Nehemiah 13:1-3

This seems to mean a particular day after Nehemiah returned to *Judah. It seems that, until then, the people had neglected to read the law of God. But on that particular day, they heard the law. Then they knew that they had not obeyed God’s commands. God’s law said that they must never allow the *Ammonite and *Moabite people to join the people of God. The *Ammonites and *Moabites were *descendants of Moab and Benammi, the sons of Lot. Moab and Benammi were born after Lot’s daughters made him *sin (Genesis 19:10-38). The *Ammonites and *Moabites were always the enemies of the *Jews. The *Moabites encouraged the *Jews to serve false gods at the time of Moses (Numbers 25:1-5).

So the people obeyed God and they separated themselves from all foreigners.

(God did not want the *Israelites to marry people from other nations. This was because the *Israelites were God’s special people. But God still cared about the people from other nations. In fact, God’s plan was to use the *Israelites so that he could do good things for people from every nation (Genesis 12:3). So people from other nations could still serve the real God. For example, Ruth was from Moab, but she became an *ancestor of Jesus. So God even allowed *Moabites to join his special people, the *Jews, if they really *worshipped him. See Ruth 1:16-22; Ruth 4:13-17; Luke 3:23-32.)

v4 Before this, Eliashib the priest was responsible for the rooms of the house of our God. He was a relative of Tobiah. v5 Eliashib allowed Tobiah to use a large room. This was a room where people used to store the gifts of grain, *perfume and the *temple equipment. They also stored there the *tithes of grain, new wine and oil. The law said that the people should give these things to the *Levites. And there were also gifts for the singers and the people who guarded the gates. People also stored the gifts for the priests in this room.