Immer

Immer is a priestly name carried by several persons (and one place) across the Chronicler, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Jeremiah. The name anchors a priestly clan numbered among the returnees from exile, a course-head in David's twenty-four-fold organization of the priesthood, a Babylonian place of origin whose descendants could not document Israelite descent, the father of a wall-repairing Zadok in Nehemiah's day, and the father of the temple-officer Pashhur who struck and stocked Jeremiah.

The Priestly Clan of Immer

The sons of Immer appear among the priestly houses of the post-exilic community. Both Ezra's and Nehemiah's census-lists of the returnees give the clan the same head-count: "The sons of Immer, a thousand fifty and two" (Ezr 2:37; Ne 7:40). Within the priestly genealogies that frame Jerusalem's resettlement, Immer stands at the end of the Maasai line — "Maasai the son of Adiel, the son of Jahzerah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Meshillemith, the son of Immer" (1Ch 9:12) — and again, in Nehemiah's parallel roll of priestly chiefs of fathers' [houses], at the end of the Amashsai line: "Amashsai the son of Azarel, the son of Ahzai, the son of Meshillemoth, the son of Immer" (Ne 11:13). Among those of the Immer clan who put away foreign wives in Ezra's reform are "Hanani and Zebadiah" (Ezr 10:20).

The Sixteenth Course

In David's organization of the priesthood by lot into twenty-four divisions, Immer is named as the head of one of the courses: "the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer" (1Ch 24:14). The Immer of the courses stands behind the Immer of the post-exilic clan-lists — the priestly identity carried into the second-temple community is the inheritance of the sixteenth lot.

Immer as a Place of Origin

Among the returnees from Babylon a separate group is listed not by clan but by the towns from which they came up — and Immer appears there as a place-name as well as a personal name. "These were those who went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, [and] Immer; but they could not show their fathers' houses, and their seed, whether they were of Israel" (Ezr 2:59). Nehemiah preserves the same list with the spelling "Addon" for one of the towns: "from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer; but they could not show their fathers' houses, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel" (Ne 7:61). The Immer here is a Babylonian locality whose returning families could not produce the genealogical documentation Israelite descent required.

Father of Zadok the Wall-Repairer

In Nehemiah's catalogue of the wall-repair, a Zadok son of Immer takes the section directly facing his own house: "After them repaired Zadok the son of Immer across from his own house. And after him repaired Shemaiah the son of Shecaniah, the keeper of the east gate" (Ne 3:29). The Immer named here is identified only by this paternity — a father whose son's labor on the wall opposite the family residence is what the text records.

Father of Pashhur the Temple Officer

A different Immer, of priestly status in the late-monarchy temple, is the father of the Pashhur who confronts Jeremiah. "Now Pashhur, the son of Immer the priest, who was leading officer in the house of Yahweh, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in the house of Yahweh" (Jer 20:1-2). The Immer of Jeremiah is named only as the father of the leading officer who silenced the prophet by violence and confinement at the upper gate of Benjamin within the temple precincts.