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

I am not quite sure where I am going with what I am going to write today.  So, I am just going to write about a few things which struck me and see if they flow together into a theme.  I will start by noting that Ezra was a contemporary of Nehemiah.  While Ezra arrived in Jerusalem before Nehemiah, it seems clear to me that the two of them being in Jerusalem at the same time was critical to both of their successes.

The description in this passage of what happened when Ezra read the Book of the Law of Moses to the assembled people contains many things which can be useful lessons for us.  However, today I want to take note of something which I never particularly noticed before.  When the passage tells us who was there for the reading, it says that the assembly was made up of “men, women, and others who could understand.”  This struck me because the “others who could understand” appears to refer to children who were old enough to understand God’s Law.  However, as I began to write that down, I realized that the first part of this was just as important.  The people who had come together as one to hear the words of God’s Law were men and women on equal footing.  There was no expectation that men only needed, or were able, to learn what God commanded.  No, hearing, learning, and understanding what God wants us to do is for men, women, and children who are old enough to understand, with no difference in their responsibility to listen and act.  This passage runs counter to the claim that the Bible is misogynistic and that it presents women as less able to understand God’s Laws.  In fact, this passage presents men and women as being equally able to understand God’s Law.

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