levites, who were the chief support of the reforming party, he seems to have connived at the non-payment of the tithes and firstfruits by those that owed them, which amounted to an absolute “robbery” (Mal. 3 : 8), and so impoverished the sacerdotal order, that they found themselves compelled to leave Jerusalem, and employ themselves in the cultivation of their own fields (verse 10). The service of the Temple must have suffered by this neglect, but Eliashib and his party were bent on amalgamating Judaism with heathenism, or, at any rate, on such a system of mutual toleration as should lead to an ultimate union and fusion. Meanwhile, they allowed the house of God to be “forsaken” (verse 11)—the choral service to be discontinued—the treasuries to become empty—and the once crowded courts to remain without either ministers or worshippers. If Eliashib, and the party which supported him, had remained much longer in power, and had succeeded in completely breaking down the wall of separation so long established between Israel and the heathen, it cannot be supposed that it would have been long before idolatrous altars would have appeared once more in Jerusalem at the corners of the streets, if they were not introduced, as they were under Manasseh, into the Temple itself. G. R.

7-31. When Nehemiah returned and saw this, it “grieved him sore.” But he was no mere lamenter, to content himself with sighs and tears; he was a reformer of the most vigorous type. So he purified the Temple. Then he contended with the rulers about the neglect of tithes and offerings, and stopped the traffic which had been permitted on the seventh day, including a Sabbath market which the heathen had actually set up at the gate of Jerusalem. He also repeated the strict measure of discipline which Ezra had previously enforced, insisting on the divorce of heathen wives, whom Jews had illegally married. This he did with a certain vehemence of spirit, recalling the mischief that had followed such intimacy with the heathen on the part of the wisest of their kings. “Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin by these things?” D. F.

7-14. Nehemiah went in person to the Temple, and entering the “great chamber,” which Eliashib had assigned to Tobiah the Ammonite, and “prepared for him” (verse 7), he “cast forth”—apparently with his own hands—“all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber” (verse 8). Then he proceeded to give orders that other chambers, similarly desecrated, should be cleansed and restored to their proper uses (verse 9). The “vessels of the house of God” were brought back and once more stored in them, together with the “meat offering and the frankincense.” The priests and Levites were recalled from their several “fields,” and arrangements were made for their due sustenation by the enforcement of the tithe system as recently modified by the reformers. There was a ready obedience to Nehemiah’s orders. “All Judah brought the tithe of the corn, and of the new wine, and of the oil unto the treasuries” (verse 12)—the Levites flocked back, and re-entered upon their old offices—the Temple courts were once more crowded—the choral anthems arose at the set times—and Nehemiah uttered the prayer which he has put on record (verse 14).

15-17. In re-establishing the rightful observance of the Sabbath, again Nehemiah had “the nobles” opposed to him, together with a large portion of the commercial classes. Once more, he tells us, he had to “contend.” G. R.

19. When the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath.** The Jews have always reckoned their days from sunset to sunset, grounding their practice on the account of the Creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, where “the evening and the morning” are said to constitute each of the six days. There was also a special command that the “Sabbath” of the great day of atonement should be kept “from even to even” (Lev. 23 : 32). I commanded that the gates should be shut. The gates would as a matter of course have been shut at sunset. Nehemiah required that the closing should take place some half-hour earlier, when the shadows were lengthening, and the day was drawing toward a close. He regarded it as a sort of desecration of the Sabbath to carry on secular work to the last allowable moment. That there should be no burden brought in. Foot passengers were no doubt allowed to enter and leave the city on the Sabbath, Nehemiah’s servants being set to see that under no pretence should merchandise be allowed to enter. P. C.—The method adopted may yield suggestions for all who would aim at reforming abuses or public immoralities. One most necessary step is to cut off, as far as possible, opportunities for the sin. There will be no trade if you shut the gates the night before. There will be little drunkenness if there are no liquor shops. It is quite true that people cannot be made virtuous by legislation, but it is also true that they may be saved temptations to become vicious by it. A. M.

