Chapter 12 opens with genealogical records: who the Kohanim and Levi'im were who ascended from Babylon with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel in the first wave of return, who the heads of the ancestral houses were in the following generation, and later in the chapter, the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. As is our practice, we will proceed verse by verse with the commentary of the Malbim, examining the major issues that arise here - chief among them the question of the chronological order of the High Priests during the Second Temple era.
וְאֵלֶּה הַכֹּהֲנִים וְהַלְוִיִּם אֲשֶׁר עָלוּ עִם־זְרֻבָּבֶל בֶּן־שְׁאַלְתִּיאֵל וְיֵשׁוּעַ שְׂרָיָה יִרְמְיָה עֶזְרָא׃ - Now these are the Kohanim and the Levi'im who went up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Yeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra.
These were the Kohanim and the Levi'im who ascended when Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel went up, meaning the people present at the time of the first Aliyah. Following them, their names are enumerated: Amariah, Malluch, Hattush, Shecaniah, Rehum, Meremoth, Iddo, Ginnethoi, Abijah, Mijamin, Maadiah, Bilgah, Shemaiah, Joiarib, Jedaiah, Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, and Jedaiah.
סַלּוּ עָמוֹק חִלְקִיָּה יְדַעְיָה אֵלֶּה רָאשֵׁי הַכֹּהֲנִים וַאֲחֵיהֶם בִּימֵי יֵשׁוּעַ׃ - Sallu, Amok, Hilkiah, Jedaiah. These were the chiefs of the Kohanim and their brethren in the days of Yeshua.
"Chiefs of the Kohanim" - meaning they were the heads of the priestly shifts (mishmarot), for as is known, the priestly service was divided into twenty-four watches, and these men were the heads of the Kohanim. The Malbim asks: But only twenty-two are counted here, and if they were the heads of the watches, twenty-four should have been enumerated! He answers that evidently two of them also had sons who served as heads of watches, and they are therefore included within the names listed.
וְהַלְוִיִּם יֵשׁוּעַ בִּנּוּי קַדְמִיאֵל שֵׁרֵבְיָה יְהוּדָה מַתַּנְיָה עַל־הֻיְּדוֹת הוּא וְאֶחָיו׃ - And the Levi'im: Yeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mattaniah, who was over the thanksgiving, he and his brethren.
What is "al hayadot"? Rashi explains that it was the name of a musical instrument they played - that was the name of the instrument. Ibn Ezra explains "al hayadot" as "al ha-hoda'ot", meaning they were in charge of the thanksgiving songs, and their role was to give praise. The Malbim maintains that this was actually his proper name - "Al-Hayadot" was a name. And in the subsequent verse: "And Bakbukiah and Unni, their brethren, were opposite them in their watches."
וְיֵשׁוּעַ הוֹלִיד אֶת־יוֹיָקִים וְיוֹיָקִים הוֹלִיד אֶת־אֶלְיָשִׁיב וְאֶלְיָשִׁיב אֶת־יוֹיָדָע׃ וְיוֹיָדָע הוֹלִיד אֶת־יוֹנָתָן וְיוֹנָתָן הוֹלִיד אֶת־יַדּוּעַ׃ - And Yeshua begot Joiakim, and Joiakim begot Eliashib, and Eliashib begot Joiada; and Joiada begot Jonathan, and Jonathan begot Jaddua.
Rashi notes that all those enumerated here were High Priests (Kohanim Gedolim). And who were they? Yeshua - this is Yehoshua the Kohen Gadol, of whom it is said in Zechariah that he stood in filthy garments with Satan standing at his right hand, and the pure turban was placed upon his head. After him were Joiakim, Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan, and Jaddua. Thus we have six High Priests, one after the other, father to son.
One should note that this verse presents a significant difficulty regarding the chronological order and the era in question, and many biblical critics seized specifically upon it to challenge the words of Chazal. What is the difficulty? Chazal state that the Persian Empire lasted thirty-four years in the presence of the Temple - meaning from the rebuilding of the Temple until Alexander of Macedon (Alexander the Great), which marks the rise of the Greek Empire, thirty-four years elapsed. Furthermore, they taught that Shimon HaTzaddik went out to greet Alexander of Macedon upon Alexander's return from his war with Darius, the war between Greece and Persia in which Alexander was victorious. And Shimon HaTzaddik was the second generation after Ezra and Nechemya; the Rambam writes this explicitly in several places, stating that he lived a generation after Ezra and Nechemya.
