EXPOSITION
NEHEMIAH'S EFFORTS FOR THE REFORM OF RELIGION (Nehemiah 13:1-31). After having exercised the office of governor for twelve years, from b.c. 444 to b.c. 432, Nehemiah had had occasion to visit the Persian court, either to consult Artaxerxes personally on certain matters connected with his province, or for some other reason unknown to us. During his absence various evil practices, to which some reference has been already made in connection with the renewal of the covenant (Nehemiah 10:30-39), acquired so much strength, and came to such a head, that, on Nehemiah's return to Jerusalem at the expiration of a year (verse 6), he felt it necessary to take active steps to put an end to them. In the first place, intermarriages between the Jews and the neighbouring heathen, like those which Ezra had dissolved twenty-five years previously (Ezra 10:16-44), had again occurred, and a new generation was growing up which could not speak its own language correctly (verse 24). The family of the high priest, Eliashib, shared in this trespass. He himself was allied by marriage to the Ammonite chief, Tobiah (verse 4), and one of his grandsons had taken to wife a daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan (verse 28). Secondly, through the growing influence of the heathen, and their intermixture with the Jews in Judaea and Jerusalem, the strict observance of the sabbath had fallen into disrepute. Trade was carried on upon the sabbath in Jerusalem itself; in the country wine-presses were at work, and farming operations continued, without the observance of any day of rest (verses 15, 16). Further, the payment of the tithes was very irregular; and the Levites, who ought to have found their daily food provided for them in the temple, not receiving their "portions" there, were forced to absent themselves from the daily service, and to support themselves by cultivating their own plots of ground (verses 10, 11). Finally, the temple had ceased to be regarded as sacred to the Almighty; a portion of it had been converted into a dwelling-house by the order of the high priest himself (verse 5), an i the Ammonite, Tobiah, had been allowed to take possession of it. Nehemiah tells us in this chapter the mode wherein he dealt with these various evils, treating of the mixed marriages in verses 1-3 and 23-28; of the profanation of the sabbath in verses 15-22; of the non-payment of the tithes in verses 10-13; and of the desecration of the temple in verses 4-9. The chapter is remarkable for the number of "interjectional prayers" which it contains (verses 14, 22, 29, 31), and for the plainness and roughness of the language (see especially verses 9, 17, 21, 25, 28). The authorship of Nehemiah is universally admitted.