Nehemiah 13:23-29

5. Nehemiah deals with the problem of mixed marriages.

TEXT, Nehemiah 13:23-29

23

In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

24

As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people.

25

So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

26

Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.

27

Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?

28

Even one of the sons of Joiada, the son Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I drove him away from me.

29

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

COMMENT

In Nehemiah 13:23, Ashdod was a city in the old Philistine area, in the present day Gaza strip. With the change of one letter Ammon becomes Amman, and we have its approximate present-day location. The people of Moab lived at the southeastern end of the Dead Sea.

The language of Ashdod, Nehemiah 13:24, is now known to have been quite similar to Hebrew, as Aramaic was (and so were the Moabite and Ammonite languages), but still a separate language[84] (as Dutch and German, or French and Spanish, or Spanish and Portuguese). The children were closer to their mothers through most of the day, so they spoke their language more than Hebrew.

[84] Op. cit., p. 217.

In Nehemiah 13:25, contended is the same as reprimanded in Nehemiah 13:17. Curse may be a little too strong. The Anchor Bible gives its literal translation as to be light, and gives the possible translation, treat with contempt. This would seem to be more in keeping with Nehemiah's character. But he also struck some of them and pulled out their hair. We recall that when Ezra was faced with the same kind of a situation, the hair that was pulled was his own! Perhaps there is an illustration here of the nature of the offices of the two men: the one, God's priest and man's intercessor; the other, God's chosen vessel still, but man's ruler. We gather that there are times for both kinds of action. What he achieved by this method was an oath that they would no longer participate in or allow mixed marriages. There is no mention of divorce, as there was in Ezra (Nehemiah 10:11).

Nehemiah 13:26-27 give the argument which Nehemiah used. If the great King Solomon, powerful among the nations, loved by God (that is the meaning of his personal name, Jedediah, 2 Samuel 12:24 f), and able to rule over all Israel, could not take foreign wives without being led to forsake God and sin, how did they think they could do this without sinning, weak as they were?

A little curiosity, going back to Nehemiah 13:26, is the KJV reference to outlandish women, reminding us that the derivation and original English meaning of the word had reference to women from outside the land of Solomon.

The information in Nehemiah 13:28 has not been given us previously; it is given here for the first time.

Now Nehemiah's prayer, in Nehemiah 13:29, is not for himself directly but against those of the Levitical line, priests and Levites alike, who had violated the covenant (Numbers 25:12) which God had made originally with their forefathers because they had stood more firmly against intermarriage and defilement with foreigners than any of the other tribes.

WORD STUDIES

EVER (Nehemiah 13:1: Olam): for ever, everlasting. Basically it means hidden (as in the secret sins of Psalms 90:8): where the beginning or end is obscure or uncertain or indefinite. It is applied to (1) the past, or antiquity, time long past or even only a lifetime, the days of old, Micah 7:14; or of a long time, Isaiah 42:14; (2) the future, i.e., of the end of one-' life, Deuteronomy 15:17; (3) end of an age or race or dynasty, limited by the length of their obedience, 1 Samuel 2:30. (4) The laws are for ever (Passover, Exodus 12:14), yet they are superseded now. (5) The earth and universe are forever (Psalms 104:5), though we know they will pass away. (6) Only when the term is used of God does it have the idea of absolute eternality (Psalms 90:2).

The people of the O.T. did not have an everlasting promise; they found no need to coin a word for an idea which they didn-'t have, or barely had, in their mind. Only Jesus could complete that picture for them (2 Timothy 1:10).

LOVED (Nehemiah 13:26: Aheb): to breathe after, long for, desire; the meaning is akin to Agape in the N.T. Israel loved Joseph, Genesis 37:3 f; Jacob loved Rachel, Genesis 29:18; Hosea was told to love his wife in spite of her unworthiness, Hosea 3:1; God loved His people, Deuteronomy 23:5; and we must love God, Deuteronomy 6:5.