Bilgah

Bilgah (meaning: ancient countenance or cheerful) is a name shared by two men in the Old Testament. The first was a priest who headed the fifteenth of the twenty-four courses of priests organized by David for rotating service at the temple. Each course served for one week at a time in a prescribed rotation, and the Bilgah course would have been responsible for temple service twice a year in the regular cycle established before the temple was built.

The second Bilgah was a priest who returned from the Babylonian captivity with Zerubbabel in the first great wave of the return recorded in Nehemiah 12:5. His name also appears slightly later in the same chapter as Bilgai in the list of those who sealed the covenant under Nehemiah. The priestly course tradition established by David thus persisted through the exile and into the restoration period, with the family of Bilgah representing a strand of continuity in Levitical service from the Davidic organization through the return and rebuilding of the postexilic community.