Barkos

Barkos (meaning painter or partly colored) was the ancestor of a family of Nethinim — temple servants — who returned from Babylonian exile with Zerubbabel and are listed in both Ezra 2:53 and Nehemiah 7:55. The Nethinim were dedicated servants attached to the temple who performed menial tasks in support of the Levitical worship, their origin traced to the Gibeonites assigned by Joshua as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation.

Barkos appears only in these two parallel lists and is otherwise unknown in the biblical text. His family's inclusion among the returning Nethinim confirms the continuity of this class of temple servants from the pre-exilic period through the restoration, contributing to the reconstitution of the full temple service in Jerusalem under Zerubbabel and Ezra.