Ezra 8:33

Ezra 8:33

‘And on the fourth day the silver and the gold and the vessels were weighed in the house of our God into the hand of Meremoth the son of Uriah the priest; and with him was Eleazar the son of Phinehas; and with them was Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah the son of Binnui, the Levite.'

Then on the fourth day they had reported at the Temple taking with them the gold and the silver and the sacred vessels, which were weighed and handed over to the Temple authorities. These Temple authorities consisted of Meremoth, the son of Uriah the priest and Eleazar, the ‘son' of Phinehas, who would therefore also have been a priest. And together with them were two Levites, Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Binnui. The priests would probably be responsible for the weighing and recording, while the Levites did the carrying.

Two priests would be required so as to establish the receipt of the treasures on a twofold witness. It would be the minimum required. The number of Levites would match that of the priests. In Nehemiah 13:13 Nehemiah assumes the same pattern which was probably a long established one.

Meremoth, the son of Uriah the priest, was presumably one of the Temple treasurers (compare Nehemiah 13:13 where two others are named as appointed by Nehemiah, which may suggest that at that stage he was demoted, although he may have died meanwhile). ‘Uriah the priest' indicates a priest of some importance. Ezra was also regularly called ‘Ezra the priest', and ‘Shelemoth the priest' was appointed as a Temple treasurer (Nehemiah 13:13). The title does not therefore mean High Priest, but indicates a leading priest. Meremoth thus came from an important priestly family.

It must be seen as unlikely that Meremoth, son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz who was a prominent wall builder under Nehemiah (Nehemiah 3:4; Nehemiah 3:21) was the same one. He is not there directly related to the priesthood, and the names were popular ones. Indeed Nehemiah 3:17 may suggest that this latter was a Levite. The sons of Hakkoz had not been accepted as priests because they could not prove their genealogy (Ezra 2:62), although it may be that by this time that had been remedied. In Nehemiah 10:6 a Meremoth is listed as eleventh among the priests, but seen as important enough to be called on as a sealant of the covenant of Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 12:3 a Meremoth, (clearly not the same one), was one of the chiefs of the priests who had come up with Zerubbabel. Meremoth the son of Uriah may have been his grandson.

Eleazar the son of Phinehas may be the Eleazar mentioned in Ezra 10:18 as having taken a foreign wife, but the name was a common one (see Ezra 10:23; Ezra 10:31) and identity is by no means certain. He is clearly different from the Eleazar in Ezra 8:16 who had arrived with Ezra, for he was already a high level priest in the Temple.

‘Jozabad the son of Jeshua, and Noadiah, the son of Binnui.' A Jozabad, who may well be the same one, is named as living in Jerusalem and as being a chief Levite who had oversight of the work on the outside of the Temple (Nehemiah 11:16). He may also have been one of those who had married foreign wives (Ezra 10:23), although that might have been a different Jozabad. Nothing further is known about Noadiah.

But Jozabad and Noadiah were the ‘sons' of two prominent men, Jeshua and Binnui. These were both sealants of the covenant of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 10:9) although it is possible that Jeshua and Binnui were ancestors and that others signed in the family name. Alternately they might have taken the name of their ancestors as the signal of a new beginning. Compare how a Jeshua and Binnui also came back to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel over 80 years earlier (Nehemiah 12:8), as did ‘sons of Jeshua' (Nehemiah 7:43 compare Ezra 2:40). There was much duplication of names among the returnees, and possibly a taking of family names in honour of the new beginning.