Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The priests and Levites of the time of Nehemiah are listed. Hence, in verse 27, he himself summons them for the dedication of the walls, which in verse 31 is narrated as having been performed with a solemn procession along the walls with two choirs of singers, the applause of the people, and the offering of sacrifices. Finally, in verse 43, those are appointed who are to preside over the treasuries and the expenses of the temple, and provide for the sustenance of the priests and Levites.
Vulgate Text: 2 Esdrae (Nehemiah) 12:1-46
1. These are the priests and Levites who came up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, 2. Amariah, Malluch, Hattush, 3. Shecaniah, Rehum, Meremoth, 4. Iddo, Ginnethon, Abijah, 5. Mijamin, Maadiah, Bilgah, 6. Shemaiah and Joiarib, Jedaiah, Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah. 7. Jedaiah. These were the chiefs of the priests and their brethren in the days of Jeshua. 8. Moreover the Levites: Jeshua, Binnui, Cadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, Mattaniah, who with his brethren was over the hymns: 9. and Bakbukiah and Unni, and their brethren, each in his office. 10. Now Jeshua begot Joiakim, and Joiakim begot Eliashib, and Eliashib begot Joiada, 11. and Joiada begot Jonathan, and Jonathan begot Jaddua. 12. And in the days of Joiakim there were priests and heads of families: of Seraiah, Meraiah; of Jeremiah, Hananiah; 13. of Ezra, Meshullam; of Amariah, Jehohanan; 14. of Malluchi, Jonathan; of Shebaniah, Joseph; 15. of Harim, Adna; of Meraioth, Helkai; 16. of Iddo, Zechariah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam; 17. of Abijah, Zichri; of Miniamin and of Moadiah, Piltai; 18. of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan; 19. of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi; 20. of Sallai, Kallai; of Amok, Eber; 21. of Hilkiah, Hashabiah; of Jedaiah, Nethanel. 22. The Levites in the days of Eliashib and Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua, were recorded as heads of families, and the priests in the reign of Darius the Persian. 23. The sons of Levi, heads of families, were recorded in the Book of the Chronicles, up to the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib. 24. And the chiefs of the Levites: Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of Cadmiel, with their brethren in their divisions, to praise and give thanks according to the commandment of David the man of God, and to keep watch in like manner in order. 25. Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, Akkub, were gatekeepers keeping watch at the storerooms of the gates. 26. These were in the days of Joiakim the son of Jeshua, the son of Jozadak, and in the days of Nehemiah the governor, and of Ezra the priest and scribe. 27. And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgiving and singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps. 28. And the sons of the singers were assembled from the countryside around Jerusalem, and from the villages of Netophah, 29. and from the house of Gilgal, and from the regions of Geba and Azmaveth: for the singers had built themselves villages around Jerusalem. 30. And the priests and Levites purified themselves, and purified the people, and the gates, and the wall. 31. Then I brought the princes of Judah up onto the wall, and I appointed two great choirs of those giving thanks. And they went to the right upon the wall toward the Dung Gate. 32. And Hoshaiah went after them, with half of the princes of Judah, 33. and Azariah, Ezra, Meshullam, Judah, Benjamin, Shemaiah, and Jeremiah. 34. And of the sons of the priests with trumpets: Zechariah the son of Jonathan, the son of Shemaiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Micaiah, the son of Zaccur, the son of Asaph; 35. and his brethren, Shemaiah, Azarel, Milalai, Gilalai, Maai, Nethanel, Judah, and Hanani, with the musical instruments of David the man of God: and Ezra the scribe went before them at the Fountain Gate. 36. And opposite them they went up on the stairs of the City of David, at the ascent of the wall above the house of David, and to the Water Gate on the east. 37. And the second choir of those giving thanks went on the opposite side, and I after them, with half of the people, upon the wall, past the Tower of the Furnaces, and up to the Broad Wall, 38. and above the Gate of Ephraim, and above the Old Gate, and above the Fish Gate, and the Tower of Hananel and the Tower of the Hundred, as far as the Sheep Gate: and they halted at the Gate of the Guard. 39. And the two choirs of those giving thanks stood in the house of God, and I, and half of the magistrates with me. 40. And the priests: Eliakim, Maaseiah, Miniamin, Micaiah, Elioenai, Zechariah, Hananiah, with trumpets; 41. and Maaseiah, Shemaiah, Eleazar, Uzzi, Jehohanan, Malchijah, Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang clearly, with Jezrahiah as their leader. 42. And on that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and also their wives and children rejoiced, and the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar. 43. On that day also they appointed men over the storerooms of the treasury, for the libations, the firstfruits, and the tithes, to gather into them from the fields of the cities the portions prescribed by the law for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced in the priests and Levites who served. 44. And they kept the charge of their God and the charge of purification, and the singers and the gatekeepers acted according to the commandment of David and of Solomon his son; 45. for in the days of David and Asaph, from the beginning, there were chiefs appointed over the singers, in songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. 46. And all Israel, in the days of Zerubbabel and in the days of Nehemiah, gave portions to the singers and gatekeepers day by day, and sanctified offerings to the Levites, and the Levites sanctified them to the sons of Aaron.
