Nehemiah 12:34

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Judah, and Benjamin, and Shemaiah, and Jeremiah,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וּֽשְׁמַֽעְיָ֖ה

Shᵉmaʻyâh

H8098

“and · Shemaiah”

Conjunction + Noun, Proper

Appears 41× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Kings 12:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8085 and H3050

TWOT: None

Shemaiah = "heard by Jehovah" - a prophet of the Lord in the reign of king Rehoboam of Judah - the Nehelamite, a false prophet in the time of the prophet Jeremiah - father of Delaiah, one of the princes of Judah in the time of the prophet Jeremiah - an inhabitant of Kirjathjearim and father of Urijah, a prophet of the Lord in the time of the prophet Jeremiah - a Judaite, son of Shechaniah, father of Hattush, and descendant of Zerubbabel - a Simeonite, father of Shimri - a Reubenite, son of Joel and father of Gog - a Merarite Levite, son of Hasshub in the time of Nehemiah - a Levite, son of Galal and father of Obadiah - a Levite and head of the family of the sons of Elizaphan who were commissioned to bring the ark to Jerusalem in the time of David - a Levite and scribe, son of Nethaneel in the time of David - a Levite, 1st son of Obed-Edom in the time of David - a Levite, descendant of Jeduthun the singer in the time of king Hezekiah of Judah - a Levite, one of the messengers of Ezra to Iddo - a Levite in the time of king Jehoshaphat of Judah - a Levite, one of several in charge of distributing the free will offerings brought to God to their Levite brethren in the time of king Hezekiah of Judah - a Levite in the time of king Josiah of Judah - head of a family of exiles who returned with Ezra - a priest, of the sons of Harim who had a foreign wife in the time of Ezra - an Israelite of the sons of Harim who had a foreign wife in the time of Ezra - son of Delaiah, grandson of Mehetabeel, and a false prophet hired by Tobiah and Sanballat to give false guidance to Nehemiah - a priest who sealed the covenant with Nehemiah and participated in the dedication of the wall - a priest who returned from exile with Zerubbabel - a leader of the people at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah - grandfather of the priest Zechariah who participated in the dedication of the wall in the time of Nehemiah - another of the priests who along with 25 took part in the dedication of the wall in the time of Nehemiah

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

4: words
4: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וּֽשְׁמַֽעְיָ֖ה Shemaiah H8098 occurs in 39 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 nouns

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Nehemiah 12:34 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

יְהוּדָה֙ וּבִנְיָמִ֔ן וּֽשְׁמַֽעְיָ֖ה וְיִרְמְיָֽה

Judah, and Benjamin, and Shemaiah, and Jeremiah,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Structure differs

The Septuagint has no separate book of Nehemiah. Its Greek text is the second half of Esdras B (2 Esdras), chapters 11–23; Ezra is the first half (1–10).

A verse-for-verse comparison isn’t shown here because the chapters and verses don’t line up. Switch to the LXX edition with the MT / LXX toggle above to read the Greek directly.

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from a public-domain English Septuagint. How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Nehemiah 12:34 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Neh 12:34 Judah, and Benjamin, and Shemaiah, and Jeremiah,

Ver. 34. Judah, and Benjamin] i.e. Men so called.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34) Judah and Benjamin.—A singular collocation: the laity of Judah and Benjamin, with priests before and after.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

34. Judah, and Benjamin] The occurrence of the two names together favours the view that the two tribes contributed to each wing of the procession one half of their numbers. Cf. Ezr_1:5; Ezr_4:1; Ezr_10:9. Others, however, prefer to think that they are names of certain princes.

Shemaiah] Cf. Neh_12:6.

Jeremiah] Cf. Neh_10:3, Neh_12:1; Neh_12:13.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And at the fountain gate, which was over against them,.... Of which see Neh 2:14 and which was to the south of the dung gate:

they went up; that is, one of the two companies, that which took to the right on the wall, Neh 12:31 with which these words are to be connected:

by the stairs of the city of David; which went up to the city of Zion, built on an eminence:

at the going up of the wall, above the house of David; where the wall was higher, and there was an ascent to it:

even unto the water gate eastward; of which see Neh 3:26 turning from the south to the east, and so drew nigh the temple.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

“Judah and Benjamin” are the lay people of those two tribes.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

Judah and Benjamin They were two princes.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Nehemiah, in the Historical, opens this verse with 4 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Shᵉmaʻyâh (“Shemaiah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Shᵉmaʻyâh carries the sense “Shemaiah.” How does it shape the verse?
How does 1 Kings 12:22, which shares the word «Shemaiah», read alongside this verse?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?