Hallohesh is a name found in the King James Bible, appearing 1 time in the text.
Who This Was
Hallohesh was one of the leaders of Israel who sealed the covenant during the days of Nehemiah, after the Jews had returned from Babylonian exile to rebuild Jerusalem and its walls. The setting is the great assembly described in Nehemiah 9–10, where the people gathered to confess their sins, hear the Law read aloud, and commit themselves anew to obey the Lord. In Nehemiah 9, the people fasted, wore sackcloth, and acknowledged the sins of their fathers, recounting God’s faithfulness from Abraham through the wilderness and the exile. That confession flowed directly into a written agreement in Nehemiah 10, a binding covenant that the leaders, priests, Levites, and people pledged themselves to keep.
Nehemiah 10:1–27 records the names of those who sealed this covenant, and Hallohesh appears there in verse 24, listed among the heads of the people. Sealing the document meant attaching one’s name and personal pledge to the promises it contained: to walk in God’s Law, to keep His commandments, to refuse intermarriage with the surrounding peoples, and to support the temple’s worship through tithes and offerings. Hallohesh’s inclusion in this list identifies him as a recognized leader whose public commitment carried weight among the people.
Scripture says nothing else about Hallohesh beyond this single mention. We are told no details of his family, his tribe, or his later life. What we know is simply this: when the restored community formally bound itself to the Lord, Hallohesh was one of the men whose name stood on the sealed document. His one appearance in the King James Bible is a record of a leader who put his name to a covenant of obedience.
The Name
The name Hallohesh is a Hebrew name whose meaning is not clearly recoverable from the biblical text. Suggested etymologies have been offered by scholars, but none is established with enough certainty to state confidently, and the name appears only here in Scripture, giving no parallel passages to aid interpretation. As with many of the names in Nehemiah’s covenant list, the precise sense of the name has been lost to time. What can be said honestly is that the meaning is uncertain, and it is better to leave it unstated than to invent one.
A Closing Thought
Most of us will never have our names remembered by history. Hallohesh appears once in all of Scripture—not for a miracle, a sermon, or a victory, but simply for signing his name to a promise to obey God. That is a quiet and encouraging thing. Faithfulness is often unspectacular. The Lord does not require that our deeds be famous, only that they be true. A single line in an ancient record, written by a man who chose to stand with God’s people in a day of renewal, is enough. He kept his word, and God kept the record.
At a Glance
- Gender: Male
- Testament: Old
- Mentions in the KJV: 1
Where It Appears in Scripture
- Nehemiah 10:24 — Hallohesh, Pileha, Shobek,