Verse 1: Ezra
EZRA. — Cajetan thinks that this Ezra is different from the Ezra of whom he himself wrote in Book I. He proves this because here he is simply called Ezra, whereas in Book I he is called Priest and Scribe. But Sanchez and others consider them to be one and the same. For here too, in verse 35, he is called "Ezra the scribe" and is said to have presided over one choir of singers. Therefore Ezra in this twentieth year of Artaxerxes was already a surviving 147 years old, as I said above. The Scholastic History adds in the chapter on Judith, X: After the walls had been dedicated, Ezra died and was buried in Jerusalem.
Verse 7: Chiefs of the Priests
7. THESE WERE THE CHIEFS OF THE PRIESTS, etc., IN THE DAYS OF JESHUA — that is, of Jeshua the son of Jozadak the High Priest, who in the first year of Cyrus brought the Jews back from Babylon with Zerubbabel, and rebuilt the temple.
Verse 10: The Succession of High Priests
10. NOW JESHUA BEGOT JOIAKIM, AND JOIAKIM BEGOT ELIASHIB, AND ELIASHIB BEGOT JOIADA. 11. AND JOIADA BEGOT JONATHAN, AND JONATHAN BEGOT JADDUA. — Jaddua is Jaddus, who, clothed in pontifical vestments, went to meet Alexander the Great and appeased him, though he was offended with the Jews (because they had supported Darius Codomannus, king of the Persians, to whom they were subject, rather than Alexander who was invading). Hence Alexander reverently venerated him, according to Josephus, Antiquities XI, chapter VIII.
You will object: Nehemiah could not have seen Jaddua as High Priest; for in that case he would have had to live two hundred years: for that many years elapsed from Cyrus to Alexander, and for that many years the monarchy of the Persians stood, which Alexander, having defeated Darius, transferred to the Greeks. For Nehemiah lived and performed these deeds under Artaxerxes Longimanus, who preceded Alexander by a hundred years and more: therefore he could not have seen Jaddua as High Priest under Alexander. Convinced by this argument, Scaliger, in his work On the Emendation of Times, contends that the Artaxerxes who sent Nehemiah to Judea was not Longimanus but Mnemon, who reigned in Persia shortly before Alexander.
But I answer: All these things alleged in the argument are true; and therefore this verse 11, as well as verse 22, was not written by Nehemiah, but was inserted into this book at this point after his death by the Synagogue of the Jews, which was then governed by the Holy Spirit, or by some inspired writer, to show the continuous succession of the High Priests throughout the entire period of the Persian kingdom up to Alexander, from whose deeds the books of the Maccabees begin, so that they might weave a continuous history of Israel, that is, of the commonwealth and Church of God, through the Maccabean Pontiffs and Princes up to Christ. For the first Jeshua, or Jesus, who is named here, was High Priest under Cyrus: while the last, Jaddua, or Jaddus, was High Priest under Darius Codomannus and Alexander: the intermediate ones were successive High Priests under Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and other kings of the Persians who were likewise intermediate, as I showed in the catalogue and series of these High Priests which I prefixed to Ezra. That this is so is gathered from verses 23 and 26, where it is said that in the time of Nehemiah the High Priests were Joiakim and Eliashib, "up to the days of Jonathan the son of Eliashib"; but Jonathan was the father of Jaddua, or Jaddus: therefore Nehemiah did not see him as High Priest. In a similar way, to the books of Moses and Joshua and others, the final chapters describing their deaths were added by Ezra, as I said in the preface to Ezra. I answer secondly that Nehemiah saw Jaddua as a boy, but not as High Priest. This is clear from chapter XIII, verse 28, where it is said that one of the sons of Joiada the High Priest had given his daughter as wife to Sanballat the Horonite: and so had made him his son-in-law, "whom," says Nehemiah, "I drove away from me." For this son of Joiada was Jonathan the father of Jaddus, or at least was the brother of Jonathan. Therefore if at that time Jonathan, or his brother, had a marriageable daughter, he could certainly also have had a son, Jaddua. Just as Ezra, by God's gift, was long-lived and lived 147 years, so too Nehemiah, a contemporary of Ezra, was long-lived, just as Jeshua the son of Jozadak, Daniel, and similar persons of that era were also long-lived, and this for the purpose that they might restore the Synagogue, which had partially fallen during the captivity, in the faith, law, and worship of the true God — namely, as that author says: "Love does not feel old age." Therefore Jaddus the High Priest, at the time of Alexander the Great, seems to have been very old, namely about 94 years, so that he was born under Artaxerxes, or under Darius Nothus his son, and was seen by Nehemiah when he was a boy or a young man; for 94 years elapsed from the last year of Artaxerxes to Alexander. And for this reason Jaddua is not here called High Priest, but is simply named and said to have been begotten by Jonathan.
