Nehemiah 13:1

Further Reforms by Nehemiah

13:1 On that day the book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing ¹  of the people. They found ²  written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite may ever enter the assembly of God,

Nehemiah 13:5

13:5 He made for himself a large storeroom where previously they had been keeping ³  the grain offering, the incense, and the vessels, along with the tithes of the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil as commanded for the Levites, the singers, the gate keepers, and the offering for the priests.

Lamentations 1:10

י (Yod)

1:10 An enemy grabbed ⁴ 

all her valuables. ⁵ 

Indeed she watched in horror ⁶  as Gentiles ⁷ 

invaded her holy temple ⁸  –

those whom you ⁹  had commanded:

“They must not enter ¹⁰  your assembly place.” ¹¹ 

Matthew 21:12-13

Cleansing the Temple

21:12 Then ¹²  Jesus entered the temple area ¹³  and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple courts, ¹⁴  and turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. 21:13 And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ ¹⁵  but you are turning it into a den ¹⁶  of robbers!” ¹⁷ 

Acts 21:28-29

21:28 shouting, “Men of Israel, ¹⁸  help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, our law, ¹⁹  and this sanctuary! ²⁰  Furthermore ²¹  he has brought Greeks into the inner courts of the temple ²²  and made this holy place ritually unclean!” ²³  21:29 (For they had seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him previously, and ²⁴  they assumed Paul had brought him into the inner temple courts.) ²⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “ears.”

² tn Heb “it was found.” The Hebrew verb is passive.

³ tn Heb “giving.”

⁴ tn Heb “stretched out his hand.” The war imagery is of seizure of property; the anthropomorphic element pictures rape. This is an idiom that describes greedy actions (BDB 831 s.v. פָרַשׂ), meaning “to seize” (HALOT 976 s.v. 2).

⁵ tc The Kethib is written מַחֲמוֹדֵּיהֶם (makhamodehem, “her desired things”); the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss read מַחֲמַדֵּיהֶם (makhamaddehem, “her desirable things”). The Qere reading should be adopted.

⁶ tn Heb “she watched” or “she saw.” The verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) has a broad range of meanings, including “to see” a spectacle causing grief (Gen 21:16; 44:34; Num 11:15; 2 Kgs 22:20; 2 Chr 34:28; Esth 8:6) or abhorrence (Isa 66:24). The words “in horror” are added to “she watched” to bring out this nuance.

⁷ sn The syntax of the sentence is interrupted by the insertion of the following sentence, “they invaded…,” then continued with “whom…” The disruption of the syntax is a structural device intended to help convey the shock of the situation.

⁸ tn Heb “her sanctuary.” The term מִקְדָּשָׁהּ (miqdashah, “her sanctuary”) refers to the temple. Anthropomorphically, translating as “her sacred place” would also allow for the rape imagery.

⁹ sn Lam 1-2 has two speaking voices: a third person voice reporting the horrific reality of Jerusalem’s suffering and Jerusalem’s voice. See W. F. Lanahan, “The Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations” JBL 93 (1974): 41-49. The reporting voice has been addressing the listener, referring to the Lord in the third person. Here he switches to a second person address to God, also changing the wording of the following command to second person. The revulsion of the Reporter is so great that he is moved to address God directly.

¹⁰ tn Heb “enter.” The Hebrew term בּוֹא (bo’) is also a sexual metaphor.

¹¹ tn The noun קָהָל (qahal, “assembly”) does not refer here to the collective group of people assembled to worship the Lord, but to the place of their assembly: the temple. This is an example of a synecdoche of the people contained (= assembly) for the container (= temple). The intent is to make the violation feel more personal than someone walking into a building.

¹² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

¹³ tn Grk “the temple.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “the temple.”

¹⁵ sn A quotation from Isa 56:7.

¹⁶ tn Or “a hideout” (see L&N 1.57).

¹⁷ sn A quotation from Jer 7:11. The meaning of Jesus’ statement about making the temple courts a den of robbers probably operates here at two levels. Not only were the religious leaders robbing the people financially, but because of this they had also robbed them spiritually by stealing from them the opportunity to come to know God genuinely. It is possible that these merchants had recently been moved to this location for convenience.

¹⁸ tn Or “Israelite men,” although this is less natural English. The Greek term here is ἀνήρ (anhr), which only exceptionally is used in a generic sense of both males and females. In this context, it is conceivable that this is a generic usage since “the whole crowd” is mentioned in v. 27, although it can also be argued that these remarks were addressed primarily to the men present, even if women were there.

¹⁹ sn The law refers to the law of Moses.

²⁰ tn Grk “this place.”

²¹ tn BDAG 400 s.v. ἔτι 2.b has “ἔ. δὲ καί furthermore…al. ἔ. τε καί…Lk 14:26; Ac 21:28.” This is a continuation of the same sentence in Greek, but due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences, a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

²² tn Grk “into the temple.” The specific reference is to the Court of the Sons of Israel (see the note following the term “unclean” at the end of this verse). To avoid giving the modern reader the impression that they entered the temple building itself, the phrase “the inner courts of the temple” has been used in the translation.

²³ tn Or “and has defiled this holy place.”

²⁴ tn Grk “whom.”

²⁵ tn On the phrase “inner temple courts” see the note on the word “temple” in v. 28.