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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Nehemiah 9-10.

In yesterday’s passage it told us that the people began to weep as they listened to the Law of the Lord and had it explained to them.  The leaders told them not to mourn because they were gathered for a celebration to praise God, that they would gather later for repentance.  Today’s passage records their gathering for that day of mourning and repentance.  The people acknowledged the many good things which God had done for their ancestors and themselves and confessed that their ancestors and themselves had not been faithful to their side of the covenant which God had made with them.  Yet, despite implicitly acknowledging that they ancestors had repeatedly turned to God when times were bad, only to turn away again after God had rescued them, they renewed the covenant which God had made with their ancestors.  They acknowledged that God had been faithful, while they had acted wickedly.  They did not enter into the new vow in order to be rescued from the situation in which they found themselves.  Rather, they entered into a vow to be faithful to God in recognition that their current situation, as bad as it was, was an example of God being more faithful to them than they deserved.  They chose to follow the example of Joash, the last good king of Judah, who strove to be faithful to God, even though God had told him that nothing would stop the destruction which God was bringing to Judah.  In the same way, the people in today’s passage did not vow to be faithful to God in order to gain God’s favor, rather they vowed to be faithful to God because they recognized that they should be faithful to God.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Nehemiah 7-8.

The first thing I want to comment on about this passage is the genealogical record from which the writer quotes.  It struck me that this resembles the list from Ezra 2 of those who returned to Jerusalem and Judah.  In fact, this almost looks like it was taken from Ezra 2.  However, when I started looking closely at it, I noticed that some of the numbers of men varied between here and Ezra 2.  Which led me to look at the phrasing which the author here used to introduce this genealogy.  He wrote “I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return. This is what I found written there.”  The passage then seems to quote from another source from which it continues into the list of numbers of men.  While what is written could have been taken from Ezra and some numbers incorrectly transcribed, I do not think that is what happened.  Rather, it seems to me likely that the second chapter of Ezra and the seventh chapter of Nehemiah were both transcribed from a third document which has since been lost.  It doesn’t seem reasonable that the writer of the Book of Nehemiah would have copied this list from the Book of Ezra, nor that the writer of the Book of Ezra would have copied it from the Book of Nehemiah.  It seems to me that if they were aware of the others work when they were composing their record they would not have copied this information.  Instead, I believe that both writers were aware of a third source which was starting to deteriorate which they copied this from in order to preserve this list.   I suspect that the difference between these two lists results from one or more copies of the original record which were in such a state that the men copying them had to make a judgement call as to what the numbers were in some of the cases.

I usually prefer to write about the things we learn from the passage about how we should live our lives, but sometimes, such as today,  I feel that there is value in looking at what we can learn about interpreting the process behind these writings.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Nehemiah 4-6.

Today’s passage describes multiple obstacles which arose to the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls.  Most of them were attempts by those who benefited from Jerusalem’s lack of walls.  They threatened and otherwise tried to discourage those who were building the walls.  Nehemiah encouraged the builders to pray and trust God, while also working with them on a plan to address the threats.  The next obstacle recorded here resulted from the greed of the powerful and wealthy which divided the people when they needed to be united.  Nehemiah once again provided an answer by being an example, recognizing the way that his own actions contributed to the problem and reversing them.  Finally, the external enemies tried to distract Nehemiah.  Nehemiah refused to allow them to distract him, and refused to give into fear when they threatened him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 1-3.

