Who is Malchijah the son of Harim?

Ezra had listed those who were guilty of taking foreign women into their homes. His list included eight sons of Harim mentioned by name; one of those sons is named Malchijah (Ezra 10:31). It is certainly possible that there were multiple men named Harim, but as our present text and the text from Ezra 10:1–44 are the only references to this name in the entire Bible, we are left to conclude that this name was not common. Then to have a son with the same name is simply more unlikely still. If all of this is correct, then one of the men whom Ezra exposed as living in sin now volunteers his time to build a section of the city wall. In so doing he is aligning himself with Nehemiah’s argument for rebuilding, namely, that we may no longer suffer derision (Nehemiah 2:17). This may not mean much to us, but to Nehemiah and his contemporaries, this man’s willingness to help with the rebuilding speaks to his having risen above the (evident) shame of his past and so to his growth in the Lord.