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

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I wrote about this last year, but I want to mention it to start my blog today.  The timeline in chapter thirteen is confusing.  However, most of it seems to be about events which happened during Nehemiah’s second stint as governor of Jerusalem and Judah.  When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem after spending some time in the court of Artaxerxes, he found a lot of things had gone wrong in his absence.  The passage seems to suggest that the root of the problem was the actions of the men who made alliances with those who were opponents of the returned exiles by marrying their daughters (and probably giving their daughters in marriage to them).  It mentions that the high priest was related to Tobiah and that his son had married a daughter of Sanballat.  Tobiah and Sanballat had conspired to prevent the Jews from rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem.  The passage also mentions that other men had married women of the region.  Further it tells us that they allowed many of their children to be raised in the pagan culture of their wives.  Overall it reminds me of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians about being unequally yoked with an unbeliever.  These marriages were business and political alliances with power players of the region.  The reason they were a problem was because the men who entered into them put their economic and political fortunes ahead of being faithful to God.  Nehemiah warns them and us that if we enter into such alliances, especially through marriage, our partners will lead us into sin.  We must be careful not to put anything above God.

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