Commentary - Nehemiah 13:23-31

Bird's-eye view

This passage is the white-hot conclusion to Nehemiah's work of reformation. Having rebuilt the walls and re-established the covenant, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem after a time away only to find the people have slid back into flagrant covenant-breaking. The specific sin confronted here is that of intermarriage with pagan women, a sin that strikes at the very heart of covenantal identity and succession. This is not a matter of ethnic bigotry, but of spiritual purity. The issue is syncretism. Nehemiah's reaction is not that of a mild-mannered diversity consultant; it is the righteous, zealous anger of a man who understands what is at stake. He contends, curses, strikes, and pulls out hair. This is biblical church discipline in its raw, Old Covenant form. He forces the men to swear an oath to God, grounding his prohibition in the disastrous example of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, who was nonetheless brought to ruin by this very sin. The corruption had even reached the high priest's family, showing how deep the rot had gone. Nehemiah's response is decisive and thorough: he purges the foreign influence, restores the priests and Levites to their duties, and concludes with a prayer for God to remember him for his faithfulness. This is a picture of what it looks like to take God's covenant seriously.

The central theme is the necessity of maintaining a distinct, holy people for God. The covenant community is defined by its separation from the world's idolatry. When the line between the church and the world blurs, the church loses its identity and its mission. Nehemiah's actions, while startling to our modern therapeutic sensibilities, are a model of godly leadership that refuses to compromise with sin. He understands that true love for God's people sometimes requires fierce confrontation. The passage is a permanent warning against the dangers of assimilation and a call for the church to maintain its holy distinction, not through ethnic purity, but through faithfulness to the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ.

Outline

Context In Nehemiah

Nehemiah 13 is the final chapter of the book and functions as an epilogue, detailing Nehemiah's "second act" of reformation. After the glorious events of the wall-building (chapters 1-6), the reading of the Law (chapter 8), and the renewal of the covenant (chapters 9-10), Nehemiah returned to the service of King Artaxerxes in Persia (Neh 13:6). When he came back to Jerusalem, he found that the people had broken the very vows they had just solemnly sworn. In the earlier part of the chapter, he cleanses the temple of Tobiah the Ammonite (an enemy of God's people), restores the tithes for the Levites, and confronts the violation of the Sabbath. The passage in view (vv. 23-31) is the climax of this second reformation, addressing the most insidious problem of all: intermarriage with pagans. This sin was a direct violation of the Law (Deut 7:3-4) and of the specific oath the people had taken in Nehemiah 10:30. It demonstrates the persistent sinfulness of God's people and the necessity of vigilant, uncompromising leadership to maintain covenant faithfulness.

Key Issues

A Reformation That Sticks

One of the great temptations in any work of reformation is to think that once the documents are signed and the celebration is over, the work is done. Nehemiah shows us the folly of this. Reformation is not a one-time event; it is a constant, ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The ink was barely dry on their covenant renewal (Neh 10) before the people started to drift. And the drift was not in minor matters, but in foundational issues of worship, Sabbath, and marriage. What Nehemiah does here is provide a template for what faithful leadership looks like in the face of such backsliding. It is not quiet diplomacy. It is not forming a committee to study the issue. It is direct, zealous, and biblically-grounded confrontation. Nehemiah's anger is not a personal tantrum; it is the reflection of God's own jealousy for His people and His covenant. He is angry because they are committing "great evil" and "acting unfaithfully against our God" (v. 27). This is a high crime, a treason against the covenant King, and Nehemiah treats it as such. He understands that if the people of God are not a distinct people, they are no people at all.

Verse by Verse Commentary

23 In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

Nehemiah, the governor, is a man who sees. He is observant. He doesn't have his head in the sand. He sees the plain facts of their disobedience. The men of Judah had taken wives from three specific pagan nations. Ashdod was a principal city of the Philistines, and Ammon and Moab were the incestuously-conceived enemies of Israel from the days of Lot. The law was explicit that Israel was not to intermarry with the surrounding pagan nations, precisely because it would lead their hearts into idolatry (Deut 7:3-4). This was not a prohibition based on race or ethnicity, but on religion. It was about spiritual fidelity. To marry a woman from Ashdod was to set up a beachhead for the worship of Dagon in the heart of a Jewish home.

24 As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but only the tongue of his own people.

Here is the observable fruit of their compromise. The covenant was passed down through language, through the hearing of the Word of God in Hebrew, the language of Judah. But the children of these mixed marriages were culturally and linguistically confused. Half of them spoke the language of the Philistines, and they couldn't even speak the language of their own covenant people. This is a picture of cultural and spiritual erosion. The mothers were teaching the children their pagan ways, and the fathers were either complicit or impotent. When the language of Zion is lost, the faith of Zion will soon follow. A generation was rising that could not read the Torah or sing the Psalms in their own tongue. This was a covenantal crisis.

