Nehemiah 10:30

_AND THAT WE WOULD NOT GIVE OUR DAUGHTERS UNTO THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND, NOR TAKE THEIR DAUGHTERS FOR OUR SONS:_ No JFB commentary on these verses....

1-31 Conversion is separating from the course and custom of this world, devoting ourselves to the conduct directed by the word of God. When we bind ourselves to do the commandments of God, it is to do all his commandments, and to look to him as the Lord, and our Lord....

Verse 30. _NOT GIVE OUR DAUGHTERS_] Make no affinity with the people of the land....

EXPOSITION THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO SEALED, AND THE TERMS OF THE COVENANT (Nehemiah 10:1.). The covenant which the Levites had recommended, probably at the suggestion of Nehemiah and Ezra, whose hand may perhaps be traced in the long address of the preceding chapter (verses 6-38), was at once accepted by the heads of the nation in Church and State, and was "sealed to" by Nehemiah, by his secretary, by the heads of the priestly and Levitical families, each sealing for his house, by the heads of various lay families or communities, and by a certain number of individual laymen, sealing (as it would seem) for themselves only. The rest of the people, those who did not actually s

CHAPTER 10 _ 1. Those who sealed the covenant (Nehemiah 10:1)_ 2. The obligations of the covenant (Nehemiah 10:28) Nehemiah 10:1. The last verse of the preceding chapter mentions a covenant. “And yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests, seal unto it.” In this chapter we find the names of the heads of the different houses who sealed the covenant, which means they put their signature to it. According to talmudical tradition these signers constituted “the Great Synagogue.” Originally it consisted of 120 members, but later only 70 belonged to it. Its covenants were as follows: _ (1) Not to marry heathen women;_...

NEHEMIAH 9:38 TO NEHEMIAH 10:39. THE COVENANT. This section is probably originally from Ezra's memoirs, though it has been considerably worked over, presumably not by the Chronicler, since he writes in the third person. It is, in the main, written in the first person plural, and may in its present form have come from some loyal follower of Ezra or Nehemiah who writes as representing one of the people. The special points of the covenant are the undertaking not to marry foreigners, to observe the Sabbath more strictly, to remit debts in the seventh year, to pay a third of a shekel to the Temple, to supply wood for burning the sacrifices, to offer all the first-fruits, and to give tithes; with all this _cf._ ch. 13....

Prohibition of Intermarriage with the Heathen _we_ Observe the first person plural here introduced and maintained to Nehemiah 10:39 throughout the rest of the Covenant details. _people_ R.V. PEOPLES. This prohibition of intermarriage with the people of the land had been strenuously upheld by Ezra 9:2. (See note.) The difficulty of enforcing it appears from Nehemiah 13:23-28. The words of the prohibition seem to be based on Deuteronomy 7:3 -Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son." Cf....

_OTHERS WHO JOINED IN THIS COVENANT -- NEHEMIAH 10:28-29:_ _ THE COVENANT PROMISES THAT THEY MADE -- NEHEMIAH 10:30-31:_ In their covenant with God they promised that would not intermarry with the hearten nations. Many of the Jews had done that but they promised that it would not happen again. As we remember some of them had even divorced their good, faithful Jewish wives to marry foreign women! The Jews also promised to observe the Sabbath and to keep the Sabbatical year. Let us remember that the Jewish Sabbath Day was actually on Saturday. They promised to cease the practice of buying and selling on the Sabbath Day. They also covenanted not to be as harsh in the exacting of their debts as they had been in the past. (Nehemiah 5) People would be released from

2. The content of the document is a vow of purity from the heathen. TEXT, NEHEMIAH 10:28-31 28 Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons and their daughters, all those who had knowledge and understanding. 29 are joining with their kinsmen, their nobles, and are taking on themselves a curse and an oath to walk in God's law, which was given through Moses, God's servant, and to keep and to observe all the commandments of GOD our LORD, and His ordinances and His statutes: 30 and that we will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. 31 As for the peoples of the land who bring wares or any grain on the sabbath

LIST OF THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE COVENANT 1. Now those that sealed _were_] The names that follow ZidMjah's are those of families whose living representatives sealed on behalf of their houses. Several of these family names occur in the list of those who accompanied Zerubbabel to Jerusalem (Nehemiah 12). ZIDKIJAH] The fact that his name is coupled with Nehemiah's suggests that he was a person of importance, but nothing is known of him....