What do “informal taxation” and “forced labor” look like in the biblical context and why does that matter for our understanding of these books?
Besides Ezra-Nehemiah, labor is present in some other biblical books. It helps to start with its meaning of labor in the account of human creation. In Genesis, God created man and woman to name animals and care for the garden, which is possible to interpret as work, an assigned task. Then, the curse came after disrupting of the relationship between God and the couple because it would be hard to cultivate the land to obtain food. So, work was not bad but became difficult and a necessary challenge for survival.
Proverbs, the book of popular sayings, views work positively. To live well, one must be diligent and work to feed the family. Laziness is perceived as negative, and it leads to unproductivity and hunger. To illustrate this point, Proverbs uses animal metaphors, like the hardworking ant. Each biblical book may have slightly different perspectives, so it’s important to consider the context. Forced labor mostly appears in war settings, where victors impose labor on the defeated. This imposition introduces power dynamics; some work, others don’t, so it’s important to understand the type of work involved.
Regarding taxation, the Bible mentions taxation and tithes from the earliest books, starting in Genesis. Taxation is assumed to be part of life without explicit complaints. It’s interesting to see this normalized. We often separate religious tithes from tributes to kings or sovereigns, but how they understood taxation is complex. Several specific technical terms in the Bible related to land and labor taxation. Other ancient sources, like those from Babylonia, provide more detailed information about taxation, but the Bible offers fewer explanations or reports. We know people paid what was required, often in wartime, but the reasons and details remain unclear.
Your work focuses on labor and taxation in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. What makes these texts particularly significant for understanding informal taxation and forced labor? How do Ezra and Nehemiah portray temple work?
When we think of the temple today, we often imagine it as a purely religious institution, a place for worship, like a church. However, in the ancient world, the temple was much more than that. In Ezra–Nehemiah, the temple is a central hub for sacrifices, offerings of food and grain, and ritual performance. But behind those rituals lies a massive support system. The text concentrates on the priests and Levites who perform the visible duties, but we must ask: who is producing the animals, the grain, the oil? Who is upholding the daily function of the temple?
This is where the idea of informal taxation comes into play. These texts may not always describe formal tax systems, but they do reflect a reality in which the temple economy was sustained by the surrounding communities, likely through expected contributions of goods, labor, and services. While not always clearly mandated in the text, it was a reality. This is why we call it "informal": the obligations were socially enforced, tied to temple restoration, religious duty, or imperial expectations, but not necessarily codified in explicit taxation terms.
This labour could also be coerced or strongly encouraged, especially given the Persian imperial context. The returning exiles operated under Persian administrative structures, and the empire had its logic of corvée labour, tribute, and provincial governance. So, temple work sits in between voluntary religious service and imperial obligation. For example, Ezra 6 mentions royal decrees ensuring resources for sacrifices, which shows the state's involvement in temple affairs.
What’s striking in Ezra–Nehemiah is how labour is assigned and implied rather than described in detail. The texts focus on key moments, like rebuilding the altar or the walls, but they leave out a lot of the labour infrastructure. Archaeology helps fill in those gaps. Jerusalem wasn’t densely populated then, so the workforce and materials must have come from surrounding areas. Administrative centres likely played key roles. There, we find evidence of agricultural processing, oil and wine production, as well as possibly storage and redistribution, all of which point to a network of labour and provisioning behind the temple.
Other biblical books give more detail about the process of the artisans’ and musicians’ activities, the priestly garments, and the instruments. But in Ezra–Nehemiah, we mostly see the results when they are at work. Yet even here, small clues tell us there were tailors, instrument makers, cooks, and builders. These people are largely invisible in the narrative but essential to the operation. Understanding their role helps us see the temple not just as a sacred space, but as a complex socioeconomic institution.
So, the temple in Ezra–Nehemiah represents a convergence of sacred duty, political power, and economic necessity, where informal taxation, forced labour, and community obligation are deeply entangled.
What do these narratives reveal about the social hierarchies or economic pressures of the time?
This is a complex question because we must remember that the Ezra–Nehemiah texts were written by and for a particular group, to the educated segment of society. Literacy was limited in the Persian period, so these narratives don’t reflect the voices or daily realities of ordinary people. Instead, they represent the perspective of a small group, most likely priests or scribes. This means that the social and economic hierarchies are partly visible but also filtered by this group’s concerns.
Still, there are traces. Even among the temple’s personnel, there is a clear hierarchy: Ezra–Nehemiah often lists “priests, Levites, gatekeepers, singers, each with distinct roles. Gatekeepers, for example, likely held administrative or security functions, while singers had liturgical duties. These roles show that temple labour was specialized, mirroring broader societal structures. The texts also reflect economic pressures, especially those linked to imperial oversight. Many of the activities, such as rebuilding walls, organizing worship, and restoring temple functions, are described as happening “according to the law of Moses,” “the instructions of King David,” or “the decree of the Persian king”. These references suggest a constant negotiation between local religious tradition and imperial regulation. People’s lives were shaped not only by theological ideals but also by what the empire allowed or required.
Even trade and infrastructure, donkeys for transport and pottery for storage, both point to a broader economic system. These goods imply a flow of materials and labour into Jerusalem, likely drawn from surrounding rural communities. But again, the texts are silent on the mechanics of this system. Who provided the donkeys? Who made the pottery? These workers are invisible, but their work supports the whole project.
Also, while imperial demands included taxes that had to be paid, these taxes were somehow organized through temple offerings. We don’t know precisely how. The purpose of the research is to understand how these offerings were integrated and how their income could cover the requirements of the Persians.
So, in short, Ezra–Nehemiah shows a society rebuilding itself within tight political and religious constraints. It reveals a structured hierarchy among temple workers, heavy dependence on imperial authorization, and ordinary people’s invisible but necessary labour.
In what ways might the entanglement of sacred duty and economic obligation in ancient temple labour prompt us to rethinking the categories we use today – such as “volunteerism”, “public service” or ”labour”?
This question forces us to confront our assumptions about separating life’s domains. Nowadays, we often divide human activity into categories: religious life, professional work, civic service, and personal time. But in the world of Ezra–Nehemiah, it seems such distinctions didn’t really exist in the same way. People’s identities and obligations were deeply entangled—religiously, economically, and socially. The temple wasn’t just a religious institution. It was also an administrative hub, a storehouse, an employer, and a redistribution centre for food and resources.
So, when we ask whether temple workers were “volunteers” or “employees” or whether their service was “sacred” or “secular,” we may be applying categories that don’t fit the ancient context. For instance, those preparing offerings, guarding gates, or singing during rituals weren’t volunteering in the modern sense. Nor were they paid wage labourers as in a capitalist economy. Their roles were defined by social status, communal obligation, imperial policy, and religious tradition, all at once.
Moreover, ancient religion wasn’t a compartmentalized sphere of life. There was no such thing as “purely religious work.” Religion was interwoven into the fabric of daily existence, from feasting and food distribution to marriage, land ownership, and taxation. This integrated worldview suggests that we may need to question the rigidity of our categories, not only when studying the past but also when understanding labour, service, and obligation today.
In short, the labour structures behind temple work in Ezra–Nehemiah reveal a world in which the sacred and the economic were inseparable. Reflecting on this can encourage us to reconsider how we think about public service, duty, and labour in our own time.