It follows, then, that there are six Kohanim listed here from the time the Temple was built until the time of Shimon HaTzaddik, with Shimon HaTzaddik being the son of Yadua mentioned in verse 11. That means six individuals, and the seventh is Shimon HaTzaddik. The first of the six began at the time of the rebuilding of the Temple, and the seventh is already thirty-four years after the Temple was rebuilt. This would mean that within thirty-four years, six generations were born one from the other, and the sixth was the last under Persian rule. How could such a thing be possible?
From this, critics sought to claim that an error occurred in the calculations of Chazal, arguing that roughly two hundred years are missing here, and that according to their reckoning the Second Temple stood not for 420 years, but for approximately 620 years. May dust fill their mouths! For if there are errors, they lie in the assertions of these scholars, not in the holy Torah. We have no error, neither in the words of the Torah nor in any chronological order. This is especially true regarding what Chazal wrote; they were not writing three thousand years later, but rather speaking just a few decades after the events, possessing the exact lineage name after name, generation after generation. How can anyone claim that an error fell into their words?
The Malbim explains: although it is written in Sefer Yuchasin that we have a tradition that Shimon HaTzaddik was the son of Yadua, we do not know the source of their tradition, nor is there any textual necessity for it from the verses, since it is not stated here. On what is the entire difficulty based? On the assumption that the seventh figure, Shimon HaTzaddik, who went out to greet Alexander of Macedon, was the son of Yadua. But who says this was so? It is possible that he was the son of the second or third Kohen and is not mentioned here. Nevertheless, the Malbim continues, even if we accept this tradition - in his words: "Even so, I do not know what all the commotion is about," meaning that one can explain the matter without any difficulty whatsoever.
For who said that all six of those Kohanim were born within those thirty-four years? Who claimed they were born during that window? The Malbim calculates as follows: Yehoshua ben Yehotzadak was brought back from the Babylonian exile and built the Temple; he is the first in this count, and was 105 years old at the time. If he and his descendants each fathered a child at age fifteen - and fifteen was a standard age in those times, and even earlier (in Yemen they married even younger, and the Gemara mentions instances at age seven, such as Batsheva who was around seven years old, so that fifteen would have been considered an "alter bochur" [an older bachelor] back then) - it turns out that by the time Yehoshua ben Yehotzadak was ninety years old, Shimon HaTzaddik had already been born. Note carefully: this is even before the rebuilding of the Temple!
The calculation is straightforward: ninety years comprise six generations of fifteen years each. If one fathered a child at fifteen, his son reached age fifteen and fathered a child at thirty; the next fathered at forty-five; the next at sixty; the next at seventy-five; and when the sixth was born, the great-great-great-grandfather was ninety. Thus, a man of ninety could see five generations after him, a phenomenon that was very common in those days. When Alexander of Macedon arrived, Shimon HaTzaddik would already have been forty-five years old; or, if we say Yehoshua was ninety at the time the Temple was rebuilt, Shimon HaTzaddik would have been thirty years old at the onset of Alexander's reign.
Thus, we can easily understand how Shimon HaTzaddik came out to greet him, with all those before him having served as High Priests. And if you ask: did they all serve as High Priests throughout their entire lives? There is no necessity for that. It is possible that each served for only a portion of his life as High Priest: after the rebuilding of the Temple, Yehoshua the High Priest passed away and Yoyakim was appointed in his stead; when Yoyakim died - having also been an old man himself - Elyashiv was appointed. It is also possible that Elyashiv and his sons lived long lives, and Shimon HaTzaddik was chosen, even though he was several generations after them, because he was a great tzaddik with distinguished lineage from the earlier generations, which is why he was the one serving during the time of Alexander of Macedon. In any event, there is no proof whatsoever that all of them had to be born within those thirty-four years; rather, during those thirty-four years these men lived and served. Indeed, having six generations alive simultaneously or overlapping in such a timeframe is entirely possible.
