Nehemiah 13:1–5

Nehemiah purifies the temple

On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God, 2 because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam to call a curse down on them. (Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.) 3 When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent.

4 Before this Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, 5 and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and oil prescribed for the Levites, singers and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.

There appears to be an interval of about 15 years between chapters 12 and 13 of Nehemiah. The dedication of the walls (chapter 12) probably took place in about 444 B.C., soon after their completion. Nehemiah returned to Persia in the 32nd year of Artaxerxes, about 433 B.C. Israel’s spiritual relapse (chapter 13) took place during Nehemiah’s absence from Jerusalem. We are not told how long he was away from Jerusalem, but it was probably a number of years before he returned to carry out the reforms described in chapter 13. These reforms may have taken place as late as 425 B.C. The words “On that day” that begin this section apparently do not refer to the dedication day described in chapter 12. To avoid confusion, they might better be translated “On a certain day.”

It is shocking that the people would so quickly break the covenant they had made with the Lord and return to the evil practices that the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah had corrected. It was doubly shocking that the leading priestly families were among the ringleaders of this apostasy. Shocking as it may be, such rapid apostasy was by no means unprecedented in Israel’s history. Remember how quickly the Israelites had broken their covenant at Mount Sinai by their worship of the golden calf (Exodus 32).