The first thing I want to point out is that the state of Jerusalem which Nehemiah’s brother described to him was not because of the Babylonians sacking Jerusalem back in Jeremiah’s time when they took the Jews into Exile.  No, the wall of Jerusalem had been broken down and the gates burned after the returned Exiles had initially rebuilt them.*  So, when Nehemiah confessed the sins of “we, the Israelites,” he was not talking about the sins which led to the Israelites being exiled in the first place, at least, not primarily.  Rather, Nehemiah was referring to the sins which he and his fellow descendants of Jacob had committed since Cyrus issued an edict allowing them to return to Jerusalem and ordering them to rebuild the temple.  Which brings me to something which occurred to me for the first time today: when Nehemiah went before Artaxerxes and requested permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and gates, rebuilding the wall was not his primary agenda.  Rather, rebuilding the wall and gates of Jerusalem was a means to calling the Jews living in Jerusalem and Judah to return to being faithful to God.  And, as I write that I realized it tells us something about the way that God works.  Both Ezra and Nehemiah were called by God to go to Jerusalem and lead the people to more faithfully follow Him.  They were each called within a few years of each other and they were called independently of each other.  Yet, they worked together to bring the Jewish people to faithfully serve God.

*I make this point because for many years I just assumed that when this passage says that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates burned that it referred to them still being unrepaired from when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, when they had been rebuilt and destroyed yet again.  Additionally, many of the commentaries on Nehemiah hold the position that the wall and the gates remained destroyed from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.  I think they are mistaken.

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

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

When Nehemiah left Jerusalem and returned to the Persian capital, the people of Judah allowed corruption to become the norm once more.  The man in charge of the temple storerooms turned over one of the largest ones to be used by Tobiah, who had previously tried to prevent Jerusalem’s walls from being repaired.  This resulted in the Levites not receiving their portion, which resulted in them leaving temple service in order to provide for themselves and their families.  In addition, some of the people of Judah had begun doing business on the Sabbath, both on their own account and with foreigners who had come to reside among them.  In addition, Nehemiah discovered that some of the men of Judah had married foreign women and were not raising their children with those women to worship God, this even included the grandson of the high priest.  We have a tendency to see each of these as separate incidents, but in fact they each represented a failure of the people to remain faithful.

If the people are buying from foreigners who bring their wares into the city on the Sabbath, why shouldn’t I sell my wares on the Sabbath?  First, if I don’t, I will lose some of my customers to the foreigners because it is more convenient for my customers to buy from them on the Sabbath than wait for a weekday to do business with me.  Second, even without the possibility of losing customers, it is more convenient for them to do business with me on the Sabbath, since otherwise they have to leave their own work to do business with me.  Then, if the people are doing business on the Sabbath, what is the big deal about the guy in charge of the temple store rooms making a little extra money by renting out space that is under utilized (which quickly makes more space “under utilized” so that he can make more money).  Of course that works both ways, if the guy in charge of the temple store rooms is renting out space in them, why shouldn’t I do business on the Sabbath.  So, the little dispensation we allow ourselves, (I mean really, its just a minor rule, it doesn’t make that much difference) soon grows into widespread disregard for honoring God.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 9-10.

In today’s passage the returned Exiles (which is not an entirely true designation as many of those who gathered were second and third generation after returning) gathered to mourn and repent of their sins.  They separated themselves from those who were not part of their community of faith.  They praised God for the many wonderful things He had done for their ancestors and confessed that their ancestors turned away from God after receiving His blessings.  One could easily focus on their confession of their ancestors sins, but I believe that this recounting actually serves to focus on God’s mercy and forgiveness.  Time and again the people had suffered because they failed to obey God, only for God to show them mercy and bless them once more when they turned to Him and cried out for deliverance.  And the final point is that, after listing the ways in which their ancestors had sinned against God, they acknowledged that the troubles they were experiencing resulted from their own sins, not from the sins of their ancestors, or the sins of anyone else.   Then they entered into an agreement together to faithfully follow God’s commands going forward.  We need to follow their example by separating ourselves from those who are not God’s people and acknowledging that the troubles we face result from our sins, not the sins of the people around us who are not God’s people.  It is worth noting that some of those who were excluded from the assembly in this passage claimed to be worshipers of God, but they did not agree with those gathered as to what it meant to follow God.  Today, there are others who claim to follow Christ, but have a different view of what that means.  We must separate ourselves from them and follow Christ as He has revealed Himself to us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 7-8.

