Journal: Pneumatikos
Volume: PNEUMATIKOS 16:2 (Fall 2025)
Article: Brief Note "Response To Fried’s" "“Who Was Nehemiah ben Hacaliah?”"
Author: Paul Miles

Pneumatikos 16:2 (Fall 2025) p. 93

Brief Note
Response To Fried’s “Who Was Nehemiah ben Hacaliah?”

Paul Miles

Chafer Theological Seminary
Bella Vista, AR, USA

Lisbeth Soss Fried is a visiting scholar for the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan and author of several books and articles.1 She is also one of the most insightful commentators on Persian-era biblical literature today.2 Her perspectives are more liberal than most evangelicals would be comfortable with, but she often brings valuable insight that should not be ignored. Her views can be paradigm-shifting if true, and at the very least, thought-provoking if false. For these reasons, her contributions to Achaemenid scholarship are among my favorites in the field. A few years ago, Fried wrote an article entitled “Who Was Nehemiah ben Hacaliah?,”3 which should be categorized as thought-provoking but incorrect. In this article, she challenges the assumption that one man, Nehemiah ben Hacaliah, was the cupbearer, the wall-builder, and the governor. She proposes that these are three different people, two of whom wrote genuine I-reports and

Pneumatikos 16:2 (Fall 2025) p. 94

the third who was “perhaps the only one actually named Nehemiah.”4 This third contributor supposedly brought together the two I-reports and contributed the temple report of Nehemiah 10, as well as some additional information written in the third person. This proposal is attractive for the layers of complexity that it adds to Nehemiah, but it is based on some faulty assumptions and is in need of revision. This is a new challenge to Ezra-Nehemiah studies, which was not evident in Fried’s 2017 commentary on Ezra, but is discussed in her 2021 commentary on Nehemiah.5

The Argument

Fried’s first move is to clarify the opening of the Book of Nehemiah, which has the words, “The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah” (Neh. 1:1a NASB). She compares the phrase with the introductions to Amos and Nehemiah, all three of which use the same format of dibrê (דִּבְרֵי), typically translated “the words of,” followed by a name. Her case is that dibrê does not necessarily mean “the words of,” but rather should be translated “the legacy of” because the books ...