Nehemiah 3:1

DETAILS OF HOW THEY ALL WORKED ON THE WALL

The skill and ability of Nehemiah appear dramatically in this chapter. Even the High Priest, of all people, was enlisted in the work. Nobody was exempt; the entire population of Judah, some twenty five or thirty thousand men, all went to work at one time on the city wall. No wonder it was finished in record time.

Eliashib the High Priest, like many of the nobles and a large number of priests, would oppose some of Nehemiah's reforms; but this building of the city wall was a project that received the unanimous support of the whole population, a fact that clearly surfaces in this chapter.

THOSE WHO BUILT THE WALL AT THE SHEEP GATE

"Then Eliashib the High Priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded the sheep gate; they sanctified it, and set up the doors of it; even unto the tower of Hammeah they sanctified it, even unto the tower of Hananel. And next unto him builded the men of Jericho. And next to them builded Zaccur the son of Imri."

It was quite appropriate that the High Priest and his associate workers should have been assigned to build that section of the wall that included the sheep gate, because that was located at the northeastern corner of the city adjacent to the Temple area. We do not subscribe to the critical dictum that this chapter, in any manner, is some kind of an addition to Nehemiah's account. Nehemiah was the one who planned and engineered every portion of this remarkable building project. Only Nehemiah had the ability to have done such a thing.

"There were approximately forty sections of the wall, in variable lengths and proportions; and, as they are listed here, they appear in a succession to the left, that is, counterclockwise, beginning here at the sheep gate and finally ending at this same sheep gate."[1]