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

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

As I read this today I thought about the news Nehemiah receives from those who recently visited Jerusalem.  When they tell him that the walls have been torn down and the gates destroyed by fire I have always understood that, and have even heard preachers preach, this goes back to the fall of Jerusalem.  If the walls of Jerusalem had never been rebuilt since the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, this would not have been news to Nehemiah..  Which suggests that the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt earlier by the Returned Exiles, and torn down again.  It also puts the commission Nehemiah receives from the King of Persia in a different light.  Actually, it puts Nehemiah’s trepidation in making his request in a different light as well.  By asking permission to go and rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah risked the possibility that Jerusalem’s condition was actually the king’s policy and also risked suggesting that the king had failed to keep control over his kingdom.  This understanding also gives new insight into why the King of Persia sent a military bodyguard with Nehemiah.

My thoughts concerning the end of today’s passage go in a completely different direction.  Usually when I read this account of the people who rebuilt the different sections of the wall I wonder why I should care who built which portion.  However, today I noticed something I was aware of but never thought about before.  Many of the sections of Jerusalem’s walls were built by people who did not live in Jerusalem, or even very close to it.  When I paid attention to where the people were from, it reminded me of Mennonite Disaster Service crews going into an area after a disaster.  While some of the sections of the wall around Jerusalem were repaired by residents of Jerusalem, many of the work crews came from several days travel away.  The walls of Jerusalem were not rebuilt by people taking a few hours a day away from their normal activities.  Those who worked to rebuild the wall were not just people looking out for their own interests as would be the case if everyone who did so lived within the city.