B. The Residents of the Land 11:1-12:26

When the exiles returned to the Promised Land, living in Jerusalem was not an attractive prospect because the city lay in ruins. However with the rebuilding of the temple and the walls the capital became a more desirable place to live. Nehemiah as governor saw the wisdom of populating Jerusalem with pure-blooded Jews and set about to encourage the people to live within the city walls.

Most of this section of the book (11:3-12:26) is a parenthetical interjection into the chronological progression of the narrative.

 1. The residents of Jerusalem 11:1-24

Some leaders had already chosen to live in Jerusalem (v. 1). Nehemiah initiated a plan to determine which one family in ten of those not living in the city would move into it (v. 1). Additional immigrants volunteered to live there (v. 2). There was a cross section of leaders, therefore, who lived in Jerusalem while other leaders lived in the other towns of Judah (v. 3).

"The city wall was built, and now a new measure to safeguard the city was instituted, namely, to repopulate it."⁷⁷

The residents of Jerusalem included Jews from the tribes of Judah (vv. 4-6) and Benjamin (vv. 7-9). There were twice as many from Benjamin as from Judah. There were priests (vv. 10-14), Levites (vv. 15-18), and gatekeepers (v. 19). The rest lived in the outlying towns (v. 20) except for the temple servants (v. 21). The Ophel was apparently a levelled mini-valley (or perhaps a low hill) between the City of David and the temple area.⁷⁸Pethahiah appears to have been an adviser to the Persian king (Artaxerxes) in matters of Jewish affairs (v. 24).⁷⁹

Estimates of Jerusalem's population at this time vary from 4,800⁸⁰to 8,000⁸¹.

 2. The residents of the outlying towns 11:25-36

The towns south of Jerusalem, from the Hinnom Valley just south of the city as far as Beersheba, were those in the territory belonging to the tribe of Judah. Those north of Jerusalem stretching to the neighboring province of Samaria were towns of Benjamin. These were the two sections of the Persian province of Yehud (Judah). Nehemiah mentioned 17 prominent towns in Judah here (vv. 25-30), and 15 in Benjamin (vv. 31-35). The Levites lived among the other people, as when the Israelites first entered the Promised Land under Joshua, to be a good influence and to act as spiritual resource persons (v. 36).

"In a time when self-centeredness seems to dominate Western life-styles, the Word of God calls us to work and live together as a community, to be dependent upon one another, and to help one another in achieving the task God has set before us."⁸²

 3. The priests and Levites 12:1-26

The priests and Levites were the most important people who returned from exile because they reestablished worship in the land. Verses 1-7 give the names of 22 leaders among them who had returned in 537 B.C. with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (cf. 1 Chron. 24:7-19). The writer also mentioned eight Levites by name (vv. 8-9; cf. Ezra 2:40-42).

The genealogy of the high priest was especially important. Five succeeding descendants of Jeshua appear in the text (vv. 10-11).⁸³This list continues the one in 1 Chronicles 6:3-15 that ends with the Babylonian exile in 586 B.C.

The text also lists heads of 21 priestly families in the generation that followed Jeshua's (vv. 12-21).

The names of the heads of the nine Levitical families Nehemiah referred to in verse 22 appear in verses 24-26. The four high priests he mentioned in verse 22 evidently registered these names. Darius the Persian (v. 22) is probably Darius II (423-404 B.C.).⁸⁴The "Book of the Chronicles"(v. 23) is not the canonical Book of Chronicles but another record of names.⁸⁵