Nehemiah 7:73

So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinims, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities; and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Nehemiah 7:73. So the priests and the Levites, &c.,dwelt in their cities — When all the business before mentioned was finished, the people were sent back, by Nehemiah’s direction, to the several cities to which they belonged; where they remained till the seventh month came, which was five days after the wall was finished, that being on the twenty-fifth day of the sixth month, chap. Nehemiah 6:15.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:5-73 Nehemiah knew that the safety of a city, under God, depends more upon the inhabitants than upon its walls. Every good gift and every good work are from above. God gives knowledge, he gives grace; all is of him, and therefore all must be to him. What is done by human prudence, must be ascribed to the direction of Divine Providence. But woe to those who turn back from the Lord, loving this present world! and happy those who dedicate themselves, and their substance, to his service and glory!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Dwelt in their cities - Nehemiah's quotation from Zerubbabel's register ends here, and the narration of events in Jerusalem in his own day is resumed from Nehemiah 7:3. The narrative Nehemiah 8; 10 appears from internal evidence to be by a different author (see the introduction of the Book of Nehemiah).

The last two clauses of Nehemiah 7:73 should stand as the beginning of Nehemiah 8 (as in the Septuagint). The text would then run: "And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in their cities, the whole people gathered themselves together as one man," etc. Compare the margin reference.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

73. So … all Israel, dwelt in their cities—The utility of these genealogical registers was thus found in guiding to a knowledge of the cities and localities in each tribe to which every family anciently belonged.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So the priests and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinims, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities,.... The same is said in Ezra 2:70; see Gill on Ezra 2:70,

and, when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities; the month Tisri, answering to part of September, in which month was the feast of tabernacles; at this time of the year they were in their cities when they came forth out of Babylon, and so they were now; see Ezra 3:1.

Geneva Study Bible

So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinims, and all Israel, dwelt in their cities; and when the {i} seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.

(i) Which contained part of September and part of October.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

73. some] R.V. some. The Heb. gives the partitive idea. (LXX. οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ λαοῦ. Vulg. ‘reliquum vulgus.’)

Nethinims] R.V. Nethinim.

Nehemiah 7:73 b–8:12. The Reading of the Law

This verse begins a new section in the work. The style alters. The use of the first pers. sing. is resumed in Nehemiah 12:31. The Compiler has recourse to other material for this narrative. The thread of Nehemiah’s Memoir, which was broken off at Nehemiah 7:5, is therefore not resumed.

and when the seventh month came] R.V. And when the seventh month was come. The R.V. gives the right division of the verse. The second clause introduces a new section. Very similar words occur in Ezra 3:1 after the register of names. The close of the ‘register’ perhaps contained suitable words with which to resume the narrative in both passages. But possibly the Compiler consciously repeats himself and borrows from Ezra 3:1, ‘the seventh month.’ The mention of this date raises the question of the chronology of the following episodes.

The year is not stated. It is not therefore possible to say with certainty that the events described in chap. 8. followed immediately upon the completion of the wall. But, although not stated, this is what is clearly suggested by the compiler of the work. The mention of the 25th of the 6th month (Nehemiah 6:15) is followed by the narrative of the 1st of the 7th month (Nehemiah 7:73; Nehemiah 8:2). As no other year is mentioned, presumably the events are those which occurred in the same year.

The objection which has been raised against this simple view is chiefly based upon the difficulty caused by the strangely sudden reappearance of Ezra. The fact that in 1Es 9:37 ff. the events here described follow immediately upon the expulsion of ‘the strange women’ (Ezra 9) has been by some scholars understood to supply the right order of time. The public reading of the law and the sacred covenant would then have to be placed in the year 457, and ‘the seventh month’ in the second year after Ezra’s arrival. An apparent confirmation of this view is given by Josephus. But the chronology of Josephus in this period is very untrustworthy. Undoubtedly following 1 Esdras, which does not mention Nehemiah, he places Ezra’s activity in the generation before that of Nehemiah, and Ezra’s death before Nehemiah’s arrival at Jerusalem. His treatment of their lives seems to be based on the supposition that they were not contemporaries (see Josephus, Antiquities, xi. 5); in § 1, Ezra appears as a contemporary of Joiakim the High-priest, in § 5 his death is mentioned as occurring at the same time as that of Joiakim the High-priest, who was succeeded by Eliashib. It seems fatal to this view that, in order to maintain it, it is necessary to strike out, as later glosses, the mention of Nehemiah’s name in Nehemiah 8:9, Nehemiah 10:1.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 73. - And all Israel dwelt in their cities. The document found by Nehemiah (ver. 5) probably ended with these words (romp. Ezra 2:70); and ch. 7. should here terminate, as it does in the Septuagint. Having completed the account of what happened in the sixth month, Elul (ch. 6:15), and transcribed the register which he had the good fortune to discover at that date, Nehemiah proceeds to relate events belonging to the seventh month.



Nehemiah 7:73

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

And God put into my heart, i.e., God inspired me with the resolution; comp. Nehemiah 2:12. What resolution, is declared by the sentences following, which detail its execution. The resolution to gather together the nobles and rulers of the people for the purpose of making a list of their kinsmen, and thus to obtain a basis for the operations contemplated for increasing the inhabitants of Jerusalem. והסּגנים החרים are combined, as in Nehemiah 2:16. On התיחשׂ, comp. 1 Chronicles 5:17.

While this resolve was under consideration, Nehemiah found the register, i.e., the genealogical registry, of those who came up at first (from Babylon). בּראשׁונה, at the beginning, i.e., with Zerubbabel and Joshua under Cyrus (Ezra 2), and not subsequently with Ezra (Ezra 7). "And I found written therein." These words introduce the list now given. This list, vv. 6-73a, is identical with that in Ezra 2, and has been already discussed in our remarks on that chapter.