20. The merchants lodged without.** The merchants could not leave their wares unguarded; and the wares not being admitted into the town, they were obliged to camp out. Thus a crowd was collected about the gates, and a disturbance and excitement caused, which was unsuitable for the Sabbath. To prevent this, Nehemiah threatened to arrest the merchants, whereupon the practice was given up (verse 21). P. C.—Another hint comes from Nehemiah’s vigorous word to the country folk outside the wall. There is need for very strong determination and much sanctified obstinacy in fighting popular abuses. They die hard. It is permissible to invoke the aid of the lawful authority. But a man with strong convictions and earnest purpose will be able to impress his convictions on a mass, even if he have no guards at his back. The one thing needful for Christian reformers is, not the power to appeal to force, but the force which they can carry within them. And it is better when the traders love the Sabbath too well to wish to drive bargains on it, than when they are hindered from doing as they wish by Nehemiah’s strong will or formidable threats. A. M.

Nehemiah’s Views on the Sabbath. It is held by critics of a certain type that the Sabbath, in Nehemiah’s time, was essentially a recent institution. But he himself certainly regarded it as ancient (verse 18), and as having been anciently of so much importance that the profaning of it was a reason for the calamities that had befallen Israel. In his mind the obligation to abstain from work on the Sabbath seems to be the same as in the case of the other holy days prescribed in the law (Neh. 10: 31). In any case, Neh. 9: 14 explicitly mentions the Sabbath as one of the institutions given through Moses at Sinai. W. J. B.

It is easy to ridicule the Jewish Sabbath and “the Puritan Sunday.” No doubt, there have been and are well-meant but mistaken efforts to insist on too rigid observance. No doubt, it has been often forgotten by good people that the Christian Lord’s Day is not the Jewish Sabbath. Of course, the religious observance of the day is not a fit subject for legislation. But the need for a seventh day of rest is impressed on our physical and intellectual nature; and devout hearts will joyfully find their best rest in Christian worship and service. The vigor of religious life demands special seasons set apart for worship. A. M.

22. He concludes this passage with a prayer, in which observe the petitions, “Lord, remember me,” that is enough; God’s thoughts to usward are very precious (Ps. 40: 5). He adds, “Spare me; so far is he from thinking that what he had done did properly merit a reward in strict justice, that he cries earnestly to God to spare him. The best saints, even when they do the best actions, stand in need of sparing mercy, for ’there is not a just man that doeth good, and sinneth not.’ The plea, ‘According to the greatness (or multitude) of Thy mercies.’ H.—After all, and when he had done all, he trusted in nothing that he had either gained or done; but the more he was laden with the fruits of righteousness, the more he felt himself to be laden with infirmities; so that, however illustrious he was in the eyes of his fellow-men, he felt that before his God he had no plea to urge, save ’the mercy that endureth forever.’ This, therefore, was his lowly prayer—“Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me, according to the greatness of Thy mercy.” Stowell.—Nehemiah had no false notion of his own goodness; for, while he asked for recompense for these good deeds of his, he could not but add, “Spare me according to the greatness of Thy mercy.” He who asks to be “spared” must know himself in peril of destruction; and he who invokes “mercy” must think that, if he were dealt with according to justice, he would be in evil case. So the consciousness of weakness and sin is an integral part of this prayer, and that takes all the apparent self-righteousness out of the previous petition. However worthy of and sure of reward a Christian man’s acts of love and efforts for the spread of God’s honor may be, the doer of them must still be “looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” A. M.

23-28. But the chief struggle in this second reformation of Nehemiah’s was the same as that which had engaged and absorbed the attention of Ezra when he first visited Judea—the contention with regard to the mixed marriages. Here men’s feelings were excited to the highest possible pitch, and here he had for open antagonists persons of the very highest rank and position. Where the culprits belonged to the common herd he brooked no opposition. But a son of Joiada, and grandson of Eliashib the high-priest, Manasseh by name, had not only contracted one of the prohibited marriages (10 : 30), but had taken to wife a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, the chief of the foreign adversaries of Nehemiah (2 : 10, 19 ; 4 : 1, 7 ; 6 : 1, 2, 5, 12), and therefore a person peculiarly obnoxious to him. Nehemiah required him to put this woman away. Bolder than his grandfather, he met the command of the governor with a determined resistance—he would not part with his wife. Supported by a certain number of his order (13 : 29), he defied the Tirshatha. Nehemiah on his part was equally stanch—in his capacity of civil governor he passed on his opponent a sentence of exile (verse 28). The recalcitrant priest did not dare to remain ; but, in quitting the country, he seems to have formed a resolution to take refuge in Samaria with his father-in-law, and to establish there a worship and a temple, which should be permanent rivals of the worship and Temple at Jerusalem, should be always open to discontented members of the Judean community, and should present to the world a form of the Jehovistic religion less severe than that of the Judeans, simpler and more attractive. The result was the erection, on the lofty eminence known as Mount Gerizim, of the Samaritan sanctuary of Jehovah, wherein Manasseh was installed as high-priest, which continued for three centuries to be a thorn in the side of Judah, a refuge for traitors and renegades, a centre of hostility and antagonism, a constant source of trouble and difficulty. Manasseh, no doubt, from one point of view, had his revenge ; but, from another, it may be questioned whether he did not render, quite involuntarily, an important service to Judaism. As Kuenen remarks, “Had not Samaria stood open to the discontented Jews, perhaps the field would not have been cleared and the resistance to the new tendency” (i.e., to Nehemiah’s reforms) “quelled so easily. Now that a refuge had been opened to them in the immediate neighborhood, they could the sooner resolve to give up the struggle—from which they could scarcely hope to come out as conconquerors.” The practical result is, that with Manasseh’s withdrawal opposition ceases ; the reforms are established ; and the newly freed nation grows up upon the lines which Ezra and Nehemiah have laid down, not upon those which would have been preferred by Manasseh and Eliashib. G. R.

