Nehemiah 10:3-8

Priests: 9 13, Levites: 14 28, Chiefs of the people

The 21 names here given are those of the priestly houses. The list of Nehemiah 12:1-3 agrees with it in 16 names. The number 21 is peculiar; in chap. 12 the number is larger by one. In Ezra 2; Nehemiah 7, only four priestly houses are recorded, viz. Jedaiah, Immer, Pashur and Harim, as having returned with Zerubbabel. Pashur is mentioned in Nehemiah 10:3; Harim in Nehemiah 10:5. The other priestly families had either developed themselves out of these first four, or had arrived from time to time from Babylon.

That 21 and not 24 are recorded, is noteworthy. Various conjectures have been hazarded, e.g. that names have dropped out from the text, or that three of the priestly tribes refused to sign the document, or that the complete list of priestly houses has not yet been reorganised.

Seraiah's name is given first. To his family belonged both Eliashib the high-priest and Ezra the scribe. The absence of their names does not therefore deserve the importance which some commentators have given to it. A single signature for the whole house may have been affixed by Eliashib or by Ezra or by some other distinguished person of the same house. We have no reason to look for the names of individual priests among the names of the priestly houses.