Nehemiah had challenged the people to repair the collapsed walls of the city of Jerusalem so that they might no longer suffer shame (Nehemiah 2:17). A number of people, comprising more than forty teams, respond positively to his challenge. Nehemiah lists them by name and so draws his readers’ attention to them as persons who saw the need to overcome the shame associated with their ruined walls, a shame rooted in the sins that prompted the exile. Those initial readers would have known these persons. So we have here a sort of hall of fame
of Israelites who responded (by deeds) in repentance for sin and embraced the faith of the fathers. Though their faithful response is the gracious and mighty working of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, the chapter lays a finger on the individual’s choice to respond obediently to the challenge.
By extension, those Jews of the city and the surrounding towns not listed (and not known to us but obviously known to Nehemiah’s readers) are implicated as not having responded to Nehemiah’s challenge (see Nehemiah 7:1–73 for a sense of population numbers). It should be noted that Nehemiah offers no explicit judgment on them as if they were less pious. Perhaps that respects the fact that all God’s people have different gifts and different possibilities (Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12:4–11). That said, Nehemiah does pass a judgment on some who chose not to assist in the project (Nehemiah 3:5).
1 Eliaschib, le souverain sacrificateur, se leva avec ses frères, les sacrificateurs, et ils bâtirent la porte des brebis. Ils la consacrèrent et en posèrent les battants; ils la consacrèrent, depuis la tour de Méa jusqu'à la tour de Hananeel.