וּבִימֵי יוֹיָקִים הָיוּ כֹהֲנִים רָאשֵׁי הָאָבוֹת לִשְׂרָיָה מְרָיָה לְיִרְמְיָה חֲנַנְיָה׃ - And in the days of Yoyakim, the priests were heads of the ancestral houses: of Serayah, Merayah; of Yirmeyah, Chananyah.
In the days of Yoyakim, the Kohanim were heads of ancestral houses, meaning: for the priestly watch of Serayah, the head of the father's house was Merayah; and for the watch of Yirmeyah, the head of the father's house was Chananyah. Rashi asks why Scripture did not list all of them, and answers that the verse was not exacting in enumerating all twenty-four priestly watches. And so it continues: "Of Ezra, Meshullam; of Amaryah, Yehochanan; of Melichu, Yonatan; of Shevanyah, Yosef; of Charim, Adna; of Merayot, Chelkai; of Iddo, Zecharyah; of Ginnethon, Meshullam; of Aviyah, Zichri; of Minyamin, of Moadyah, Piltai."
לְבִלְגָּה שַׁמּוּעַ לִשְׁמַעְיָה יְהוֹנָתָן׃ - Of Bilgah, Shammua; of Shemaiah, Jehonathan.
Bilgah is familiar to us from the Gemara. When the Greeks entered the Heichal, a daughter of the priestly watch of Bilgah entered along with them. She had married a Greek officer - "sardyot" meaning an important official - and assimilated among the Hellenizers, Rachmana litzlan, joining the band that came to desecrate the Heichal. And she, the daughter of a head of a priestly watch, in her sheer insolence, entered there, took off her sandal, struck the Mizbe'ach with contempt, and said: "Lukos, Lukos, how long will you consume the wealth of Israel yet fail to stand by them in their time of distress!" "Lukos" here is not the name of a fish, but rather the name of a fox, for a fox is called *lukos*. Meaning: you are like a predator that devours the animals and provides nothing in return - you only consume the sacrifices and provide nothing in return, for here we are, the Greeks in the Heichal, and you failed to prevent the conquest of the Beis HaMikdash.
In any case, what was the punishment meted out to that priestly watch? Its alcove was closed and blocked off, and its ring was fixed immobile. Each watch had an alcove where they kept their slaughtering knives, but the watch of Bilgah had no alcove of its own and was forced to ask permission from another watch to store their knives with them. Furthermore, its ring was fixed immobile: there were rings set into the floor into which the animal's head was inserted and secured, enabling slaughter without the animal moving, without concern of derusah (pressing), chaladah (concealing), hagramah (slanting), and the other invalidations of shechitah. Their ring was permanently fastened down, forcing them to use the ring of another watch. And all this because such a woman came from their midst, one who disgraced holy things.
And why indeed was the entire watch punished? What was their fault? The Gemara explains: The talk of a child in the marketplace is either from his father or from his mother. What a child speaks out in the street comes from what he heard at home from his father or mother. In their days, whatever a child absorbed at home was all he had, and he did not pick up influences from other places. Today, however, unfortunately, a child also absorbs influences from television, the internet, and friends; parents connect him directly to the central sewer lines, and then "out came this calf." Nowadays, a child spends more time with friends at school than with his parents. Therefore, what parents must do at home is not only be careful that the child does not hear improper things from them, but also take care to purge from him all the nonsense he has heard outside: improper speech, inappropriate conduct, and negative attitudes absorbed from peers. Thus, today the matter is far more complex, and one cannot assume with certainty that whatever a child says outside was necessarily heard at home - sometimes he speaks things outside that he simply heard outside.
וּלְיוֹיָרִיב מַתְּנַי לִידַעְיָה עֻזִּי׃ - And of Joiarib, Mattenai; of Jedaiah, Uzzi.
With Hashem's help, we will continue with the rest of the chapter: the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem and the great joy that was heard from afar.