23,24. We do not know what “the Jews’ language” was at the time, whether it was Hebrew or Aramaic. Considering, however, how large a proportion of the returned exiles belonged to the priestly order, we might presume that Hebrew would still be used in the upper ranks of the community, and this presumption is borne out by the fact that nearly all the post-exilic books are in the old language of Israel. On the whole, it seems most probable that the Hebrew of the Old Testament did not become wholly extinct as a living tongue until contact with the Greeks had introduced another rival to it in the shape of Greek. Hebrew disappeared before the influence of Aramaic and Greek, just as completely as Aramaic and Greek themselves have since disappeared in Palestine before the influence of Arabic. Long before this happened, Old Testament Hebrew had naturally become filled with “Aramaisms”—that is, with words or forms of words and expressions which were borrowed from Aramaic. Sayce.

28. From this verse and from Ezra 10 : 18-22, it is evident that the priests especially were subjected to the severe discipline exercised by Ezra and Nehemiah with respect to mixed marriages. Such discipline was the more needful in proportion as the needy condition of the colony affected the state of public worship, and begot indifference and discouragement among the priesthood (see Mal. 1 : 6 ; 2 : 9). Oehler.

31. Nehemiah refers himself to God to recompense him, takes Him for his paymaster, and then doubts not but he shall be well paid. This may well be the summary of our petitions ; we need no more to make us happy than this, “Remember me, O my God, for good.” H.

Ezra and Nehemiah are brought before the reader somewhat fully. Their personal characters stand out in the strong light of words spoken, deeds done, sympathies manifested. It is rare that we meet with nobler men, of purer motive, more earnest spirit and of more unselfish natures. How eminently prayerful ! How pure and sweet is the simplicity of their devotion to the cause of God ! It is refreshing to come into contact with such men, to feel the power of such examples, and the inspiration of such spirits. They may have had blemishes of character, or sins of life; but if so, the record passes them unnoticed. Let us be thankful for such recorded lives. H. C.

Probably in the later portion of his civil governorship Nehemiah was brought into contact with the last of the prophets, Malachi, a man thoroughly after his heart. Malachi denounces, with a vigor worthy of Isaiah himself, those special sins against which Nehemiah was never tired of contending—the intermarriage with heathen women, involving, as it too often did, repudiation of innocent and loving Jewish wives, whose unhappy lot caused them to bathe the altar with their tears (Mal. 2: 13); the withholding of tithes and offerings, which he regards as absolute robbery of the Almighty (ibid. 3: 8, 9); the oppression of the poor (ibid., verse 5), against which Nehemiah so strenuously exerted himself; the demoralization of the priesthood (Mal. 1: 6; 2: 1-10), patent in the cases of Eliashib and Manasseh, and the general irreligion and laxity (Mal. 1: 13, 14; 2: 17; 3: 5, 7). He re-echoes Nehemiah’s condemnations, but even in stronger terms. He tells the priests that they “despise” and “profane God’s name” (ibid. 1: 6, 12), that they “are departed out of the way” (ibid. 2: 8), have “corrupted the covenant of Levi,” have “caused many to stumble,” and have been “partial” in their exposition of the law (ibid. 2: 9). He calls the people “thieves and robbers” (ibid. 3: 8, 9), “adulterers, sorcerers, false swearers, treacherous dealers” (ibid. 2: 14), “committers of abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem” (ibid. 2: 11). He tells them that they are “cursed with a curse.” G. R.

