Nehemiah 12

1 the Levites. Not all of them, but only the most distinguished are here named. Cp. vii. 39-45, and Ezra ii. 36, etc.

11. Jaddua. We have here a list of the high priests for several generations after the Jews returned from Babylon. If this Jaddua were, as is said by Josephus, and as the best expositors hold, the high priest who went out to meet Alexander the Great on his approach to Jerusalem (a century after the transaction recorded by Nehemiah), then vers. 10, 11, like some other verses, must have been added after Nehemiah’s time.

22 were recorded chief of the fathers. i.e., a registry was kept of the heads of families. R.V. renders, “were recorded heads of fathers’ houses.” If this list of chief priests reaches down only to Nehemiah’s days, then the king here mentioned must be Darius Nothus, the immediate successor of Artaxerxes Longimanus; but if (according to the view stated in the preceding note) “Jaddua” in this verse be the high priest of the time of Alexander, then “Darius” must be Darius Codomannus, whom Alexander conquered. 331 B.C. “He is called Darius the Persian, as if the Persian empire had ceased to exist when this passage was written."—Sayce.

24 over against them. Antiphonally: see Exod. xv. 20, 21; 1 Sam. xviii. 7; Ezra iii. 11; Psa. xx., exii., etc.

25 thresholds. Rather, as R.V., “store-houses.”

28 the plain country. Rather, “the circuit round about Jerusalem.” The word (kikkar) usually applied to the land round the lower end of Jordan seems here to be used for the environs of Jerusalem. “Netophathi” should be “the Netophathites.” R.V. Netophah was near Bethlehem. “The house of Gilgal,” R.V., Beth-Gilgal, was about twenty miles north of Jerusalem. “Geba” (now Jeha) was seven miles north of the city. “Azmaveth,” now called Hizmeh, south-east of Gibeah.

31. I brought up. Nehemiah here resumes the first person from vii. 5.

38 the other company, etc. There appears to have been a double procession of the princes and priests; one company, headed by Ezra, going to the right, and the other, with Nehemiah at their rear, going to the left: thus making a circuit of the wall in different directions, until they met on the opposite side of the city, when they marched in a body to the Temple.

44 of the law. That is, “prescribed by the law.”

45 kept the ward, etc. Rather, “They observed what related to their God, and what related to their purification.”