Mattithiah

Mattithiah is a name carried by several Levites and laymen across the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Five bearers are distinguished: a Korahite Levite over the baked offerings of the sanctuary; a musician of the second order who played and sang when the ark came up to Jerusalem; a son of Jeduthun who drew the fourteenth lot among the temple-singer divisions; a son of Nebo in the post-exilic list of those who put away foreign wives; and a prince who stood at Ezra's right hand on the wooden pulpit at the public reading of the Law. The threads run through the worship life of Israel under David, the rebuilt house of Yahweh after the captivity, and the renewal of the Mosaic covenant under Ezra.

A Korahite Levite Over the Baked Offerings

The first Mattithiah is named in the Chronicler's roster of those who returned to Jerusalem and were appointed to the service of the sanctuary: "And Mattithiah, one of the Levites, who was the firstborn of Shallum the Korahite, had the office of trust over the things that were baked in pans" (1Ch 9:31). His charge stood next to the showbread duty assigned to the wider Kohathite house — "And some of their brothers, of the sons of the Kohathites, were over the showbread, to prepare it every Sabbath" (1Ch 9:32) — the same loaves prescribed in the wilderness law: "And you will set on the table showbread before me always" (Exo 25:30); "And you will take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it" (Lev 24:5); and laid out under cloth of blue when the camp moved (Num 4:7). The same office was reckoned among the sustaining costs of the rebuilt temple in Nehemiah's covenant: "for the showbread, and for the continual meal-offering, and for the continual burnt-offering" (Neh 10:33). Mattithiah's "office of trust" places him in the line of priestly cookery that runs from David's day through the Second Temple — and that the writer to the Hebrews would later recall when he summarised the first tabernacle as "the lampstand, and the table, and the showbread" (Heb 9:2).

A Musician of the Second Order at the Ascent of the Ark

A second Mattithiah belongs to the musical guild David organised for the ark's ascent to Jerusalem. When David spoke "to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brothers the singers" (1Ch 15:16), the Levites set apart Heman, Asaph, and Ethan as chiefs (1Ch 15:17), and "with them their brothers of the second degree, Zechariah, son, and Jaaziel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Unni, Eliab, and Benaiah, and Maaseiah, and Mattithiah, and Eliphelehu, and Mikneiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, the doorkeepers" (1Ch 15:18). When the assignments were specialised by instrument, Mattithiah is again named with the harp section: "and Mattithiah, and Eliphelehu, and Mikneiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, and Azaziah, with harps set to the Sheminith, to lead" (1Ch 15:21). Then, with the ark in the tent David had pitched, the same Mattithiah served in the regular daily course: "Asaph the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, with psalteries and with harps; and Asaph with cymbals, sounding aloud" (1Ch 16:5). The wider arrangement at the high place at Gibeon paired Heman and Jeduthun as the answering choirs: "and with them Heman and Jeduthun, and the rest who were chosen, who were mentioned by name, to give thanks to Yahweh, because his loving-kindness endures forever" (1Ch 16:41), the two leaders provided "with trumpets and cymbals for those who should sound aloud, and with instruments for the songs of God" (1Ch 16:42).

Son of Jeduthun and the Fourteenth Course

A third Mattithiah is one of the six sons of Jeduthun named when David and the captains of the host "set apart for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals" (1Ch 25:1). The Chronicler lists him in the Jeduthunite roster: "Of Jeduthun; the sons of Jeduthun: Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah and Shimei, Hashabiah and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun with the harp, who prophesied in giving thanks and praising Yahweh" (1Ch 25:3). The parallel division of Heman, drawn alongside, frames the company as a single body of trained singers: "All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters" (1Ch 25:5). When the courses were drawn by lot, "all these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of Yahweh" (1Ch 25:6), and Mattithiah's name came up as the head of the fourteenth shift: "for the fourteenth, Mattithiah, his sons and his brothers, twelve" (1Ch 25:21). He stands, then, in the line that David first gathered round the ark and that the Chronicler later organises into the twenty-four watches of temple song.

A Son of Nebo in the Foreign-Wives List

A fourth Mattithiah belongs to the lay registry Ezra compiled at the close of the foreign-marriage crisis. After Ezra had "prayed and made confession, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God" (Ezr 10:1), the assembly resolved through Shecaniah "to make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them" (Ezr 10:3); Ezra then "made the chiefs of the Levitical priests, and all Israel, to swear that they would do according to this word" (Ezr 10:5), and the sons of the captivity, sifted by the heads of the fathers' houses (Ezr 10:16), were enrolled clan by clan. In the lay clans, this Mattithiah is listed among the sons of Nebo: "Of the sons of Nebo: Jeiel, Mattithiah, Zabad, Zebina, Iddo, and Joel, Benaiah" (Ezr 10:43). He stands inside the same restoration covenant that Ezra himself had set his heart to teach — "For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of Yahweh, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances" (Ezr 7:10) — and that bound the returning community to the Mosaic prohibition rehearsed by the elders: "now therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons" (Ezr 9:12).

At Ezra's Right Hand on the Wooden Pulpit

A fifth Mattithiah is one of the men who flanked Ezra during the public reading of the Law at the water gate. After the seventh-month assembly had gathered, "Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding" (Neh 8:2), and "he read it before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday" (Neh 8:3). The Chronicler-of-the-restoration then names the platform party: "And Ezra the scribe stood on a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Uriah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchijah, and Hashum, and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, [and] Meshullam" (Neh 8:4). Mattithiah heads the right-hand file. When the book was opened, "all the people stood up" (Neh 8:5); Ezra "blessed Yahweh, the great God," and the people answered "Amen, Amen, with the lifting up of their hands" (Neh 8:6).

The Levitical Setting of the Name

Three of the five Mattithiahs are Levites — the Korahite of 1Ch 9:31, the singer of 1Ch 15-16, and the son of Jeduthun in 1Ch 25 — and the name therefore sits inside the wider charge laid on the tribe of Levi. From Sinai onward the Levites had been "appointed over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furniture" (Num 1:50), brought near to "set them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him" (Num 3:6), and "taken instead of all the firstborn among the sons of Israel" (Num 8:18) to enter service from twenty-five years old and upward (Num 8:24); "they will keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent" (Num 18:3). David's later muster reduced the entry age — "by the last words of David the sons of Levi were numbered, from twenty years old and upward" (1Ch 23:27) — and so brought a wider Levitical generation, Mattithiah among them, into the service that the Chronicler then describes. Their settlement was deliberate: "Command the sons of Israel, that they give to the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in" (Num 35:2), since the tribe held no tribal land of its own — the principle Sirach summarises by saying that "only in the land of the people might he have no heritage, and in their midst divides he no inheritance: for the Lord himself is his portion and inheritance" (Sir 45:22).

A Common Name in the Restoration Generation

The repetition of the name across two centuries of the Chronicler's narrative — a Levite under David, a Levite still serving in the rebuilt city, a layman of Nebo, and a prince of the assembly under Ezra — shows how widespread "Mattithiah" had become in the restoration community. The same name turns up among the singers David first organised, among the householders Ezra interrogated, and among the men who stood in public view when the Law was read aloud after the captivity. Each bearer is anchored to a single scene; the name itself runs through the Chronicler's history of worship from the ark's ascent to the renewal of the covenant in Nehemiah's day.