Nehemiah | |
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| Prophet and Leader of the Israelites | |
| Honored in | Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Feast | 13 July (Catholic) Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (Orthodox)[1] |
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Nehemiah (/ˌniːəˈmaɪə/;Biblical Hebrew:נְחֶמְיָה,romanized: Nəḥemyā,lit. 'Yahweh comforts')[2] is the central figure of theBook of Nehemiah, which describes his work in rebuildingJerusalem during theSecond Temple period as the governor ofYehud Medinata, the autonomous province of Judea within theAchaemenid Empire, underArtaxerxes I (465–424 BC).[2][3]
Thehistoricity of Nehemiah, his mission, and the Nehemiah Memoir have recently become very controversial in academic scholarship, with maximalists viewing it as a historical account and minimalists doubting whether Nehemiah existed.[4] He is considered a saint in theEastern Orthodox Church, where he is commemorated on theSunday of the Holy Forefathers.
In the 20th year of Artaxerxes (445 or 444 BC),[5] Nehemiah wascup-bearer to the king.[6] Learning that the remnant population inJudea were in distress and that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, he asked the king for permission to return and rebuild the city (Nehemiah 1:1-2:5) around 13 years afterEzra's arrival in Jerusalem in ca. 458 BC.[7] Artaxerxes sent him to Judah as provincial governor with a mission to rebuild, gave letters explaining his support for the venture, and provision for timber from the king's forest (Nehemiah 2:6-9) Once there, Nehemiah defied the opposition of Judah's enemies on all sides (Samarians underSanballat the Horonite,Ammonites, andArabs) and rebuilt the walls within 52 days, from the Sheep Gate in the North, theHananeel Tower at the North West corner, the Fish Gate in the West, the Furnaces Tower at the Temple Mount's South West corner, theDung Gate in the South, the East Gate and the gate beneaththe Golden Gate in the East.
No archeological evidence supports the existence of a harem or the seclusion of women from contact with men in Achaemenid Iran.[8] They appeared freely in public at all levels of society.[9] However, theancient Greeks portrayed Persians as engaging in the segregation of the sexes, and earlier scholars suggested Nehemiah's appearance in the presence of the Achaemenidqueen consort (שֵׁגָל) alongside the king in Nehemiah 2:6 (הַמֶּ֜לֶךְ וְהַשֵּׁגַ֣ל ׀ יוֹשֶׁ֣בֶת אֶצְל֗וֹ "the king with the consort seated at his side") indicated that he was aeunuch, as he must have been inside theharem.[10] In theSeptuagint, the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible, he is described as such:eunochos (Koine Greek:εὐνοῦχος,romanized: eunuch), rather thanoinochoos "cup-bearer" (οινοχόος). If so, the attempt by his enemyShemaiah to trick him into entering the Temple is aimed at making him break religious commandments rather than simply hide from assassins.[11]
Nehemiah took measures to repopulate the city and purify the community, enforcing the cancellation of debt, assisting Ezra in publicizing the law ofMoses, and enforcing the divorce of Jewish men from their non-Jewish wives.
After twelve years as governor, during which he ruled with justice and righteousness, he returned to the king inSusa. After spending some time in Susa, he returned to Jerusalem, only to find that the people had reverted to their evil ways. Non-Jews were permitted to conduct business inside Jerusalem onShabbat and to keep rooms in the Temple. Greatly angered, he purified the Temple and theKohenim andLevites and enforced the observance of the law of Moses.
The2 Maccabees states that Nehemiah is the one who brought the holy fire for the altar back from the diaspora to Jerusalem and founded a library of the Holy Scriptures, just asJudas Maccabeus did. Here, Nehemiah's political role sets an example for the Hasmonean dynasty and serves as a model for pious national leadership in general. The scene of reading and explaining theTorah in Nehemiah 8 became the model ofsynagogue worship.[12] See2 Maccabees 2:13.
The hymn in praise of the forefathers in theBook of Sirach mentions only Nehemiah (notEzra) afterZerubbabel andJoshua, and praises him for his building activities in Sirach 49:13.
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One rabbinic text, oraggadah, identifies Nehemiah asZerubbabel, with the latter being considered anepithet and indicating that he was born in Babylon. Another oral tradition, ormishnah, records that Nehemiah was blamed for seeming to boast (Neh. v. 19 & xiii. 31), and disparage his predecessors (Neh. v. 15). This tradition asserts that his book was appended to theBook of Ezra, as a consequence, rather than being a separate book in its own right, as it is in the Christian Old Testament. TheBaba Bathra records that Nehemiah completed theBook of Chronicles, which was said to have been written byEzra.[13]
Nehemias is venerated inCatholic Church andOrthodox Church:
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)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).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Easton, Matthew George (1897)."Nehemiah".Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons.
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