Those who signed undertook to repudiate all strange marriages, to buy nothing on the Sabbath day, to observe the sabbatical year, to pay one-third of a shekel (about twenty cents) yearly for the divine service, to supply the wood for the sacrifices, to offer the first-born of men and animals and the first fruits of the earth, and to pay tithes for the maintenance of the priests and Levites. As they had to live in Jerusalem they had to be kept: but the precepts which appeal to peoples’ purses are not readily received. Malachi, the last of the prophets, complains of the negligence in the paying of the tithes. At the same time he accuses the priests of failing to do their duty and making themselves despised by the people. [Sidenote: [415 B.C.]] After a sojourn of twenty-two years in Jerusalem, Nehemiah had resumed his duties at the court of Artaxerxes. He soon heard that his constitution had difficulty in establishing itself, and he obtained fresh leave from the king. He found his work compromised: buying and selling took place on the Sabbath as on other days; the Levites not being paid, had left their posts; mixed marriages had become so frequent that the children spoke a mixture of Hebrew and strange dialects. The ruling class set the bad example, as is nearly always the case. The high priest, Eliashib, had given a lodging in the temple to Tobiah, one of his relations, and had married one of his sons to a daughter of Sanballat; these two men were adversaries of Nehemiah. He showed himself very severe; he sent away the son-in-law of Sanballat, turned Tobiah out of his apartment, closed the gates of the town during the whole Sabbath, and forbade the merchants of Tyre to approach the walls on that day. He entirely shared the ideas of Esdras on the subject of mixed marriages. Had not strange women been the fall of the wise king Solomon? Israel must be purified from this contamination. He struck those who were refractory and pulled out their hair. They had to submit, willingly or unwillingly. The payment of the tithes was assured to the Levites and priests, and regular order was established in the administration of the revenues of the temple. That was the chief point, and Nehemiah had the right to consider himself the benefactor of the Jewish theocracy: “Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof.”[4][d] FOOTNOTES [4] [It should perhaps be mentioned that some critics and historians are not inclined to accept the statements of the writers of Ezra and Nehemiah _en masse_.] [Illustration: THE DEAD SEA, LOOKING TOWARDS MOAB, WITH THE CONVENT OF MAR SABA IN FOREGROUND] CHAPTER IX. FROM NEHEMIAH TO ANTIOCHUS [Illustration: JEWISH PRIEST AND ALTAR] [Sidenote: [415-332 B.C.]]