Nehemiah 13 - Summary

On that day, when the book of Moses was read publicly, the people discovered the prohibition against Ammonites and Moabites entering God's assembly because they had not welcomed Israel with bread and water but hired Balaam to curse them, and they immediately separated all those of foreign descent from Israel. Before this, the priest Eliashib, who was related to Tobiah, had prepared a large chamber in the temple courts for Tobiah—rooms previously used for grain offerings, frankincense, vessels, and Levitical tithes—and when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem after visiting Artaxerxes, he was grieved and threw all of Tobiah's household goods out of the chamber, ordering it cleansed and the vessels and offerings restored. Nehemiah also discovered that the Levites' portions had not been given so they had fled to their fields, and he confronted the officials, gathered the Levites, and appointed reliable treasurers to distribute to their brothers; he found merchants selling on the sabbath and nobles treading winepresses, warned them, ordered the gates shut from before sabbath until after, posted his servants to prevent loads from entering, and threatened force against merchants who camped outside the walls. He also confronted those who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab, whose children spoke foreign languages; he contended with them, cursed them, struck some, pulled out their hair, and made them swear not to intermarry, citing Solomon's sin with foreign wives; when he discovered that Eliashib's grandson had married Sanballat's daughter, he chased him away, praying for God to remember their defilement of the priesthood, and closed the book with prayers for God to remember him for good.