Seven cities, each famous in history, have, during a period of more than four thousand years, been successively reared on the site of the four hills and intervening valleys, that are known by the common name of Jerusalem.

With regard to the original city, its antiquity as a walled town dates at least forty centuries before our time. The Jebusites, after the conquest of Palestine, lay safe behind the colossal walls of Zion for four hundred and fifty years, till David surprised the stronghold by gaining admission through a water-course. Twenty-two years after the storming of Zion, the Jebusite Araunah, “as a king,” ceded to the king of Israel the site which was afterward divided between the precincts of the Temple and the courts and gardens of the palace; and enormous wrought stones, artificially channelled (that their monolithic grandeur might not dwarf the smaller though yet gigantic blocks of the masonry of Solomon), yet tell why one of the neighboring ravines was called the “valley of the giants.”

David, Solomon, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah and Manasseh were the builders of regal Jerusalem. They enclosed and adorned Moriah, defended Ophel by a wall that united the fortification of Zion to Moriah; drew around the base of the hill, to the north and west, the wall known as the first wall of Josephus, and constructed a subterranean conduit. The peculiar features of the work of Solomon, the rusticated megalithic ashlar, the shouldered lintels, hollowed into the resemblance of true arches, the rude Phonician letters traced by the quarrymen and stone-hewers of Hiram, the cisterns and culvert of the conduit are yet to be recognized by the character no less than by the localities of the work. Regal Jerusalem stood for four hundred and sixty-six years.

Sacerdotal Jerusalem dates from the restoration inaugurated by Zerubbabel, after the partial demolition effected by Nebuchadnezzar, to the more complete destruction resulting from the siege by Titus, a period of six hundred and six years. Nehemiah “the Tirshatha,” Judas Maccabaeus, Jonathan, Simon, Hyrcanus, Herod the Great and Agrippa, the fourth Idumean king, were the principal builders during this period. Hadrian and Constantine, Julian and Justinian, were the builders of Roman Jerusalem. There is no mistaking the traces of their handiwork. Altars, entablatures, deeply incised rude Roman inscriptions, architectural fragments, even one or two portions of statues, or of statuettes, attest their pagan origin. Crosses and Christian inscriptions, and the introduction of a cruciform plan for buildings, yet to be traced in the foundations, commenced during this period of five centuries.

The Persian and Arabic rule over the holy city endured, including the brief interval of restored Christian sway under Heraclius, for four hundred and eighty years. Moorish tiles are almost the only relics of this period to be distinguished in the museum. On the actual site exists very much that tells of the Arab occupation. The ninety years of the crusaders and of the Norman kings of Jerusalem have left relics remarkable for their value, if not for their number.

The seventh permanent occupation of Jerusalem has been that of the Moslem, commencing with the capture by Saladin, and enduring, first under the Saracens and then under the

Turkish caliphs, to our own day. Dilapidation, dirt, misery and decay have waited on the Turkish rule; and it is no trifling achievement to have obtained authority from the sultan to raise any portion of the veil which long neglect has drawn over the relics of Jerusalem. Brit. Quarterly.

Outline of Ancient Jerusalem. (Robinson modified.)

THIS is a book of Divine providence. It is written to show how God, without manifesting Himself as He had done in Judea, watched over the Jews in a strange land, and under the power of the heathen. The charm of the history is this, that while everything proceeds in a manner quite natural, and there is no introduction of miracles or prodigies, all the incidents are so nicely adjusted to the production of the great result, that if one had been wanting, or been otherwise than it was, the whole plan would have been deranged, and the issue could never have been reached. The time occupied by this story falls in between the going up of Zerubbabel from Babylon to Jerusalem, and that of Ezra. The Persian empire, in which Babylon was then included, was at its height of greatness, extending from the Indus to the Mediterranean, and from the Caspian to Arabia. The Ahasuerus who occupied the throne was most probably the Xerxes of profane history. His winter palace was at Susa or Shushan, and his court was luxurious and extravagant to a degree which we can scarcely conceive. D. F.

