Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on Nehemiah 12:9
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Also Bakbukiah and Unni, etc.] Two other Levites; the first is mentioned in (<161117>Nehemiah 11:17), their brethren, were over against them in the watches; the Levites were divided into twenty four wards, and these were placed one against another, (<132306>1 Chronicles 23:6 26:12). Ver. 10,11. And Jeshua begat Joiakim, Joiakim also begat Eliashib, and Eliashib begot Joiada, and Joiada begat Jonathan, and Jonathan begot Jaddua.] This is an account of the high priests in succession in the second temple, the first six of them; and if Jaddua, the last mentioned, is the same with Jaddus, as Josephus f75 supposes, who went forth in his pontifical robes to meet Alexander the great returning from his conquests of Tyre and Gaza, from whom he obtained many favours, and whom he had into the temple, and showed him the prophecy of Daniel concerning himself; this paragraph must be written by another hand, and not Nehemiah, since it can hardly be thought he should live so long; and as to his times, this account of him, or the history of his own times, seems not to have gone through the priesthood of Eliashib, the third of those high priests, (see <161328> Nehemiah 13:28), and to reach no further than to the thirty second of Darius Hystaspis, (<161306>Nehemiah 13:6) this fragment therefore might be inserted by some godly man under a divine direction in later times, as we have several insertions in the books of Moses and Joshua of the like kind; and particularly in (<130319>1 Chronicles 3:19) where the genealogy of Zerubbabel is carried down beyond the times of the Maccabees, and so could not be placed there by Ezra. Ver. 12-21. And in the days of Joiakim were priests, the chief of the fathers, etc.] This was the son and successor of Jeshua, or Joshua, the first high priest of the second temple; the principal men of the priesthood in his time were as follow, and who were the sons, or however the descendants of the priests in the time of his father before mentioned: these were Meraiah, Hananiah, Meshullam, Jehohanan, Jonathan, Joseph, Adna, Helkai, Zechariah, (the prophet of that name,) Meshullam, Zichri, Piltai, Shammua, Jehonathan, Mattenai, Uzzi, Kallai, Eber, Hashabiah, Nethaneel; in all twenty, whereas there are twenty two named, as in his father’s days, there being no sons or descendants from two of them, namely, Hattush and Miamin.
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