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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
11:1-12:43 The Population of Jerusalem and the Villages; Priests and Levites. These chapters depict the people's efforts to populate Jerusalem.
11:1-36 Those Who Lived in Jerusalem and the Villages of Judah. This chapter addresses the need to maintain a proportion of the population in Jerusalem, and records the names of leaders who lived there. Populated villages of Judah are also named.
11:1 The leaders of the community are concentrated in Jerusalem, but the picture of an underpopulated city is reinforced here (see also 7:4). The people in the provincial towns cast lots to decide who should relocate to the capital. one out of ten. It is not said how the people decided on this plan.
11:2 the men who willingly offered. Perhaps this implies that there were not enough of them to make up the required
11:3 The temple servants, along with gatekeepers and singers (vv. 19, 21-22), were classes of Levites (see Ezra 2:40-43). the descendants of Solomon's servants. See note on Ezra 2:55-58.
11:4 sons of Judah . . . sons of Benjamin. These were the two tribes of the southern kingdom (see 1 Kings 12:21-23) that had composed the exiles in Babylon, and now compose the community that has been restored.
11:11 The ruler of the house of God is the high priest.
11:16 the outside work of the house of God. This is a lesser role than that of the priests in v. 12, befitting the Levites' lower rank.
11:20-21 the rest of Israel. That is, after a tenth of the population had been resettled in Jerusalem (v. 1). His inheritance refers to one's ancestral property (see note on Ezra 2:59-63). Ophel. See note on Neh. 3:26.
11:23-24 command from the king. This must mean the Persian king (rather than King David, who had originally organized the Levitical singers; 1 Chronicles 25), since the note about Pethahiah as being at the king's side must mean that this person was responsible for Jewish affairs at the royal court. He may have taken over in this role from Ezra for reasons unknown.
11:25-36 This list of villages is prompted by the allusion to the population in the province as opposed to Jerusalem (see v. 1). A number of the place-names in Judah occur also in Josh. 15:20-63. For the villages of Benjamin, see also Ezra 2:26-33. See map.
11:30 from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnom. The people of Judah lived in the area south of Jerusalem. Beersheba was in the far south of the territory, and the Valley of Hinnom was on the southern edge of Jerusalem.
11:31-35 The villages of Benjamin lie mainly to the north and west of Jerusalem.
