Nehemiah 3:5, 12
Shallum's daughters and the Tekoite nobles
Shallum, ruler of half the district of Jerusalem, repairs "he and his daughters"; the nobles of Tekoa refuse to "put their necks" to the work. All the library's texts agree.
Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains this verse · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Memoir c. 430 BC; book compiled c. 400–300 BC (debated)
Original Ezra–Nehemiah
No original survives. No Qumran fragment of Nehemiah has been identified.
Translated c. 2nd century BC or later
Greek 2 Esdras 11–23 (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
(3:12) Sallum, fils d'Alloès, chef de la moitié de la banlieue de Jérusalem, lui et ses filles. (3:5) les nobles n'offrirent pas de ployer leur cou
Greek 2 Esdras via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate (2 Esdras = Nehemiah)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
(3:12) ipse et filiæ ejus. (3:5) optimates autem eorum non supposuerunt colla sua in opere Domini sui
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
(3:12) הוּא וּבְנוֹתָיו · (3:5) וְאַדִּירֵיהֶם לֹא־הֵבִיאוּ צַוָּרָם בַּעֲבֹדַת אֲדֹנֵיהֶם
he and his daughters · and their nobles did not bring their neck to the service of their lords/Lord
"Their lords" may mean the overseers or God.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
(3:12) he and his daughters. (3:5) but their nobles put not their necks to the work of their Lord
What changed, and why
"Daughters" can mean dependent villages, as in "Heshbon and all her daughters" (Numbers 21:25), and some take it so here. But "he and his daughters" reads naturally as women of his family, and the texts agree. The Tekoite nobles' refusal is recorded without a reason.
What the evidence shows
- All the library's texts read "he and his daughters."
- Women worked on the wall. The natural reading; a minority take "daughters" as villages.
Sources
Related lessons
- Builders, Daughters, Artisans and Gates →Nehemiah 3 lists who built each section of the wall, gate by gate, around the city: the high priest and priests, men of towns from Jericho to Beth-zur, district rulers, goldsmiths, perfumers, merchants, Levites, temple servants, and Shallum "he and his daughters." The nobles of Tekoa refuse. The list is a precious record of the community, and the hardest text to map.