Nehemiah 3 Study Notes

3:1-32 With the conclusion of chap. 2, the first-person narrative of Nehemiah ends and does not resume until 4:1. Chapter 3, possibly written by someone other than Nehemiah, is a third-person account of the completion of the construction and installation of the doors. Yet 6:1 and 7:1 explicitly state that the doors in the gates had not yet been hung. This chapter may have been an official archive that was kept in the temple and was incorporated into the book of Nehemiah at a later date and out of sequence, because of its detailed description of the reconstruction.

3:1 Only here in this chapter is the dedication of the gate or the walls mentioned, a significant event because the high priest Eliashib led it. This marked the beginning of the endeavor and emphasized the priests’ dependence on God for the successful completion of the project.

3:4-5 In vv. 1-3 the workers are described as “building” the wall and gates (Hb banah) while in most of the chapter the builders made repairs (Hb chazaq; lit “to strengthen”). This may suggest that the wall in the northern section near the Sheep Gate was so devastated that they had to start from scratch.

3:6 The mention of the Old (Hb hayeshanah) Gate is problematic. The Hebrew text reads “the Jeshanah Gate,” an unlikely name since the gate leading to Jeshanah (2Ch 13:19) should be on the north wall. This translation, like most others, reads the word not as a proper name but as an adjective meaning “old,” thus the “Old Gate.” Another option is to understand it as the Mishnah Gate or the “Second Gate” that led to the second district of the city mentioned in 2Kg 22:14.

3:8 The word restored (Hb ‘azav) normally means “to abandon.” Most translations assume this verse and 4:2 use a rare homonymic verb meaning “to restore.” It is not clear why the author would depart from his normal term for “restore” (Hb chazaq) and use a verb found only twice in the Hebrew Bible. Thus, some scholars and translations read this phrase as “they abandoned Jerusalem,” that is, they did not attempt to follow the eighth-century walls but left out the western hill section of the city (see note at 2:13-15).

3:12 The work crew of Shallum son of Hallohesh was unique. Possibly he had no sons, but his family still joined in the work through the labor of his daughters.

3:15 This verse details reconstruction of the southeast corner of the city. The Pool of Shelah is probably the same as the King’s Pool (2:14).

3:16 The text continues to describe construction from south to north along the eastern side of the city. The fact that the descriptions are not of gates and prominent places along the wall but locations within the city may be indirect evidence that Nehemiah abandoned the eighth-century wall lower down the valley and established a new wall closer to the summit (2:14).

3:19 The Angle (Hb miqtso‘a) may refer to a prominent place where the wall changed direction. However, the term appears again (vv. 24-25) in what would seem to be another location. Possibly the “Angle” was a natural feature such as a hillside or escarpment.

3:26-27 The term Ophel means “swelling” and is used here to describe a hill. It can refer to the entire southeastern hill of the ancient City of David or, as in this verse, to the area where the palace and the temple were situated. The Water Gate presumably provided access to the spring of Gihon. It was by the “Water Gate” that Nehemiah later gathered the people for a public reading of the Torah (8:1).

3:28 The prophet Jeremiah’s reference to the Horse Gate (Jr 31:40) might suggest it was a gate on the eastern wall of the city, but the “Horse Gate” mentioned in 2Ch 23:15 was the gate at the entrance to the palace/temple complex within the city.

3:29 The East Gate was not in the outer city wall but led into the temple complex (Ezk 40:6). Shemaiah repaired the section of the wall near where he served.

3:31 The Inspection Gate (or the “Muster Gate” or the “Parade Gate”) was probably on the northeast corner of the city wall. It may be identical to the Benjamin Gate where the prophet Jeremiah was arrested (Jr 37:13).

3:32 The goldsmiths and merchants “closed the loop” as they worked on repairing the walls up to where the work began at the Sheep Gate (v. 1) at the northeastern end of the city. D. J. Clines estimates the length of the wall around its perimeter to be about a mile and a half. If Nehemiah’s wall also included the western hill area of Jerusalem (v. 8), the distance was considerably greater.