Chapter 10: What the Governor Found

Nehemiah returned to King Artaxerxes in Susa as he had promised. He was away for some time. When he came back to Jerusalem, he found that everything had unraveled.

Eliashib the priest, the same man who had helped rebuild the Sheep Gate, had given Tobiah the Ammonite a large room inside the Temple courts. The room that was meant for grain offerings, incense, and tithes now housed the very man who had tried to destroy the wall.

Nehemiah threw all of Tobiah's household goods out of the room, ordered it purified, and had the offerings restored.

Then he discovered that the Levites and singers had not been receiving their portions. Without support, they had abandoned the Temple and gone back to work their own fields.

NEHEMIAH“Why is the house of God neglected?”— Nehemiah 13:11

He brought them back to their posts. Then he found merchants and Tyrians selling goods on the Sabbath day.

NEHEMIAH“What is this wicked thing you are doing, desecrating the Sabbath day? Didn't your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city?”— Nehemiah 13:17-18

He ordered the gates shut before every Sabbath and stationed his own men to guard them. When merchants camped outside the walls hoping to trade anyway, Nehemiah went to them personally.

NEHEMIAH“Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do it again, I will arrest you.”— Nehemiah 13:21

They did not come back.

Then he discovered that Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. Their children spoke the languages of those nations and could not even speak Hebrew. Nehemiah rebuked them, called curses down on them, beat some of them, and pulled out their hair.

NEHEMIAH“Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned?”— Nehemiah 13:26

One of the grandsons of the high priest himself had married a daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. Nehemiah drove him away.

NEHEMIAH“Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.”— Nehemiah 13:14