Nehemiah 12:31

31 And I made the princes of Judah to go up on the wall, and I ordained two great choirs, or companies, of men praising the Lord; and they went to the right side on the wall, to the gate of the dunghill. (And I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall, and I ordained two great choirs, or companies, of men to give praise to the Lord; and the first group went up on the wall to the right side, toward the Dung Gate.)

Nehemiah 12:31 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 12:31

Then I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall
Which was so broad as to walk upon it, and there was a procession of the princes on it at its dedication, and here is described the manner of it; the princes of Benjamin must be included here:

and appointed two great companies of them that gave thanks;
he divided the people who were met together to praise God on this occasion into two companies: whereof

one went on the right hand upon the wall;
that is, on the southern part of it:

towards the dung gate;
of which see ( Nehemiah 2:13 ) some Jewish writers, as Jarchi and Ben Melech, give a different sense of (twdwt ytv) , which we render "two companies", and take them to be two eucharistical loaves of leavened bread, with which a rite or ceremony was performed at the enlargement of a court or city; at the utmost boundary of which those were carried, and one was eaten and the other burnt F18; which rite is thus described by Maimonides F19,

``how do they add to a city? the sanhedrim make two eucharistical sacrifices, and they take the leavened bread in them, and the sanhedrim go after the two eucharistical sacrifices, which follow one another, and they stand with harps, and psalteries, and cymbals, at every corner and at every stone in Jerusalem, and say, I will extol thee, for thou hast lifted up (( Psalms 30:1 ) ) until they come to the end of the place they consecrate, there they stand and eat the thanksgiving loaf, one of the two, and the other is burnt.''


FOOTNOTES:

F18 Miss. Shebuot, c. 2. sect. 2. & Maimon, & Bartenora in ib.
F19 Hilchot, Beth-habechirah, c. 6. sect. 12. Vid. Selden. de Synedr. l. 3. c. 13. sect. 6.

Nehemiah 12:31 In-Context

29 and from the house of Gilgal, and from the country(sides) of Geba, and of Azmaveth; for the singers had builded towns to themselves in the compass of Jerusalem (for the singers had built towns for themselves all around Jerusalem).
30 And [the] priests and deacons were cleansed, and then they cleansed the people, and the gates, and the wall. (And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and then they purified the people, and the gates, and the wall.)
31 And I made the princes of Judah to go up on the wall, and I ordained two great choirs, or companies, of men praising the Lord; and they went to the right side on the wall, to the gate of the dunghill. (And I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall, and I ordained two great choirs, or companies, of men to give praise to the Lord; and the first group went up on the wall to the right side, toward the Dung Gate.)
32 And Hoshaiah went after them, and the half part of the princes of Judah (and half of the leaders of Judah),
33 and Azariah, Ezra, and Meshullam,
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.