Commentari biblici

The fish-gate did the sons of Senaah build (see rem. on Ezra 2:35); they laid its beams, and set up its doors, bolts, and bars. The fish-gate probably received its name from the fish-market in its neighbourhood, to which the Syrians brought sea-fish (Nehemiah 3:13, Nehemiah 3:16); it is also mentioned in Nehemiah 12:39; 2 Chronicles 33:14, and Zephaniah 1:10. It was not situated, as Thenius has represented it in his plan of Jerusalem, close to the corner tower of Hananeel, but somewhat to the west of it in the north wall; two lengths of wall being, according to Nehemiah 3:2, built between this tower and the gate in question. With respect to קרוּהוּ , see rem. on Nehemiah 2:8. Besides the doors for the gate, מנעוּיו and בּריחיו are mentioned, as also Nehemiah 3:6, Nehemiah 3:13-15. Both words denote bars for closing doors. בּרחים are, to judge from the use of this word in the description of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:26. and elsewhere), longer bars, therefore cross-bars, used on the inner side of the door; and מנעוּלים the brackets into which they were inserted.

return to '

The fountain-gate and a portion of wall adjoining it was repaired by Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the ruler of the district of Mizpah. כּל־חזה occurs again, Nehemiah 11:5, apparently as the name of another individual. To יבננּוּ is added יטללנּוּ , he covered it, from טלל , to shade, to cover, answering to the קרוּהוּ of Nehemiah 3:3 and Nehemiah 3:6, probably to cover with a layer of beams. The position of the fountain-gate is apparent from the description of the adjoining length of wall which Shallum also repaired. This was “the wall of the pool of Shelach (Siloah) by the king's garden, and unto the stairs that go down from the city of David.” The word שׁלח recalls שׁלּוח ; the pool of Shelach can be none other than the pool which received its water through the שׁלח , i.e., mission ( aquae ). By the researches of Robinson ( Pal. ii. p. 148f.) and Tobler ( Die Siloahquelle u. der Oelberg, p. 6f.), it has been shown that the pool of Siloah receives its water from a subterranean conduit 1750 feet long, cut through the rock from the Fountain of the Virgin, Ain Sitti Miriam, on the eastern slope of Ophel. Near to the pool of Siloah, on the eastern declivity of Zion, just where the Tyropoean valley opens into the vale of Kidron, is found an old and larger pool ( Birket el Hamra), now covered with grass and trees, and choked with earth, called by Tobler the lower pool of Siloah, to distinguish it from the one still existing, which, because it lies north-west of the former, he calls the upper pool of Siloah. One of these pools of Siloah, probably the lower and larger, is certainly the king's pool mentioned Nehemiah 2:14, in the neighbourhood of which lay, towards the east and south-east, the king's garden. The wall of the pool of Shelach need not have reached quite up to the pool, but may have gone along the edge of the south-eastern slope of Zion, at some distance therefrom. In considering the next particular following, ”unto the stairs that go down from the city of David,” we must turn our thoughts towards a locality somewhat to the north of this pool, the description now proceeding from the south-eastern corner of the wall northward. These stairs are not yet pointed out with certainty, unless perhaps some remains of them are preserved in the “length of rocky escarpment,” which Robinson ( Pal. ii. p. 102, and Biblical Researches, p. 247) remarked on the narrow ridge of the eastern slope of the hill of Zion, north of Siloam, at a distance of 960 feet from the present wall of the city, ”apparently the foundations of a wall or of some similar piece of building.”

