Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Nehemiah 13:27 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 27. 27Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question.
Read It With
- Nehemiah 13:23–13:29
Read Nehemiah 13:23–13:29 together. This verse frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question. Read Nehemiah 13:23–13:29 as one complete scene: Nehemiah confronts Jewish men in mixed households because some children do not speak 'the Jews' language,' curses, strikes, pulls hair, compels oaths, invokes Solomon, and drives away a priestly relative allied to Sanballat.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Judean-Ashdodite, Ammonite, and Moabite marriages, children's language, Nehemiah's contention and violence, Solomon analogy, accusation of trespass, and expulsion of a priestly relative form one ethically difficult reform. Its placement advances the book. The memoir gives Nehemiah's forceful evaluation while wives, children, disciplined men, and the expelled relative are not allowed to speak; no divorce or expulsion of wives and children is explicitly reported here. Within that movement, this verse frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question.
Read Nehemiah 13:23–29 together
Why these verses belong together: Judean-Ashdodite, Ammonite, and Moabite marriages, children's language, Nehemiah's contention and violence, Solomon analogy, accusation of trespass, and expulsion of a priestly relative form one ethically difficult reform.
Verse 23. 23 In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:
Verse 24. 24 And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language, but according to the language of each people.
Verse 25. 25 And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.
Verse 26. 26 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.
Verse 27. 27 Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?
Verse 28. 28 And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.
Verse 29. 29 Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.
Follow the Context
- Nehemiah confronts Jewish men in mixed households because some children do not speak 'the Jews' language,' curses, strikes, pulls hair, compels oaths, invokes Solomon, and drives away a priestly relative allied to Sanballat.
- The memoir gives Nehemiah's forceful evaluation while wives, children, disciplined men, and the expelled relative are not allowed to speak; no divorce or expulsion of wives and children is explicitly reported here.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
Nehemiah 13:27 does not reduce its distinct role—frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question—to a standalone claim or rule; read it within Nehemiah 13:23–13:29. The passage does not condemn mixed ethnicity, immigration, bilingual children, or foreign women as inherently corrupt, and Nehemiah's physical violence is not a command to imitate.
What Remains True
Within Nehemiah 13:23–13:29, Nehemiah 13:27 frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question. Ancient covenant anxieties about worship, language, lineage, and leadership must never become abuse, racial stigma, coerced separation, or control of vulnerable families.
How It Can Shape Life
- At Nehemiah 13:27, attend to how the verse frames the marriages as great covenant trespass in Nehemiah's rhetorical question. Protect spouses and children, reject assault and forced oaths, assess actual abuse of office or religious coercion, and provide independent safeguarding.
Teach It Back
Explain Nehemiah 13:27's precise role in Nehemiah 13:23–13:29. Include the first historical horizon, the surrounding verses, one person or cost that could be obscured, material uncertainty, and one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Nehemiah 13:23–13:29 — Mixed households face language anxiety and physical coercionSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Scholars dispute whether language, worship, land, economics, priestly purity, or identity politics dominate; the spouses' and children's later outcomes are unreported.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
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 13:23–13:29, 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 13:23–13:29
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 13:23–13:29
Open source ↗