Nehemiah 13:25

With these people also Nehemiah contended (אריב like Neh 13:11 and Neh 13:17), cursed them, smote certain of their men, and plucked off their hair (מרט, see rem. on Ezr 9:3), and made them swear by God: Ye shall not give your daughters, etc.; comp. Neh 10:31. On the recurrence of such marriages after the separations effected by Ezra of those existing at his arrival at Jerusalem. Nehemiah did not insist on the immediate dissolution of these marriages, but caused the men to swear that they would desist from such connections, setting before them, in Neh 13:26, how grievous a sin they were committing. "Did not Solomon, king of Israel, sin on account of these?" (אלּה על, on account of strange wives). And among many nations there was no king like him (comp. Kg1 3:12., Ch2 1:12); and he was beloved of his God (alluding to Sa2 12:24), and God made him king over all Israel (Kg1 4:1); and even him did foreign women cause to sin (comp. Kg1 11:1-3). "And of you is it heard to do (that ye do) all this great evil, to transgress against our God, and to marry strange wives?" Bertheau thus rightly understands the sentence: "If the powerful King Solomon was powerless to resist the influence of foreign wives, and if he, the beloved God, found in his relation to God no defence against the sin to which they seduced him, is it not unheard of for you to commit so great an evil?" He also rightly explains הנשׁמע according to Deu 9:23; while Gesenius in his Thes. still takes it, like Rambach, as the first person imperf.: nobisne morem geramus faciendo; or: Should we obey you to do so great an evil? (de Wette); which meaning - apart from the consideration that no obedience, but only toleration of the illegal act, is here in question - greatly weakens, if it does not quite destroy, the contrast be…

Nehemiah, having finished what he undertook for the fencing and filling of the holy city, returned to the king his master, who was not willing to be long without him, as appears (Neh 13:6). But, after some time, he obtained leave to come back again to Jerusalem, to redress grievances, and purge out some corruptions which had crept in in his absence; and very active he was in reforming several abuses, which here we have an account of. I. He turned out from Israel the mixed multitude, the Moabites and Ammonites especially (Neh 13:1-3). With a particular indignation, he expelled Tobiah out of the lodgings he had got in the court of the temple (Neh 13:4-9). II. He secured the maintenance of the priests and Levites to them more firmly than it had been (Neh 13:10-14). III. He restrained the profanation of the sabbath day, and provided for the due sanctification of it (Neh 13:15-22). IV. He checked the growing mischief of marrying strange wives (Neh 13:23-31).

13:25 When Nehemiah called down curses on them, it was because the parents avoided Hebrew and did not teach their children the language of the Hebrew Bible. A curse called on God to remove his blessing on people. • I beat some of them and pulled out their hair: Apparently, some of the men did not accept Nehemiah’s rebuke at first, so he made them swear in the name of God not to intermarry with pagans.