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

I know I have mentioned my main topic about this passage today before, but it plays a key role in truly understanding the Book of Nehemiah.  Until I started this blog, I understood that the state of Jerusalem described at the beginning of this book was a result of the destruction by the Babylonians when they took the people of Judah into Exile.  However, after reading the Book of Nehemiah repeatedly I have come to realize that the Exiles had partially, or perhaps mostly, rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls and what is described here was the destruction of those rebuilt walls.  Further, as I read today’s passage I realized that destruction had been carried out by the enemies Nehemiah talks about here, or their immediate predecessors.    I have come to believe that these individuals were government officials of the Persian Empire who used the state of Jerusalem to bypass Persian taxes.  Which brings me to Nehemiah’s prayer.  Nehemiah prayed confessing his own sins and the sins of his people.  He acknowledged that the state of Jerusalem was a result of those sins.  He did not place the blame for the destruction of Jerusalem’s walls and gates on those outsiders who had actually destroyed them.  He placed the blame on the failure of the Israelites to faithfully do God’s will.  Those living in Jerusalem were guilty because they went along with the sinful, unlawful acts which were facilitated by the sorry state of Jerusalem’s defenses.  Nehemiah himself was guilty because he had failed to act, despite being in a position of authority which would allow him to act, to change things.  Having confessed his sins, Nehemiah made plans to change the state of affairs.

In a similar way, we need to acknowledge the degree to which our sins have resulted in the sorry state of affairs in the world today and act to change that state.  Not many of us are called to the sort of actions which Nehemiah undertook, but all of us are called to turn away from our sins and towards doing God’s will.

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