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 11-13.

    When the walls of Jerusalem were finished the people realized that not enough people, aside from their political and religious leaders, lived in Jerusalem to sustain it as a city. So, it was decided that lots would be drawn among the Jews living in the surrounding area to select who would move to Jerusalem. While those who moved to Jerusalem were selected by lot, it appears that actually moving to Jerusalem was voluntary. The passage does not spell it out explicitly, but it appears to me that those who stayed in the outside villages provided support to those who moved to Jerusalem until they could establish themselves there. All of this shows us that the people recognized that if the Temple in Jerusalem was going to be the centerpiece of their religious life, Jerusalem needed to be economically viable as a city. That is, there need to be people present to provide for the non-religious needs of those who served in the temple. The same thing goes for the work of the Church today. There need to be people to build and repair the structures, to raise and prepare the food, to make and launder the clothes, and all of the other tasks which those who preach and teach the Word of God need done.

    While Nehemiah was in the Persian capital, The priest in charge of the Temple storerooms had converted one of those storerooms from its intended purpose. The priest made it available for Tobiah to use to store his goods there. It is possible that Tobiah was just using this storeroom as free warehouse space, but when we consider his earlier actions (anger over Nehemiah being appointed governor of Jerusalem and opposition to the rebuilding of the wall) it seems likely that these goods were illicit in some manner. In any case, when Nehemiah returned and discovered what was going on, he threw Tobiah’s goods out of the room and dismissed the priest. In addition, Nehemiah discovered that the Levites had been forced to abandon their Temple duties in order to feed themselves because those in charge had stopped providing them with the share of the offerings prescribed by the Law. Reading between the lines of what was written, it reads to me like part of the reason the Levites were not receiving their share was because the room where it was supposed to be stored was being used by Tobiah. It probably never occurred to the priest who re-purposed the room for Tobiah that doing so would have these results. My point is that sometimes our sins may seem minor, but have much larger consequences than we realized.