25 So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take up their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

Nehemiah's response is visceral and violent, and entirely appropriate for a civil magistrate in his position under that covenant administration. He contended with them, which means he brought a formal legal dispute against them. He cursed them, pronouncing God's covenantal sanctions upon them. He struck some of them, a form of corporal punishment. He pulled out their hair, an act of extreme public humiliation. This was not a loss of temper; it was calculated, righteous zeal. He was demonstrating in a physical way the ugliness and shame of their sin. And then, having gotten their full attention, he makes them swear a solemn oath before God to stop this practice, reaffirming the covenant they had made in chapter 10.

26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God gave him to be king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin.

Nehemiah is a wise leader, and so he grounds his actions not just in raw authority but in biblical precedent. He appeals to the tragic story of Solomon. If any man thought he was strong enough to dally with this sin and get away with it, Nehemiah points to the strongest case imaginable. Solomon was not just any king. There was no king like him. He was uniquely loved by God. He was the wisest man on earth. And yet, this very sin was his undoing. His foreign wives turned his heart away from the Lord (1 Kings 11:4). The logic is devastating. If Solomon, in all his wisdom and glory, could be brought down by this, what chance do you have? It is the height of arrogance to think you can play with the fire that consumed the wisest man who ever lived.

27 Do we then hear about you that you have done all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”

He frames the question in terms of their public testimony. "Should this be the report that goes out about you?" He defines their sin in the starkest possible terms. It is not a minor cultural misstep. It is great evil. It is acting unfaithfully against our God. The Hebrew word for "acting unfaithfully" is maal, a strong word for treachery or treason against the covenant. Marriage is a covenant, and to marry an idolater was to commit treason against the God of the covenant of marriage. He wants them to feel the full weight and shame of what they have done.

28 And even one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I made him flee away from me.

The corruption had reached the highest levels. The grandson of the high priest, Eliashib, had married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite. Sanballat was one of the chief enemies of the Jews, a man who had mocked and plotted against the rebuilding of the wall (Neh 4:1). This was not just intermarriage; this was fraternizing with the enemy. A man from the high priestly line, who should have been a guardian of Israel's purity, had made a covenantal alliance with the chief adversary of God's people. Nehemiah's response is swift and decisive. He doesn't negotiate. He doesn't transfer him to another parish. He drove him out. "I made him flee away from me." This is excommunication. He was cast out of the covenant community.

29 Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

Nehemiah turns his attention from the sinners to God. This is an imprecatory prayer. He is asking God to "remember" these corrupt priests, not for good, but for judgment. Their sin was not a private matter. They had defiled the priesthood. The priesthood was supposed to be a picture of holiness, a bridge between a holy God and a sinful people. By their compromise, they had polluted that sacred office. They had defiled the covenant of the priesthood, the special covenant God had made with the tribe of Levi. Nehemiah is asking God to vindicate His own holy name and His own institutions by bringing justice upon those who had profaned them.

30 Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign and ensured that the responsibilities stood for the priests and the Levites, each in his work,

Here is the summary of his reforming work. He conducted a thorough purge. He cleansed them from everything foreign. This was a spiritual and cultural cleansing, removing the pagan influences that had crept in. Having purged the evil, he then re-established the good. He restored the priests and Levites to their proper functions, setting the house of God back in order. Reformation is always a two-fold activity: you must tear down the idols, and you must rebuild the altar.

31 and I arranged for the supply of wood at fixed times and for the first fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

He concludes by noting his restoration of the practical, mundane elements of worship. True reformation gets down to the details, like ensuring there is a steady supply of wood for the altar sacrifices. And having done all this, he ends with a simple, beautiful prayer. Four times in this chapter he has prayed, "Remember me, O my God." He is not seeking glory from men. His appeal is to God alone. He has acted faithfully as God's servant, and he entrusts his work, his reputation, and his reward to the God he serves. He asks God to remember him for good, to look upon his zealous actions with favor. It is the prayer of a man who has done his duty and now rests in the grace of his covenant Lord.

Application

This passage is a bucket of ice water for the contemporary church, which is often more concerned with being nice than with being holy. We have so redefined love to mean unconditional affirmation that Nehemiah's actions look like hate speech. But Nehemiah loved the people of God enough to hurt their feelings, pull their hair, and drive them away from their sin. He knew that the greatest threat to the church is not persecution from without, but compromise from within.

The principle of separation from unbelief is still binding on the New Covenant church. Paul asks, "What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor 6:14-15). The prohibition for Christians is not about marrying someone of a different ethnicity, but about being "unequally yoked with an unbeliever." To marry a non-Christian is to do exactly what these men in Jerusalem did. It is to build a household on two different foundations, with two different lords, and two different ultimate allegiances. It invites conflict, compromise, and confusion into the most intimate of human relationships, and it jeopardizes the covenantal succession of the faith to the next generation.

Furthermore, Nehemiah is a model for church leaders. Elders are to be men of courage who are willing to confront sin, even when it is found in high places. Church discipline is not an optional ministry for the particularly brave; it is a necessary means of grace for preserving the peace and purity of the church. When sin is tolerated, especially in the leadership, the entire body is sickened. We need more Nehemiahs today, men who see the problems clearly, who are moved with a holy zeal for God's glory, who act decisively on the authority of God's Word, and who ultimately entrust the results to God in prayer.