Nehemiah נחמיה
governor of Judah, rebuilder of Jerusalem's walls
Nechemyah son of Chachalyah was cupbearer at the court of Artaxerxes in Shushan—a high post close to the king. When his brother came from Judah and reported that Jerusalem's walls were broken and its gates burned, Nechemyah "sat down and wept, and fasted for days".
He asked the king for leave and authority, and arrived in Jerusalem in 3426. He first rode round the ruined walls at night, telling no one, to gauge the task. Then he gathered the people and assigned sections by household, each building opposite its own house. Sanballat and Toviah mocked, then threatened attack—and the builders worked with one hand and held a weapon in the other. The wall was finished in fifty-two days.
His social reform matters as much. Learning that the poor were mortgaging fields and selling children to pay the tax, he assembled the nobles and demanded the debts be cancelled—and as governor for twelve years he refused his own allowance.
With Ezra he brought the people into a covenant. He is counted among the men of the Great Assembly.
Chain of transmission
Baruch ben Neriah → Nehemiah (together with Ezra the Scribe) → Simeon the Just
A link in Maimonides is a court, not a man, and more than one name may stand in a single link.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- the Book of Nechemiah — the arrival, the walls in 52 days, and the reforms
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Sanhedrin 38a — the sages on his character
- Bava Batra 15a — the book is attached to the book of Ezra
- Seder Olam Rabbah 30 — the twentieth year of Artachshasta in the count of years
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.