The Book of Esther stands in the English Bible at the close of the historical books; it does not, however, form a link in the connected series, as it only relates to an episode in the history. It has, moreover, features of its own which distinguish it broadly from the historical books, and indeed from all the other books of the Old Testament. It takes its name from the Jewish maiden who became queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus, and it was written doubtless with the primary purpose of explaining the institution of the feast of Purim, which originated mainly through her means. In the Hebrew Bible it stands among the Hagiographa, the third division of the canonical books, as one of the five rolls, and by the later Jews has come to be esteemed almost as highly as the law itself. J. Robertson.

The Book comes to us with an external record that is above suspicion. We receive it from those vigilant and scrupulous guardians of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Jewish people; and with the most assuring commendation on their part. Their learned rabbis are united in including it among those Scriptures distinguished as the Hagiographa, the emphatically sacred books; and even among these, assigned it the first rank. The internal evidence is equally satisfactory. Like the other books of the Hebrew canon, it deals with the fortunes of the Jewish people, and is fully in keeping with their well-known characteristics. Mordecai and Esther were Jews of the clearest and most unquestionable type. The providence of God, in the deliverance of His people, stands out in this book in as distinct outline as in their rescue from the Egyptian bondage or from the Babylonian captivity. The record is everywhere true, moreover, to the Medo-Persian dynasty and character. It shows us just what the profane histories show us, only with greater minuteness and fidelity. Street.

The Book of Esther relates an episode in Jewish history of intense interest to the entire nation at the time, since it involved the question of its continuance or destruction, but an episode which stood quite separate and distinct from the rest of Jewish history, unconnected with anything that preceded or followed, and which, but for the institution of the feast of Purim, might as easily have been forgotten by the people as escaped perils too often are by individuals. The main scene of the narrative is Susa, the Persian capital; the dramatis personæ are either Persians or “Jews of the dispersion.” There is no mention, in the whole Book, of Palestine, or Jerusalem, or the Temple, or the provisions of the law, nor any allusion to any facts in previous Jewish history, excepting two: 1. The Captivity under Nebuchadnezzar (chap. 2: 6). 2. The subsequent dispersion of the Jews over all the various provinces of the Persian empire (chap. 3 : 8). Thus the events related belong, primarily, not to the history of the Palestinian Jews, but to that of the “Jews of the dispersion ;” and it is as indicating that those Jews were, no less than their brethren in Palestine, under the Divine care, that the Book appealed to the hearts of the Jewish race generally, and claimed a place in the national collection of sacred writings. The mere process of eliminating impossible kings conducts us to Xerxes, the son of Darius, and father of Longimanus, as the personage really meant. And here we find, in the first place, that the names are identical, the Hebrew Akhashverosh corresponding letter for letter with the Persian Khshayarsha, which the Greeks turned into Xerxes. Secondly, the resemblance of character is most striking, and is admitted on all hands. Thirdly, the notes of time exactly accord with the chronology of Xerxes’ reign. “In the third year of Xerxes’ reign was held an assembly at Susa to arrange the Grecian war (Herod. vii. 7). In the third year of Ahasuerus was held a great feast and assembly at Shushan the palace (Esth. 1 : 3). In the seventh year of his reign Xerxes returned defeated from Greece, and consoled himself by the pleasures of the harem (Herod. ix. 108). In the seventh year of his reign ‘fair young virgins were sought’ for Ahasuerus (Esth. 2 : 2-15).” We may therefore confidently regard the Ahasuerus of Esther as the well-known invader of Greece and scourger of the Hellespont, who has come down to us in profane history as “Xerxes.” P. C.—From the cuneiform alphabet of the ancient Persians we learn that Ahasuerus or Akhashverosh is the Hebrew form of the Persian Khshayarsha, called Xerxes in Greek. Two kings of this name ruled over Persia ; but as the second reigned for only a couple of months, he cannot possibly be the Ahasuerus of Esther. The latter must be the famous monarch of Greek story, whose huge armaments melted away before Greek valor at Salamis and Platæa. The character of Ahasuerus, too, agrees well with that of Xerxes I. Weak, vain, cowardly and capricious, Xerxes I. was the only Persian monarch known to us who could have acted in the way described in the Book of Esther. Xerxes has left inscriptions at Persepolis, at Elvend (near Ekbatana), and at Van in Armenia, which are couched in the same language as those of his father, Darius. Sayce.