(Note: Bertheau's view, that these stairs were situated where Mount Zion, upon which stood the city of David, descends abruptly towards the east, and therefore on the precipice running from south to north, which still rises ninety-one feet above the ground northwards of the now so-called Bab el Mogharibeh or dung-gate, opposite the southern part of the west wall of the temple area, is decidedly incorrect. For this place is two thousand feet, i.e., more than one thousand cubits, distant from the pool of Siloah, while our text places them immediately after the length of wall by this pool. The transposition of these “steps” to a position within the present wall of the city is, in Bertheau's case, connected with the erroneous notion that the fountain-gate (Nehemiah 3:15 and Nehemiah 2:14) stood on the site of the present dung-gate ( Bab el Mogharibeh), for which no other reason appears than the assumption that the southern wall of the city of David, before the captivity, went over Zion, in the same direction as the southern wall of modern Jerusalem, only perhaps in a rather more southerly direction, - an assumption shown to be erroneous, even by the circumstance that in this case the sepulchres of David, Solomon, and the kings of Judah would have stood outside the city wall, on the southern part of Zion; while, according to the Scripture narrative, David, Solomon, and the kings of Judah were buried in the city of David (1 Kings 2:10; 1 Kings 11:42; 1 Kings 14:31; 1 Kings 15:8, and elsewhere). But apart from this consideration, this hypothesis is shattered by the statements of this fifteenth verse, which Bertheau cannot explain so inconsistently with the other statements concerning the building of the wall, as to make them say that any one coming from the west and going round by the south of the city towards the east, would first arrive at the fountain-gate, and then at the portion of wall in question; but is obliged to explain, so that the chief work, the building of the fountain-gate, is mentioned first; then the slighter work, the reparation of a length of wall as supplementary; and this makes the localities enumerated in Nehemiah 3:13 succeed each other in the following order, in a direction from the west by south and east towards the north: “Valley-gate - one thousand cubits of wall as far as the dung-gate; dung-gate - the wall of the conduit towards the king's garden, as far as the stairs which lead from the city of David - fountain-gate.” No adequate reason for this transposition of the text is afforded by the circumstance that no portion of wall is mentioned (Nehemiah 3:14 and Nehemiah 3:15) as being repaired between the dung-gate and the valley-gate. For how do we know that this portion on the southern side of Zion was broken down and needing repair? Might not the length between these two gates have been left standing when the city was burnt by the Chaldeans?)

return to '

“Their brethren” are the inhabitants of the second half, who were under the rule of Bavai the son of Henadad.

return to '

Next to these repaired Ezer the son of Jeshua, the ruler of Mizpah, another piece (on שׁנית מדּה , see rem. on Nehemiah 3:11) opposite the ascent to the armoury of the angle. הנּשׁק or הנּשׁק (in most editions) is probably an abbreviation of בּית־הנּשׁק , arsenal, armoury; and המּקצוע is, notwithstanding the article in הנּשׁק , genitive; for to combine it as an accusative with עלותּ , and read, “the going up of the armoury upon the angle,” gives no suitable meaning. The locality itself cannot indeed be more precisely stated. The armoury was probably situate on the east side of Zion, at a place where the wall of the city formed an angle; or it occupied an angle within the city itself, no other buildings adjoining it on the south. The opinion of Bertheau, that the armoury stood where the tower described by Tobler ( Dritte Wand. p. 228) stands, viz., about midway between the modern Zion gate and the dung-gate, and of which he says that “its lower strata of stones are undoubtedly of a remoter date than the rebuilding of the wall in the sixteenth century,” coincides with the assumption already refuted, that the old wall of the city of David passed, like the southern wall of modern Jerusalem, over Mount Zion.

return to '

Farther northwards repaired the priests, the men of the district of Jordan. כּכּר does not, as Bertheau infers from Nehemiah 12:28, signify the country round Jerusalem, but here, as there, the valley of the Jordan. See rem. on Nehemiah 12:28 and on Genesis 13:10. Hence this verse informs us that priests were then dwelling in the valley of the Jordan, probably in the neighbourhood of Jericho. The length of wall built by these priests is not further particularized.

return to '

Further on repaired Benjamin and Hashub over against their house, and Azariah the son of Maaseiah, by his house. Nothing further is known of these individuals.

return to '