“Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon and Akkub were gatekeepers who guarded the storerooms at the gates.
They served in the days of Joiakim son of Joshua, the son of Jozadak, and in the days of Nehemiah the governor and of Ezra the priest, the teacher of the Law.”
Nehemiah 12:25-26
Last time we saw the Levite leaders giving praise to Yah, one group responding to the other in worship. Today we continue on with our verses which point to dates – this time with who were gatekeepers, the governor, and priest.
The names listed in these verses have all been seen in the last chapter of Nehemiah, but we’ll highlight one: Talmon, a gatekeeper. His name is from chargol – a kind of locust, oppressive; and charag – to quake, to come trembling.
An interesting name for someone appointed to gate keep in God’s house. So many things come to mind when I see this definition of oppressive, like a swarm of locusts devouring all, leaving a landscape decimated. Things like civilians, human souls precious in the sight of their Creator, fallen on the streets, victims of an oppressive war with no purpose. Children everywhere needing some kind of assurance they aren’t alone, only to find the adults in their life too overwhelmed to help. Trauma and cycles of generational sin and so many deaths. My own sin and pride and quaking fear.
But the good news is it can keep us dependent. As a friend just said to me today, “I want to go see Jesus still clinging to Him. I don’t ever want to forget what He’s done for me.” Yes, Lord. When we quake at the vastness of evil, the oppressiveness of the enemy of all our souls, may we be found trembling before You.
So Talmon and his associates were charged with guarding at the gates. Guarded or keeping the watch is from the root words shamar and mishmar. Shamar means to keep, watch, preserve; attend, being careful, bodyguard, give heed, keeper, perform, preserve, protect, regard, secured, take care, take heed, waits, watch, look narrowly, observe; and we saw mishmar last time which means “confinement, jail, guard, observance.”
They were to carefully bodyguard, protect, watch narrowly this confined area. And what was the specified area?
Storerooms, asoph, meaning “a supply of provisions, a collection of offerings; from asaph – to gather, remove, assemble.”
Their job was to bodyguard the provisions for Temple. The offerings of animals, grains, flour, crops the people were giving back to the Provider of all.
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,
that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open
the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing
that there will not be room enough to store it.”
Malachi 3:10
Don’t worry, we’ll get to hear more from Malachi as we get closer to Nehemiah chapter 13. But here he has something to say about these storerooms the men like Talmon were to carefully bodyguard. They were to be full, representative of all God had done in their lives. A giving back to the Giver, a trust in the promise to never be able to out-give Him.
And for the first time in a minute, we see the names of our two main leaders listed: Nehemiah the governor (whose name means “Yah Comforts”) and Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law (whose name means “Help.”)
Isn’t it nice to get back to the leaders we’ve known since the start? Our Comforting Governor and Helping Priest. Such great names, yes?
We have seen priest (kohen) on here recently, so let’s pay attention to Teacher of the Law. It is saphar, meaning “to recount, relate, assigned, declare, measure, number, proclaim, relate, taken account,” and is the denominative verb of sepher – a missive, document, writing, book.
I looked up what denominative verb is, and it means “from the name/derived from the noun or adjective.” So to blanket the landscape with snow, the verb of blanketing comes from the noun blanket. And here, the verb for scribe (saphar) came from the word for document (sepher). Scribing, recounting, proclaiming, taking account because of a writing.
Scribes were scholars who taught the Scriptures. We last saw Ezra in this role in Nehemiah 8 as he stood on a platform declaring the Law to a people who didn’t know they had broken it.
Any time we are put face to face with the living Word of God, we have the opportunity to become verbs of it. Doers of the Word, not merely hearers. Those so caught up in the just and loving God about Whom the Scriptures point, their entire lives become about Him and His movement and His worth.
A help indeed.