Nehemiah 7:64

New Century Version

These people searched for their family records, but they could not find them. So they could not be priests, because they were thought to be unclean.

Cross References

1 Chronicles 9:1

The names of all the people of Israel were listed in their family histories, and those family histories were put in the book of the kings of Israel. The people of Judah were captured and forced to go to Babylon, because they were not faithful to God.

Nehemiah 13:29

Remember them, my God, because they made the priesthood unclean and the agreement of the priests and Levites unclean.

Nehemiah 7:5

Then my God caused me to gather the important people, the leaders, and the common people so I could register them by families. I found the family history of those who had returned first. This is what I found written there:

Nehemiah 7:63

And these priests could not prove that their ancestors came from Israel: the descendants of Hobaiah, Hakkoz, and Barzillai. (He had married a daughter of Barzillai from Gilead and was called by her family name.)

Nehemiah 7:65

The governor ordered them not to eat any of the holy food until a priest settled this matter by using the Urim and Thummim.

Leviticus 4:3

“ ‘If the appointed priest sins so that he brings guilt on the people, then he must offer a young bull to the Lord, one that has nothing wrong with it, as a sin offering for the sin he has done.