Verse 12: Priests in the Days of Joiakim
12. AND IN THE DAYS OF JOIAKIM, THE PRIESTS AND HEADS OF FAMILIES (of the priestly families then flourishing and prominent above the rest) WERE: OF SERAIAH, MERAIAH; OF JEREMIAH, HANANIAH; OF EZRA, MESHULLAM, etc. — that is, in the family of Seraiah, which in the time of Jeshua, or Jesus the High Priest, was famous and first among the priestly families, as was said in verse 1, now in the time of Joiakim the son of Jeshua the High Priest, the primary leader was Meraiah: in the family of Jeremiah, the first and chief was Hananiah; in the family of Ezra, the head and chief was Meshullam; and so on for the others that follow.
Verse 22: The Levites Recorded
22. THE LEVITES IN THE DAYS OF ELIASHIB AND JOIADA AND JOHANAN, AND JADDUA, WERE RECORDED AS HEADS OF FAMILIES, AND THE PRIESTS (supply: were those whom he names in verse 24; for up to this point he has listed the chiefs of the Levitical priestly families: now in a similar way he lists the chiefs of the Levitical families) IN THE REIGN (the Hebrew says: up to the reign, as Pagninus and Vatablus translate) OF DARIUS THE PERSIAN — namely Darius Codomannus, the last king of the Persians, whom Alexander defeated in the seventh year of his reign, and so transferred the monarchy from the Persians to the Greeks. This verse seems to have been inserted into Nehemiah by some later writer, as I said at verse 11; for Nehemiah did not see Darius Codomannus, nor Jaddua as High Priest under him: for in that case he would have had to live two hundred years. Unless you say that Darius here is understood not as Codomannus, but as Nothus, who was the illegitimate son of Artaxerxes Longimanus and succeeded him on the throne. For Nehemiah could have seen this Darius, and moreover, if Jaddus was born at the beginning of the reign of Darius Nothus, at the time of Alexander the Great he would have been about 94 years old.
Verse 23: The Book of the Chronicles
23. In the Book of the Chronicles — that is, in the annals, or diaries and chronicles of the High Priests of the Jews. That the Jews wrote these annals carefully is clear from the book of Paralipomenon and from Josephus, and they did so by the series of years of the High Priests, since the kings had by then ceased. Hence it is equally clear that these annals are different from the book of Paralipomenon, since they are cited by it.
Verse 27: The Dedication of the Wall
27. AND AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WALL OF JERUSALEM. — Hence it is clear that this solemn dedication was of the wall of Jerusalem; and therefore was performed shortly after the 52 days in which the wall was completed, as Salian, Sanchez, and others hold: although some think this dedication was not of the wall only, but of the entire city, after the houses, markets, streets, and plazas in it had been rebuilt and completed over a period of two years, according to Josephus; therefore they say that this dedication of the entire city was performed in the twenty-second year of Artaxerxes. Hence from this year 22, in which the city was dedicated, they begin the 70 weeks of Daniel up to Christ.
