Nehemiah 13:30–13:31, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Nehemiah 13:30–13:31
Appointments and a remember-me prayer leave the ending open
He claims to have cleansed them from all strangers
Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests and the Levites, every one in his business, and for the wood offering at times appointed, and for the firstfruits.
The KJV's cleansing language is Nehemiah's summary of boundary and appointment work. It does not authorize ethnic cleansing or removal by ancestry. Strangers here are people he treats as outside the covenant community, not a lesser humanity.
The book ends with a remember-me prayer, not a verdict
Remember me, O my God, for good. The last word is a petition from the memoirist. There is no answering speech from God, and no independent audit of who was helped and who was harmed.
A leader may ask God to evaluate his work. That request does not place him beyond communal, ethical, and canonical review. Restoration remains a Jewish community's unfinished repair under empire, not a racial ranking and not a license for later hatred of Jews or of their neighbors.
How this should shape us
Close a reform with exact appointments and an independent look at who benefited, who was coerced, and what is still contested. Let a remember-me prayer stand as a prayer, not as the last word on a man's methods.
Teach it back
Explain Nehemiah 13:30–13:31 in your own words. Include its movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one affected or obscured person, and one misuse the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The book provides no subsequent divine speech evaluating Nehemiah's final actions, and the original extent of the memoir conclusion is disputed.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Nehemiah 13:30–13:31, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, repeated roots, Persian titles, names, and translation controls.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Neh.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 13:30–13:31
Supports: A unit-bounded KJV comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, literary, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence in the notes is not treated as positive evidence.
NET Bible Nehemiah PDF, printed pp. 779–781, translation text and any translator notes printed for 13:30–13:31
Supports: Major alternatives around marriage dissolution, identity construction, land, economics, gender, and the textually silenced interests of wives and children.
Venter, HTS 74(4) (2018), a4854, pp. 1–12: synchronic readings pp. 1–2, composition pp. 3–5, social-history, identity, gender, and economics pp. 5–12
Supports: A bounded book-level control for competing memoir, source, editorial-layer, Ezra-Nehemiah, list, chronology, and literary-composition proposals; it is not cited as verse-specific historical proof.
Fulton pp. 5–10, Carr pp. 11–20, Klein pp. 21–27, and Wright pp. 28–36 in JHS 7 (2007), article 12; book-level composition control applied to Nehemiah 13:30–13:31
Supports: A bounded Persian-period setting control for Jerusalem's small scale, disputed wall line, gates, repopulation, temple-centered administration, Sabbath, intermarriage, and archaeological limits; it is not cited as independent proof of this unit.
Sivan, Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Jerusalem and Iran,' Vol. XIV, Fasc. 6, pp. 632–634, complete Achaemenid-period section; book-level setting control for Nehemiah 13:30–13:31
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Nehemiah 13:30–13:31, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Nehemiah
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, repeated roots, Persian titles, names, and translation controls.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Neh.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 13:30–13:31
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Nehemiah with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: A unit-bounded KJV comparison plus only the lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, literary, or older-English notes actually printed for these verses; silence in the notes is not treated as positive evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Nehemiah PDF, printed pp. 779–781, translation text and any translator notes printed for 13:30–13:31
Open source ↗peer reviewed scholarly article
The dissolving of marriages in Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 13 revisited
Pieter M. Venter
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 74(4), a4854, 2018
Supports: Major alternatives around marriage dissolution, identity construction, land, economics, gender, and the textually silenced interests of wives and children.
Exact location: Venter, HTS 74(4) (2018), a4854, pp. 1–12: synchronic readings pp. 1–2, composition pp. 3–5, social-history, identity, gender, and economics pp. 5–12
Open source ↗peer reviewed scholarly forum
Revisiting the Composition of Ezra-Nehemiah: In Conversation with Jacob Wright's Rebuilding Identity
Deirdre N. Fulton, David M. Carr, Ralph W. Klein, Gary N. Knoppers, and Jacob L. Wright
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 7, article 12, 2007
Supports: A bounded book-level control for competing memoir, source, editorial-layer, Ezra-Nehemiah, list, chronology, and literary-composition proposals; it is not cited as verse-specific historical proof.
Exact location: Fulton pp. 5–10, Carr pp. 11–20, Klein pp. 21–27, and Wright pp. 28–36 in JHS 7 (2007), article 12; book-level composition control applied to Nehemiah 13:30–13:31
Open source ↗scholarly encyclopedia article
Jerusalem and Iran
Hagith Sivan
Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XIV, Fasc. 6, pp. 632-634, 2008; updated 2012
Supports: A bounded Persian-period setting control for Jerusalem's small scale, disputed wall line, gates, repopulation, temple-centered administration, Sabbath, intermarriage, and archaeological limits; it is not cited as independent proof of this unit.
Exact location: Sivan, Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Jerusalem and Iran,' Vol. XIV, Fasc. 6, pp. 632–634, complete Achaemenid-period section; book-level setting control for Nehemiah 13:30–13:31
Open source ↗