The reader will notice that, taking Ahasuerus to be Xerxes, the events of this Book fall after the dedication of the second Temple (second year of Darius) and before the labors of Ezra and Nehemiah (from the seventh to the thirty-second or some later year of Artaxerxes Longimanus). As to locality, the reader will see that these events transpire, not in Judah, and not where they would directly affect the colony there save through sympathy ; but in Shushan, the capital of the Medo-Persian empire. The Book shows that Jews in considerable numbers were scattered over that empire, many in Shushan itself. Of their fortunes under a special exigency during the reign of Xerxes this book gives an account.

The name of the author of this book cannot be ascertained with any certainty. He gives details so minutely that he must have lived on the spot. His allusions to Persian life and manners, luxury, customs and history, harmonize so entirely with what comes to us through the Greek historians as to compel the same conclusion. The writer knew too much of the Persians to have lived elsewhere than there and then. Some think the book was written by Mordecai. It is probably safe to say—by him, or at least under his eye. As to purpose and aim, the author recognizes the feast of Purim ; indeed, makes great account of it as an established institution ; probably was active in making it such ; and consequently prepared this history of the events that culminated in that commemorative festival. Those events were worthy of this commemoration. God’s hand in them from first to last was so signally manifest, the lessons they taught could not fail to be at once impressive and instructive. But though God’s hand was in these events too plainly manifest to be mistaken or unnoticed, yet His name is not here, not being even once written in this Book. We are left in no doubt that Mordecai believed in God’s covenant with His people and in His promises of salvation in their behalf (4 : 14), and that both he and Esther believed in prayer, though they do not name prayer, but only fasting, when it seems plain enough that prayer is in their thought as truly as fasting. H. C.

The language of the Book closely resembles that of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, which were all written about that time. The minute and particular accounts of many matters which would be known primarily only to Esther and Mordecai, and would certainly not have been written in the “Book of the Chronicles,” as Mordecai’s genealogy (2 : 5), Esther’s messages to Mordecai and Mordecai’s to her through Hatach (4 : 5-16), the circumstances of the two banquets given by Esther to Ahasuerus and Haman (5:6-8; 7:2-8), etc., make it probable that the writer was contemporary with the events narrated, and derived his information from Mordecai or Esther, or both. Further, the individuals who have been mentioned as the writers of the Book—Mordecai himself and the high-priest Joiakim—lived about this time. Altogether, it seems most probable that the work was composed about the middle of the fifth century B.C., or a little later, when Xerxes had been dead about twenty years. P. C.—The minuteness of the details, and the frequent reference to events and persons which presuppose an acquaintance with Persia, go to show not only that the author lived in Persia—which indeed is admitted on all sides—but also that he lived before the overthrow of the Persian power. At the same time it is evident from the first verse of the Book that the reign of Xerxes was already over, as well as from the last verse but one, where it is stated that “all” his acts were written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia. As we have seen, the character of the language of the book would tend to make it a little later than the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, and we may therefore assent to the opinion of those commentators who place its composition toward the end of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus (B.C. 425). Sayce.

It is remarkable that the name of God is not once mentioned in Esther. The only religious ideas introduced with any distinctness are the efficacy of a national humiliation (4:1-3), the certainty that punishment will overtake the wicked, and a feeling of confidence that Israel will not be forsaken (4:14). Various conjectural reasons have been given for this reticence. One thing is clear, that a Jew of later times would have taken care not to raise suspicion against his work by such an omission. . . . It would seem that the reticence of the author of Esther respecting his religious views was the result of habit. The Jews, bred up among the heathen, and living in constant intercourse with them, learned by degrees to keep back the expression of their religious convictions, to assimilate themselves externally to their masters, to eliminate from their ordinary discourse all that would mark them for Jews, while they clung internally to their old belief, and practised secretly their old customs. A century and a half of this dissimulation made it so habitual that it was not laid aside, even where there was no occasion for it. The Jew of the dispersion kept his religion in his heart of hearts, and spoke of it as little as possible. It may have helped to keep Esther free from the religious element, if it was in the main extracted from the Persian archives. We do not know on what scale these were written, but it is quite possible that they contained most of our present Esther. At any rate, if the author took them for his basis, and found them, as he might, altogether secular in tone, he would be naturally led to assimilate to them his own portions of the work. Finally, it must be granted that the whole difficulty is not overcome by these considerations, and it may well be that other circumstances also, which cannot be particularized, prevented the author from giving expression to the religious feelings and beliefs which he entertained, and which underlie his narrative.

