Nehemiah 10:31

_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 31. _BRING WARE_] We will most solemnly keep the Sabbath. _Leave the seventh year_-We will let the land have its Sabbath, and rest every seventh year. See on Exodus 23:10-2....

BRING WARE ... ON THE SABBATH DAY - Compare Nehemiah 13:16, where this desecration of the Sabbath is shown to have commonly taken place. LEAVE THE SEVENTH YEAR ... - i. e., “let the land rest in the sabbatical year” (margin reference) and give up the “pledge-taking” Nehemiah 10:2....

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....

WARE. wares. Hebrew, plural only here. ON THE SABBATH. Compare Nehemiah 9:14; Nehemiah 13:15; Nehemiah 13:16; Nehemiah 13:18; Nehemiah 13:19; Nehemiah 13:21. This observation of the sabbath ensured the reading of God's Word, and the multiplication of copies. HOLY. See note on Exodus 3:5. LEAVE, &C.: i.e. forego the produce of the

Prohibition of Traffic on the Sabbath; and Observance of Sabbatic Year _people_ R.V. PEOPLES. -The peoples of the land (_"ammey haârec̣_) are the heathen dwellers in the land. The title -the people of the land" ("am haârec̣) w as used in later days of the unlearned multitude -which knoweth not the law" (John 7:49). _ware_ The Hebrew word occurs only here in the O.T. (LXX. ἀγορασμούς, Vulg. -venalia"). _on the sabbath day_ The prohibition is not found in so many words in the Pentateuch. But it represents the natural expansion of the command to keep the Sabbath holy. Pollution would most easily be contracted by the interchange of wares with the heathen. Complete abstention from such occupation was the only safeguard for the purity of the people, as well as for the observance of the Sabbath as a day of rest, 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