Nehemiah 13:4

4 Some time before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of The Temple of God. He was close to Tobiah

Nehemiah 13:4 Meaning and Commentary

Nehemiah 13:4

And before this
Before the above law was read, and observed and acted upon:

Eliashib the priest;
whom some take to be a common priest; so Bishop Usher ^F1; but he seems rather to be the high priest, by comparing it with ( Nehemiah 13:28 ) ,

having the oversight of the chamber of the house of our God;
which has led some to the notion of his being a common priest; but chamber may be put for chambers, and those for the whole house or temple, which the high priest had the greatest concern in, and oversight of:

was allied to Tobiah;
the servant and Ammonite, an inveterate enemy of the Jews, ( Nehemiah 2:10 Nehemiah 2:20 ) , having married a daughter of Shecaniah, and his son a daughter of Meshullam, who were both priests, and so as it seems related to Eliashib, ( Nehemiah 6:18 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 Annal. Vet. Test. p. 200.

Nehemiah 13:4 In-Context

2 because they hadn't welcomed the People of Israel with food and drink; they even hired Balaam to work against them by cursing them, but our God turned the curse into a blessing.

3 When they heard the reading of The Revelation, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

4 Some time before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of The Temple of God. He was close to Tobiah

5 and had made available to him a large storeroom that had been used to store Grain-Offerings, incense, worship vessels, and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil for the Levites, singers, and security guards, and the offerings for the priests.

6 When this was going on I wasn't there in Jerusalem; in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon, I had traveled back to the king. But later I asked for his permission to leave again.