Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

13:15-16 The people of Judah break the Sabbath by trading. Tyrians. Foreigners would not be bound by the Sabbath law, of course, but they find a ready market among the Jews.

13:18 Did not your fathers act in this way . . . ? Sabbath breach was a telling aspect of previous generations' lax attitude toward the Torah (see Jer. 17:19-27; Amos 8:4-6). Here the exile is attributed to it.

13:19-22 Nehemiah still has enough personal authority and resources to enforce his reforms (though it is not clear whether he is still governor at this point).

13:22 the Levites . . . purify themselves. Implicitly, through negligence, the gatekeeper Levites had been failing in their duties and needed to be ritually purified again for their task.