TO BRING ONE OF TEN - Artificial enlargements of capitals by forcible transfers of population to them, were not unusual in ancient times. About 500 B.C., Syracuse became a great city in this way. Tradition ascribed the greatness of Rome, in part, to this cause.... [ Continue Reading ]
See the margin reference notes. Both accounts appear to be extracts from a public official register which Nehemiah caused to be made of his census. The census itself seems to have been confined to the dwellers at Jerusalem. The subjoined table exhibits the differences between the accounts of the ent... [ Continue Reading ]
The returned community, though consisting mainly of members of the two tribes, represented the entire people of Israel. The ground, however, which they occupied, was not the whole land, but that which had constituted the kingdom of Judah.... [ Continue Reading ]
Ophel, the southern spur of the temple hill, having a wall of its own Nehemiah 3:27 might be reckoned either in Jerusalem or outside it. Here it is made a separate place.... [ Continue Reading ]
The business intended was probably the internal business, as distinct from the “outward business” Nehemiah 11:16 : a part of which was the apportionment of the royal bounty among the members of the choir Nehemiah 11:23.... [ Continue Reading ]
The goodwill of Artaxerxes toward the ministers employed in the temple service, had been previously shown by his exempting them from taxation of every kind Ezra 7:24. Now, it would seem, he had gone further and assigned to the singers an allowance from the royal revenue.... [ Continue Reading ]
It is difficult to say what office Pethahiah filled. So far as we know, the only regular officers under the Persian system of government were the satrap, the subsatrap, the permanent royal secretary, the commandant, and the occasional commissary.... [ Continue Reading ]
KIRJATH-ARBA - i. e., Hebron. In the absence of the Hebrews during the captivity, the place had recovered its old name Joshua 15:13.... [ Continue Reading ]
Many of the places mentioned in these verses are mentioned in Joshua 15:27; Joshua 18:21.... [ Continue Reading ]
OF THE LEVITES WERE DIVISIONS - i. e., “the Levites were scattered among various towns both in Judah and Benjamin.”... [ Continue Reading ]