Nehemiah 12:27

PREPARATION FOR THE DEDICATION CEREMONIES

"And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgiving, and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres. And the sons of the singers gathered together from the circuit round Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites; also from Beth-gilgal and from the region of Geba and Azmaveth; for the singers had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves; and they purified the people and the gates and the wall."

The purification ceremonies probably included the offering of sacrifices and the strict observance of all the prohibitions of the Mosaic law.

The time of this dedication was not long after the completion of the wall, as should have been expected. This writer was astounded that several scholars placed the dedication a decade or so after the wall was completed. Rawlinson made the dedication "thirteen years after the wall was finished."[9] Cook wrote that, "The dedication was deferred for nearly twelve years."[10] Such errors are due solely to the scholarly emphasis upon that misplaced name of the High Priest Jaddua in Nehemiah 12:22. Short got it right. "The dedication was only a few days after the completion of the wall."[11]

Although our text does not give us the exact date of the dedication, the historical note in, "Second Maccabees 1:18 gives the date of the dedication as the twenty fifth of the ninth month (Kislew), only three months after the completion of the wall."[12]