Nehemiah 13:4

TOBIAH; THE AMMONITE ENEMY; THROWN OUT OF THE TEMPLE CHAMBERS

"Now before this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, being allied with Tobiah, had prepared for him a great chamber, where aforetime they had laid the meal-offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the grain, the new wine, and the oil, which were given by commandment to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the heave-offerings for the priests. But in all this time I was not at Jerusalem; for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king of Babylon I went unto the king: and after certain days asked I leave of the king, and I came to Jerusalem, and understood the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber. Then I commanded, and they cleansed the chambers: and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, with the meal-offerings and the frankincense."

We find it hard to understand the claims of some that they do not know whether or not Eliashib was high priest, or whether or not Nehemiah returned as governor. Eliashib is listed as a high-priest in Nehemiah 12:10; and, besides that, only the High Priest had sufficient authority to have done for Tobiah what was done here. And, as for Nehemiah, of course, he returned as governor; how else could he have "commanded" as stated in Nehemiah 13:9? The High Priest would not have obeyed him or permitted the disruption of that fancy nest he had made for Tobiah in the temple chambers, unless Nehemiah, indeed, was governor, backed up by the full authority of the king of Persia.

There is much diversity of scholarly opinion on how long Nehemiah had been gone from Jerusalem prior to his return to find wholesale rebellion against God's laws. Keil believed that, "Nehemiah's absence must have lasted longer than a year, because so many illegal acts by the people could not have occurred in so short a time."[3] Nevertheless, "Nehemiah probably went to the court in Babylon in 433 B.C., and returned to Jerusalem in 432 B.C."[4] Regarding such a sudden and complete apostasy by Israel, the scholars may scream, "Incredible,"[5] as did Oesterley; but a careful reading of this chapter supports the reality of it. If Nehemiah left early in 433 B.C. and returned in late 432 B.C., he might have been gone as long as eighteen months or a little longer. "Artaxerxes died in 423 B.C.";[6] and the very longest that Nehemiah could have been absent was about eight or nine years. Israel did not need years to rebel against God; for they, in their hearts, were in a continual state of rebellion from the times of Hosea and afterward. It is this writer's opinion that Nehemiah was not halfway on his way back to Babylon, when Elisashib and his evil followers were dismantling all of the reforms Nehemiah had made.

"It is possible that Malachi was prophesying during this period,"[7] and from him, we understand that the whole priesthood of Israel was wicked (Malachi 2:2).