Nehemiah 12:1-26

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. Nehemiah 12:1-7 give the names of 22 leaders among them who had returned in 537 B.C. with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (cf. 1 Chronicles 24:7-19). The writer also mentioned eight Levites by name (Nehemiah 12:8-9; cf. Ezra 2:40-42).

The genealogy of the high priest was especially important. Five succeeding descendants of Jeshua appear in the text (Nehemiah 12:10-11). [Note: On the complex problem of the identification of these high priests, see Yamauchi, "Ezra-Nehemiah," pp. 580-83.] This 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 (Nehemiah 12:12-21). The names of the heads of the nine Levitical families that Nehemiah referred to in Nehemiah 12:22 appear in Nehemiah 12:24-26. The four high priests he mentioned in Nehemiah 12:22 evidently registered these names. Darius the Persian (Nehemiah 12:22) is probably Darius II (423-404 B.C.). [Note: Whitcomb, p. 443.] The "Book of the Chronicles" (Nehemiah 12:23) is not the canonical Book of Chronicles but another record of names. [Note: Vos, p. 129.]