Today, I am reading and commenting on Nehemiah 11-13.

The chronology of the beginning of chapter thirteen is confusing.  Chapter twelve ends talking about how the people of Jerusalem put specific people in charge of the temple store rooms and in charge of distributing portions of the offerings to Levites and priests so that they could dedicate themselves to carrying out their duties to minister to the people of God.  The context suggests this happened on the same day that the people celebrated the completion of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem.  However, a more careful reading leads one to conclude that this happened in the days following that celebration.  Chapter thirteen begins by saying “On that day…”, which encourages one to read the end of chapter twelve as happening on the day the completion of the wall was celebrated.  However, verse 4, combined with verse 6, of chapter thirteen, reveal that this happened after Nehemiah had gone back to the capital of Persia and then returned once more to Jerusalem.  I am going into this because it is a perfect example of the way in which writers of the Bible often do not share our concept of the proper way to record the chronology of events.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.