TheBook of Nehemiah in theHebrew Bible largely takes the form of a first-personmemoir byNehemiah, a Hebrew prophet and high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls ofJerusalem after theBabylonian exile and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws (Torah).
Since the 16th century, Nehemiah has generally been treated as a separate book within the Bible. Before then, it had been combined with theBook of Ezra; but in LatinChristian Bibles from the 13th century onwards, theVulgate's Book of Ezra was divided into two texts called the First and Second Books of Ezra, respectively. This separation became canonised with the first printed Bibles in Hebrew and Latin. Mid-16th centuryReformed Protestant Bible translations produced inGeneva, such as theGeneva Bible, were the first to introduce the title "Book of Nehemiah" for the text formerly called the "Second Book of Ezra".
Thehistoricity of Nehemiah, his objectives, and the "Nehemiah memoir" have recently become very controversial inbiblical scholarship, withmaximalists viewing it as a historical account andminimalists doubting whether Nehemiah existed.[1]
The events take place in the second half of the 5th century BC. Listed together with the Book of Ezra asEzra–Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible.[2]
The original core of the book, the first-person memoir, may have been combined with the core of theBook of Ezra around 400 BC. Further editing probably continued into theHellenistic era.[3]
The book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king inSusa, is informed thatJerusalem is without walls, and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor ofJudah and he travels to Jerusalem. There he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israel's enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with thelaw of Moses. After 12 years inJerusalem, he returns toSusa but subsequently revisits Jerusalem. He finds that the Israelites have beenbacksliding and taking non-Hebrew wives, and he stays in Jerusalem to enforce the Law.
Chapters
In the 20th year ofArtaxerxes I of Persia, Nehemiah,cup-bearer to the king inSusa (the Persian capital), learns that the wall of Jerusalem is destroyed. He prays to God, confessing the sins of Israel, then reminding God of His promise to restore thePromised Land. He asks God for success in asking King Artaxerxes for permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild its wall.
While Nehemiah is serving wine the king notices his sadness. Nehemiah humbly confesses it is because the city of his ancestors is in ruins and asks permission to rebuild the city wall. The king agrees. Nehemiah then asks for letters of safe-conduct and for permission to obtain timber from the royal forest. The king agrees to these requests and additionally dispatches a military escort to accompany Nehemiah to Jerusalem. When Nehemiah arrives he secretly inspects the wall before encouraging the local leaders to join him in rebuilding. However, whenSanballat of Samaria,Tobiah the Ammonite, andGeshem the Arab hear about it they mock the Israelites and accused them of rebelling against the king.
The families and leaders of Jerusalem each take a gate or a section of wall and begin rebuilding.
The leaders of the opposing tribes – Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite, Geshem the Arab, and the men ofAshdod – plot together to attack Jerusalem, which forces the Hebrews rebuilding the wall to work with weapons in their hands.
Nehemiah, having seen the Hebrew nobles oppressing the poor, orders the cancellation of all debt and mortgages; previous governors have been corrupt and oppressive, but he has been righteous and just.
Sanballat accuses Nehemiah of planning rebellion against Artaxerxes, and Nehemiah is opposed even by Hebrew nobles and prophets, but the wall is completed.
Nehemiah appoints officials and sets guards on the wall and gates; he plans to register the Hebrews, and finds the census of those who had returned earlier.
Nehemiah assembles the people and has Ezra read to them the law-book of Moses; Nehemiah, Ezra and theLevites institute theFeast of Booths, in accordance with the Law.
The Hebrews assemble in penance and prayer, recalling their past sins, God's help to them, and his promise of the land.
The priests, Levites and the Israelite people enter into a covenant, agreeing to separate themselves from the surrounding peoples and to keep the Law.
Jerusalem is repopulated by the Hebrews living in the towns and villages of Judah and Benjamin.
A list of priests and Levites who returned in the days of Cyrus (the first returnees from Babylon) is presented; Nehemiah, aided by Ezra, oversees the dedication of the walls and the rebuilt city.
After 12 years Nehemiah returns to Susa; he later comes back to Jerusalem, and finds that there has been backsliding in his absence. He takes measures to enforce his earlier reforms and asks for God's favour.
The book is set in the 5th century BC. Judah is one of several provinces within a larger satrapy (a large administrative unit) within theAchaemenid Empire. The capital of the empire is atSusa. Nehemiah is acup-bearer to kingArtaxerxes I of Persia – an important official position.
At his own request Nehemiah is sent to Jerusalem as governor of Yehud, the official Persian name for Judah. Jerusalem had been conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and Nehemiah finds it still in ruins. His task is to rebuild the walls and to re-populate the city. He faces opposition from three powerful neighbours, theSamaritans, theAmmonites, and theArabs, as well as the city ofAshdod, but manages to rebuild the walls. He then purifies the Hebrew community by enforcing itssegregation from its neighbours and enforces the laws of Moses.
