Nehemiah 12 Study Notes

12:27-43 The grand finale of Nehemiah’s ministry took place with the joyous dedication of the rebuilt wall around Jerusalem. While some scholars suggest that this dedication service took place immediately after the completion of the wall (6:15-16), it is more likely that the text is presenting an accurate chronology. Nehemiah’s task, along with Ezra’s, was to restore the people as well. Thus, the dedication celebrated the rebuilt wall as well as the revitalized people.

12:30 With the Levites and singers (vv. 28-29) present, the mandatory purification procedure could begin. For the priests and Levites (probably the singers as well, assuming they were included among the Levites at this point), this involved washing their clothes and abstaining from sexual intercourse (Ex 19:14-15), bringing special sacrifices (Nm 8:8-12), and being sprinkled with water (Nm 8:7).

12:31-37 The dedicatory procession began with Nehemiah (the text now resumes with the first-person account from the Nehemiah Memoir) bringing the leaders (Hb sarim) up on top of the wall, where they split into two groups. One group went to the right on the wall. The procession must have approached the city from the west, probably mounting the wall at the Valley Gate on the west side of the city. Here they “went to the right”—or south—toward the Dung Gate. Archaeological evidence suggests that the top of the wall was about nine feet wide, allowing people to walk two or three abreast.

The leader of the procession was Ezra the scribe, a statement that many regard as impossible. Since many scholars do not believe there was any overlap between the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah, they consider this statement a pious but flawed attempt to link the ministry of these two great men. However, as D. J. A. Clines writes, “It cannot be proved that Ezra’s participation is unhistorical; it is not impossible that Ezra should have been brought from retirement or from Babylonia specifically to engage in this ceremony.”

12:38-39 The second procession left the Valley Gate and went to the left, or north, in a clockwise direction, passing the Fish Gate (northwest corner of the city) and leaving the wall at the Sheep Gate at the north end of the city. From there they traveled to the Gate of the Guard, an uncertain location that may be identical with the courtyard of the guard (3:25) or the Inspection Gate (3:31). Presumably either location was near the temple.

12:40-43 The two processions met at the house of God, the temple. Nehemiah acknowledged God as the source of their great joy.

12:44-47 This section is linked to the dedication celebration by the phrase on that same day, although the issues mentioned prepare the way for the following chapter. Many critical scholars regard the claim that the worship was exactly as prescribed by David and his son Solomon as a historical retrojection of postexilic worship back into the time of David and Solomon (1Ch 23-36). However, such a position probably reflects more on a scholar’s presuppositions about the history of Israel than on exegesis of the biblical text.