Nehemiah 13:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Eliashib the priest, &c.— Some are apt to imagine, that this Eliashib was no more than a common priest, because he is said to have had the oversight of the chambers in the house of God; which was an office, they think, too mean for the high-priest. But we cannot see why the oversight of the chambers of the house of God may not import the whole government of the temple, which certainly belonged to the high-priest only; nor can we conceive how any one, who was less than absolute governor of the temple, could make so great an innovation in it. He was assistant, indeed, in the reparation of the walls of the city; but, except in this one act, where do we read of his doing any thing worthy of memory towards the reforming what was amiss either in church or state, in the times either of Ezra or Nehemiah? And yet we cannot but presume, that, had he joined with them in so good a work, some mention would have been made of it in the books written by them. Since therefore, instead of this, we find it recorded in Ezra, ch. Nehemiah 10:18 that the pontifical house was in his time grown very corrupt, and, not improbably by his connivance, began to marry into heathen families, see Nehemiah 13:28 it seems most likely, that it was Eliashib the high-priest who was the author of this great profanation of the house of God; but, as he might die before Nehemiah returned from Babylon, for this reason we hear nothing of the governor's apprehending him for it.