I find following the timing of this passage a little tricky because of the inclusion of the genealogical records from when the first Exiles returned to Judah.  However, it reads to me (in yesterday’s passage) that the work on Jerusalem’s walls and gates were completed in the final month of the year.  That means that the assembly described in chapter eight occurs in the seventh month of the year following the completion of Jerusalem’s walls.  I am not sure that any of that is important, but thinking about that led me to here.   The people all assembled to hear the Law of God read to them.  The passage says that Ezra read the Law to the assembly.  The wording here seems to suggest to me that “assembly” here means more than just those assembled.  It seems to me to mean those who had a say in important decisions.  The passage tells us that the assembly included men and women, and “all who were able to understand.”  For the purposes of this assembly, which was to hear, understand, and commit to obey the Law of God, men and women were equal.  Even those who were otherwise considered children were considered equal, as long as they were old enough to understand God’s word.  Men, women, and children are all of equal value to God, and we should also value them equally.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 4-6.

There are two things I want to look at in today’s passage.  The first thing I am going to write about comes in the middle of the passage.  While the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls was going on, something being done as a community project with everyone contributing as their abilities allowed, some of the less well-to-do and the poor complained to Nehemiah about the way the wealthy were getting wealthier at their expense.  When Nehemiah looked into it, he realized that they were right.  So, he called the elites together and demanded that they stop charging interest on loans to their fellow believers and that they refund the interest they had already collected (including returning the land which had secured some of the debt which had not been paid).  However, the key part of this demand by Nehemiah was his acknowledgement that he and his family had also been guilty of getting wealthy at the expense of the poor.  Nehemiah also refunded the interest he had collected and returned the lands which he had taken in lieu of repayment.  Nehemiah led by example.

When the enemies of the Jews heard that they were rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem, they were initially dismissive and ridiculed the effort.  The passage makes it clear that the ridicule was intended to discourage the Jews from continuing.   When the Jews continued to work, and made real progress, their enemies plotted to intervene with violence.  Nehemiah worked with the leaders to plan how they would protect themselves from such an attack.  The enemies continued to plot to attack the Jews, while making sure that the Jews knew about their plan.  The key here is that God’s people did not allow their fear to stop them from continuing to work.  When that failed, the Jews’ enemies tried to convince Nehemiah to meet with them some place where they could arrange to ambush him.  They went so far as to tell Nehemiah that the purpose of the meeting was to offer Nehemiah an opportunity to address rumors that Nehemiah was planning to revolt against the king of Persia.  And when that failed, they tried to discredit Nehemiah by scaring him into hiding from assassins.  Nehemiah refused to meet with the enemies of his people and he refused to hide from the threat against him.  So, while we need to prepare for the obstacles our enemies, God’s enemies, put in our path, we should not stop doing the work God has assigned to us.  We should not spend any time worrying about what our enemies are saying about us.  We should not spend any time worrying about what the enemies of God say about His followers.  And we should not hide from threats of violence.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Nehemiah 1-3.

For many years I thought that the description of Jerusalem which Nehemiah’s brother gave him described the state in which the Exiles found it when they returned from Exile.  In actuality, Nehemiah lived a couple of generations after the first Exiles had returned to Jerusalem.  Those who had first returned had rebuilt Jerusalem, but then something had happened to lead to the walls being broken down and the gates being burned, perhaps bandit attacks, perhaps something else.  In any case, the sad state of Jerusalem’s walls and gates is a change from what Nehemiah expected to be true.  So, greatly saddened by this news, Nehemiah fasted, prayed, and sought God’s guidance on how to make this better.  In his prayer, Nehemiah acknowledged that the state of Jerusalem was because of the failure of God’s people to faithfully obey God’s commands.  In the same way, we need to recognize that the sad state of our country also results from the failure of God’s people to faithfully follow God.  We, also, need to follow Nehemiah’s example to fast and pray, seeking God’s guidance on what He wants us to do in order for God’s people to faithfully follow Him.  Some of us will be called to lead people in the rebuilding, but most of us will merely be called to do our small part, just as most of the people in Judah were called to work on just their small part of the wall around Jerusalem.

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