The omission of the name of God, and the slightness of the religious element in the book, which have been mentioned as its most remarkable characteristics, do not deprive it of canonicity. The name of God is not found in Canticles, which has, nevertheless, “all the external marks of canonicity possessed by any other book of the Old Testament not expressly cited in the New.” The religious element is lacking from large portions of all the historical books, yet those portions are as much canonical as the parts most penetrated by the religious spirit. The fact is that canonicity, in the case of an historical book, does not necessarily imply more than that the history is true, and the moral bearing of the work such as to accord with the highest religious enlightenment of the time and people for which the work was written. G. R.—It is allowed on all hands that there must be an historical foundation to the book; and the more candid of sceptical critics admit that the main circumstances of the narrative, which at first sight appear improbable, are not so if the peculiarly extravagant and capricious character of the Persian monarch, whom the author calls Ahasuerus, be taken into account. B. C.—The latest critic is struck, not with “difficulties” or with “mistakes” in the narrative, but with the fact that the whole of it is “thoroughly characteristic,” all the various scenes being “full of the local genius of the empire, as we know it alike through the accounts of the earliest Greek travellers and the latest English investigators.” The accord acknowledged in this sentence is indeed most striking; the suitability of all the main facts related to the personal character of Xerxes cannot be disputed; the notes of time fit in with what we know of his reign exactly; it is quite inconceivable that a poet or a romancer, writing one hundred and fifty or two hundred years after the events (which is the hypothesis of modern sceptical critics), should have been at once so full, so graphic, and so correct. We are, therefore, thrown back upon the opposite theory, that the writer was a contemporary, that he was familiar with the Persian court under Xerxes, and that the harmony observable between his narrative and all that we otherwise know of the time is to be referred to the unity and congruity of truth. An historical romancer necessarily involves himself in discrepancies and contradictions; the truthful narrator has nothing of this kind to fear, since with every statement that is true all the facts of the case must harmonize. P. C.

It is impossible that any reasonable mind should reflect long upon what is implied in such an observance as the feast of Purim, celebrated by the Jews all over the world, beginning some four or five centuries before Christ, and never intermitted, and see how every root and fibre of it is contained in this book, and not find itself held fast by the demonstration and the conviction that the events were real. If we should find a collision between this and the declarations of profane history, the latter must give way. But there is no such collision. There is simply, as in all ancient history, the task of finding the true order and succession of the events, and locating them as they seem to have occurred in the order of time, or of cause and effect. Street.—No other account has ever been given, or can be given, of the origin of the feast of Purim, which the Jews keep to this day. Nothing but its historic truth can account for the inclusion of Esther in the canon. The more candid of modern sceptical critics confess it to be “incontestable that the feast of Purim originated in Persia, and was occasioned by an event similar to that related in Esther.” May we not say, having exposed the weakness of the historical objections, that it was occasioned by the events there related, and by none other? G. R.

It is difficult to read the Book of Esther with impartial eyes without being struck by its local coloring, its minuteness of detail, and its general agreement with historical facts. The very objection that has been brought against its authenticity from the long period of time which elapsed between the decree against Vashti and the choice of a new queen turns out to be a strong testimony in its favor. It is one of those undesigned coincidences which certify the genuineness of an ancient document better than a thousand arguments. A romancer would never have remembered that the third year of Xerxes was the beginning of his preparations against Greece, and that from that moment to his sixth or seventh year he was either absent from Susa or occupied with Grecian affairs. Nor is it likely that a romancer or a mere Jewish legend would have assigned a name like that of Mordecai to their hero. Mordecai means “belonging to Merodach,” and was one of those names which was adopted by apostatizing or religiously indifferent Jews from their Babylonian neighbors. So distinctively heathen a name would never have been selected for a Jewish champion by the “hagadist” or moral romance-writer of a later day. But the existence of the feast of Purim proves better than anything else the reality of the history which explains its origin. From the second century before the Christian era down to our own day we have contemporary evidence of its observance, and throughout that long period of time it has been kept by the Jewish people with an intensity of fervor which only the events recorded in the Book of Esther can explain or justify. Nay, more; the word Purim has no etymology in Hebrew, and must have been imported from abroad. The word is interpreted “lot” in chap. 3 : 7, and may have the same root as the Latin pars and portio. But it has not yet been met with in the fragments of the old Persian language preserved in the inscriptions of Darius and his successors.