Moreover, the rite of this dedication is described in verse 30 and following. From this time began the pious custom of dedicating new cities and houses, which the more religious still carefully observe to this day. The Gentiles did the same, as I said above. Hence the Emperor Justinian, in the Sacred Laws IX, section Sanctae, in the Digest on the division of things, says: "Sacred things also, such as the walls and gates of a city, are in a certain way under divine law, and therefore are in no one's property." That walls were sacred among the Romans, Servius teaches at length in his commentary on that passage of Virgil, Aeneid V: "Meanwhile Aeneas marks out the city with a plow." Where he shows the certain rites and sacrifices that were employed in the marking out and building of walls.
Verse 30: They Purified the People
30. THEY PURIFIED THE PEOPLE, AND THE GATES, AND THE WALL — namely by sprinkling them with lustral water: likewise by praying and sacrificing for their safety. They also purified the walls and the people by the same rites from every uncleanness and irregularity which under that law they easily and in many ways contracted.
Verse 31: The Princes Upon the Wall
31. AND I MADE THE PRINCES OF JUDAH GO UP ONTO THE WALL. — For the walls had a narrow width, and so could hold only a few. Therefore only the princes, not all but some of them, were ordered to ascend, since it was their duty to defend them against enemies. Moreover on either side of the princes were two choirs of priests and Levites proceeding in equal step with them and singing the praises of God. Ezra presided over one choir, as is clear from verse 33; Nehemiah with his followers presided over the other, who were partly priests and partly laymen, especially from among the number of the princes, as is clear from verses 37 and 39.
Verse 42: Great Sacrifices
42. AND ON THAT DAY THEY OFFERED GREAT SACRIFICES — which God showed were pleasing to Him, when He turned the water with which the victims had been drenched into fire, which consumed the victims: for which reason the Hebrews, in order to recall such a great miracle annually, established a feast of the fire given by God, as is clear from II Maccabees I, 18.
Verse 43: Men Over the Storerooms
43. ON THAT DAY ALSO THEY APPOINTED MEN OVER THE STOREROOMS OF THE TREASURY, FOR THE LIBATIONS, AND FOR THE FIRSTFRUITS, AND FOR THE TITHES, THAT THEY MIGHT BRING IN THROUGH THEM THE PRINCES OF THE CITY IN THE BEAUTY OF THANKSGIVING (in a beautiful thanksgiving, for their merits), THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES (namely, that through the men appointed over the storerooms they might bring the priests and Levites to the storerooms themselves, that from them they might receive the tithes, libations, and firstfruits due to them by law, so that from these they might give portions to the priests and Levites, as the Hebrew, the Septuagint, the Sixtine, Vatablus, and others have it; and this "in the beauty of thanksgiving," so that through these fitting offerings they might give thanks to the priests and Levites, because in this dedication and procession they had excellently fulfilled their duty by singing harmoniously and offering sacrifice devoutly; for this is what the text adds:) FOR JUDAH REJOICED IN THE PRIESTS AND LEVITES WHO WERE PRESENT — because they had performed their office in the dedication of the walls so splendidly, as I said.
Verse 46: They Sanctified the Levites
46. THEY SANCTIFIED THE LEVITES (that is, they brought to the Levites, as the Hebrew and Septuagint have, as if to say: They brought a sacred thing, namely the tithes due by law to sacred persons, namely the Levites. And from these tithes) THE LEVITES SANCTIFIED THE SONS OF AARON — that is, they brought to the priests their tithe, concerning which see Numbers XVIII, 8. "To sanctify" here therefore means the same as to offer a sacred thing, namely a tithe. For a person seems to be, as it were, sanctified by the sacred thing which is offered to them as due by law; so Cajetan, Vatablus, and others. So an unbelieving husband is said to be sanctified (by extrinsic denomination) by his believing wife, and conversely an unbelieving wife by her believing husband, I Corinthians VII, 14.
Again, to sanctify, says Sanchez, is to show by some religious and holy action that something is sacred. In this way we are said to sanctify the Sabbath, or the temple, or even God, not because they receive any holiness from us; but because, while we venerate and worship them, we provide people with evidence of their holiness. And it is no slight proof of someone's holiness if we support an entire order at public expense, especially if the reason for that service is explained when it is rendered, as here it is rendered by a generous and grateful people. So then the people sanctified the Levites; for by giving them tithes they showed that the Levites were greater than themselves, being ministers of God who were to be fed by public tithes; in turn the Levites, by giving a tenth of their tithes to the priests, showed that the priests were greater and holier than themselves. Hence the Apostle, in Hebrews VII, 4, from the fact that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, proves that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham. For tithes are given by laypeople to priests as ministers of God, so that they may serve God and offer sacrifice on their behalf.