The single Hebrew bookEzra–Nehemiah, with title "Ezra", was translated into Greek around the middle of the 2nd century BC.[4] Slightly later a second, and very different Greek translation was made, in the form of1 Esdras, from which the deeds of Nehemiah are entirely absent, those sections either being omitted or re-attributed to Ezra instead; and initially early Christians reckoned this later translation as their biblical 'Book of Ezra', as had the 1st century Jewish writerJosephus. From the third century the ChristianOld Testament in Greek supplemented the text of 1 Esdras with the older translation of Ezra–Nehemiah, naming the two books Esdras A and Esdras B respectively; and this usage is noted by the 3rd century Christian scholarOrigen, who remarked that the Hebrew 'book of Ezra' might then be considered a 'double' book.Jerome, writing in the early 5th century, noted that this duplication had since been adopted by Greek and Latin Christians. Jerome himself rejected the duplication in his Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin from the Hebrew; and consequently all early Vulgate manuscripts present Ezra–Nehemiah as a single book,[5] as too does the 8th century commentary ofBede, and the 9th century bibles ofAlcuin andTheodulf of Orleans. However, sporadically from the 9th century onwards, Latin bibles are found that separate the Ezra and Nehemiah sections of Ezra–Nehemiah as two distinct books, then called the first and second books of Ezra; and this becomes standard in theParis Bibles of the 13th century. It was not until 1516/17, in the first printedRabbinic Bible ofDaniel Bomberg that the separation was introduced generally in Hebrew Bibles.[6]
In later medieval Christian commentary, this book is referred to as the 'second book of Ezra', and never as the 'Book of Nehemiah"; equally citations from this book are always introduced as "Ezra says ...", and never as 'Nehemiah says ...".[citation needed]
The combined book Ezra–Nehemiah of the earliest Christian and Hebrew period was known as Ezra and was probably attributed toEzra himself; according to a rabbinic tradition, however, Nehemiah was the real author but was forbidden to claim authorship because of his bad habit of disparaging others.[7]
The Nehemiah Memorial, chapters 1–7 and 11–13, may have circulated as an independent work before being combined with the Ezra material to form Ezra–Nehemiah.[8] Determining the composition of the Memorial depends on the dates of Nehemiah's mission: It is commonly accepted that "Artaxerxes" was Artaxerxes I (there were two later kings of the same name), and that Nehemiah's first period in Jerusalem was therefore 445–433 BC;[9] allowing for his return to Susa and second journey to Jerusalem, the end of the 5th century BC is therefore the earliest possible date for the Memorial.[10] The Nehemiah Memorial is interrupted by chapters 8–10, which concern Ezra. These have sometimes been identified as another, separate work, the Ezra Memorial (EM), but other scholars believe the EM to be fictional and heavily altered by later editors. Both the Nehemiah and Ezra material are combined with numerous lists, Censuses and other material.
The first edition of the combined Ezra–Nehemiah may date from the early 4th century BC;[8] further editing continued well into the following centuries.
^Frevel, Christian (2023).History of Ancient Israel. SBL Press. p. 262.ISBN9781628375145.Since there are no extrabiblical testimonies for Nehemiah's person or work, one is initially dependent on the biblical data as a source…There is no clarity regarding the background, the concrete form, or the exact dating of Nehemiah's mission. For a long time the history of Nehemiah was reconstructed based on the assumption that Neh *1-7; *11-13 comprised an authentic so-called Nehemiah Memoir dating from the second half of the fifth century BCE. More recently, the historicity, background, and intention of these texts have become highly controversial. The maximalist position evaluates the details of the conflicts, Nehemiah's mission, and the actions initiated by him to be, as far as possible, historical, which then is authentically witnessed by Nehemiah's first-person report (e.g., Rainer Kessler, Titus Reinmuth, Ralf Rothenbusch). The minimalist position, on the other hand, doubts even the historicity of the person of Nehemiah. It does not see the Nehemiah Memoir as an authentic document but as a fictional account of later writers with theological intentions, who stylized Nehemiah as the model political leader. The Nehemiah Memoir is thus understood, as far as possible, to be an archetypal depiction without historical value (e.g., Joachim Becker, Erhard S. Gerstenberger).
^Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, Erich S. Gruen (editors),Hellenistic Constructs: Essays In Culture, History, and Historiography, p. 92 (University of California Press, 1997).ISBN0-520-20676-2
^Bogaert, Pierre-Maurice (2000). "Les livres d'Esdras et leur numérotation dans l'histoire du canon de la Bible latin".Revue Bénédictine.110 (1–2):5–26.doi:10.1484/J.RB.5.100750.
^Gallagher, Edmon L.; Meade, John D. (2017),The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity, OUP, p. 269
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