We have only to compare the Hebrew Book of Esther with the apocryphal Greek additions to it, to see what a contrast there is between the genuine and the false. As soon as we pass to the Greek additions, we stumble at once on anachronisms and historical misstatements which betray the age to which they belong. Haman is changed into a Macedonian, Ahasuerus is made to call the Jews “the elect nation,” and to wish that their enemies may descend into Hades or “hell,” and Esther boasts that she “had never eaten at the table of Haman.” Had the Hebrew Book of Esther been a Hagadah or religious romance of the Ptolemaic era, it also would have contained plenty of statements like these. Sayce.

Relation of the Book of Esther to the Law.

Whatever else may be said of this book, no one will deny that it is intensely Jewish. It is true that the name of God does not occur in it, but surely the hand of God is recognized virtually in such places as 9 : 1, 22 ; 10 : 3 ; 2 : 17 ; 4 : 14. There may be no direct reference to the law of Moses, though the conduct of the Jews in chap. 9 : 10, 15, 16, is singularly in accordance with the provisions of the law in De. 7 : 26 ; 13 : 17, more especially when contrasted with the king’s permission in chap. 8 : 11 ; but their national distinctness, and their complete isolation from all the people of other lands, is markedly set forth and witnessed to as an authentic fact ; and how is this to be accounted for but by the peculiar and distinctive character of the law, which explicitly marked them out from all other people (De. 7 : 6), and provided for their separation partly by the rite of circumcision, but still more by its own statutes and judgments (De. 4 : 8, 33, 34, etc.) ? No writer, however, would be so rash as to maintain that the law of Moses as we have it now was not in existence at the time when the Book of Esther was written. From its silence, therefore, we can draw no argument adverse to the authority of that Law ; while the Book itself, when it speaks of Jews being found throughout the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the empire of Ahasuerus (8 : 9), is a sufficient and suitable witness to the fulfilment of the threatenings of the law at Lev. 26 : 33 ; De. 4 : 27 ; 28 : 64. We may consequently hold it for certain that traces of the influence of the law are not wanting in the Book of Esther ; and that by its relation thereto it is seen to possess a substantial unity with other literary monuments of the Old Testament. Leathes.

Suggestions of the Book of Esther.

How the providence of God watched over the Jews that were returned out of captivity to their own land, and what great and kind things were done for them, we read in the two foregoing books ; but there were many who stayed behind, having not zeal enough for God’s house, and the holy land and city, to carry them through the difficulties of a removal thither ; these, one would think, should have been excluded the special protection of Providence, as unworthy the name of Israelites ; but our God deals not with us according to our folly and weakness. We find in this book, that even those Jews who were scattered in the provinces of the heathen were taken care of, as well as those who were gathered in the land of Judea, and were wonderfully preserved when doomed to destruction and appointed as sheep for the slaughter. H.

It is well that God should have vindicated as His own a mere piece of honest, plain, straightforward, secular history, written by a God-fearing person, and the chief actors in which were God-fearing persons, that so we may feel that history itself is God’s, and a true record of it a godly work—a work which He will accept and approve, whether or no He be explicitly referred to in it, whether or no it be made a vehicle of direct religious instruction, whether or no the characters held up for approval have the sacred name upon their lips, if only they have it in their hearts. P. C.

The doctrine of God’s providence finds here an historic, pictorial parable. There is behind human affairs an unseen hand. Both evil and good have their ultimate awards. The prosperity of the wicked is unsafe and unsatisfying, ending in adversity. The adversity of the good is a trial of faith, issuing in prosperity. Retribution is administered with poetic exactness. The most minute events are woven into God’s plan. Providence is not fate, but consists with prayer and resolve, freedom and responsibility. The name of God is not found here. His is a secret control of the affairs of His people ; a hidden hand shifts the scenes. Only the eye of faith sees the Divine factor in human history, but to the attentive observer all history is a burning bush aflame with the mysterious Presence. Pierson.

The Book of Esther is to be held in everlasting remembrance, if only as showing to all ages and to all peoples how much the heavenly love and care concern themselves with those who themselves have no care to keep God’s commandments, and no thought of the care and love that are concerned about them. The shepherd watches and seeks the sheep, and throws around them, unseen, protections all through the wilderness where they wander. A. Raleigh.