Who was Meremoth the son of Uriah, son of Hakkoz?

The people of Nehemiah’s day could put a clear face on this individual and invariably would have equated him with the temple treasurer mentioned in Ezra 8:33–34. In that passage Ezra related that he passed on the silver and the gold and the vessels he had taken back from Babylon into the hands of Meremoth the priest, the son of Uriah. We may take for granted, then, that this man had a good standing in the community. Though the present verse does not mention that he is a priest, the fact that he labours on a section of the wall next to the Fish Gate means that his assignment is still within the proximity of the temple. This man is evidently also an energetic builder because he is mentioned again in Nehemiah 3:21 as having repaired a second section of the wall, this time working on the section adjacent to the high priest’s house. It should further be noted that Hakkoz was listed in Ezra 2:61 as an unregistered priest who returned from exile under the leadership of Sheshbazzar. If this Hakkoz was Meremoth’s grandfather, then the family somehow found the evidence they needed to be registered as priests.