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.

Earlier in the Book of Nehemiah, when the wall around Jerusalem was first completed, Nehemiah had noted that few people lived within the city and most of those who did were government officials.  At no point does it explicitly address this, but the implication was that there were not enough people in the city for it to be economically viable.  Today’s passage begins with the solution Nehemiah came up with to this problem.  He had the Returned Exiles living in villages outside of Jerusalem all draw lots for a few from each village to move to Jerusalem.  Those who remained in the villages provided support so that those who moved to Jerusalem could afford to do so.  This provides a model upon which much modern missionary work is supported.

The Book of Nehemiah ends with what appears to be a hard-line approach to Jews marrying non-Jews, or even to non-Jews joining and becoming part of the Jewish people.  When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and resumed his governorship over Judea, he expelled all of those of foreign descent from the assembly.  However, this took place after it was discovered that the priest put in charge of the Temple storerooms had made one of the larger storerooms available to Tobiah for storage.  Tobiah was one of the non-Jewish local officials who had opposed Nehemiah’s restoration of Jerusalem.  The storeroom turned over for Tobiah’s use had been intended as a storage room for offerings given for the support of priests and Levites working in the Temple.  As a result of its misappropriation many of the Levites had been forced to leave Temple service in order to support themselves.  In addition, in Nehemiah’s absence many of the leaders of the Jewish people had resumed doing business on the Sabbath, despite having signed the “confession of faith” where they stated they would not do so.  So, overall, this hard-line stance came in response to the fact that rather than demanding that those who wished to join with them in worshiping God abandon all of their pagan practices, the Jewish people had begun adopting some of those practices.  I want to note that it is likely that Tobiah wanted a room in the Temple to store his goods because by doing so he could bypass taxes on those goods.  

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 9-10.

A few weeks after completing the Festival of Shelters the Returned Exiles gathered once more in an assembly.  This time they gathered to grieve over and confess the sins of themselves and their ancestors.  As part of this exercise they stood and listened to a reading of the entire Book of the Law which took three hours.  Then when the reading was completed they spent three more hours standing there confessing their sins and worshiping God.  The passage does not describe what that was like, but I have an image of what happened based on the prayer of confession which the Levitical leasers prayed.  I imagine that the leaders read out excerpts from Exodus through Chronicles of the sins which the people of Israel had committed, interspersed with songs and opportunities for the people to think over their own lives and how they had failed to obey God’s Laws just as their ancestors had failed.  As part of their confession they acknowledged that God had repeatedly given their ancestors opportunities, which they and their ancestors had squandered in their wickedness.

At the conclusion of this six hour service the leaders of the people presented a document which they had prepared to the people.  This document was a confession of faith which the leaders had all signed and which they called on the people to affirm.  This confession of faith highlighted areas where they believed that failure would lead to all of the other sins which they and their ancestors had committed.  Further they believed that following the practices laid out in the document would make them and their descendants more likely to obey all of God’s commands.  So, they did not just grieve over what they had done wrong.  They made a plan to do better and committed themselves to follow that plan.  To my mind the confession of faith had three key elements.  First, they agreed not to intermarry with those who did not subscribe to this confession of faith.  Second, while they would not prevent outsiders from doing business on the Sabbath, they would not do so themselves, not even with those outsiders.  Third, they committed themselves to an annual tax for the maintenance of the Temple and its priests.   

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 7-8.

When the wall around Jerusalem was rebuilt, Nehemiah delegated governing the city to his brother and another trusted subordinate.  Reading the instructions he gave them suggests that he wanted Jerusalem to be like a gated community.  No one to be allowed into the city without giving a valid reason for doing so.  Further, he set up what sounds an awful lot like a neighborhood watch for the entire city: “Appoint the residents of Jerusalem to act as guards, everyone on a regular watch. Some will serve at sentry posts and some in front of their own homes.”  This leads me further down my interpretation about the Returned Exiles having once before this rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.  The walls and gates had been destroyed because a criminal element had been coming in and out of Jerusalem, using its lack of secure governance as a way to launder stolen goods and bypass taxes.  Related to that, I think that was why Nehemiah registered who actually lived in the city.  I think when the walls were completed and everyone had to pass through a check point where they were identified that he was surprised to realize how few people actually lived in the city.  This made him realize that many of those who had seemed to fill the city were doing things for which they would prefer no one knew they were in the city. 

Once the project to restore security to Jerusalem was completed and the workers from outside of Jerusalem had had a chance to put their lives back in order, the Returned Exiles gathered once more in Jerusalem for a festival.  As part of the gathering, Ezra the priest read the Law of Moses to the people and explained what God commanded them to do in it.  The people responded in much the same way that King Josiah had before the Exile.  They mourned the failure of themselves and their ancestors to obey God’s Laws.  They did so to such an extent that their leaders needed to remind them that they had gathered, according to that same Law, to worship God and celebrate the great and wonderful things He had done for them.   The people responded to this command from their leaders because they realized what a wonderful thing it was to be able to hear and understand what God’s word for them was.  

We should encourage new believers to follow the example set here.  They should rejoice that they have learned God’s will for their lives and celebrate that He has offered them an opportunity to be transformed by His love.  Even the part where the following day the people discovered the Festival of Shelters offers a model.  It is good for new believers to spend some extended time away from their ordinary cares in fellowship with those who worship and obey God when they first come to know the Lord.

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 4-6.

When Nehemiah started construction work on the walls of Jerusalem, Sanballat and Tobiah were angered by the work and tried to discourage the workers.  Both Sanballat and Tobiah were officials of the Persian government and had seen Nehemiah’s letters from the King of Persia.  Neither Sanballat nor Tobiah had any official authority over Jerusalem.  However, both had unofficial interests there and their official positions had given them significant clout with those who had had authority in Jerusalem before Nehemiah’s arrival.  The passage does not spell it out, but I believe that at least part of their opposition to Nehemiah was related to his economic reforms.  An account of one of those economic reforms is sandwiched in between passages describing how Snaballat and Tobiah tried to intervene in Nehemiah’s governance of Jerusalem.

When Nehemiah became aware of how the wealthy were using their economic power to further impoverish the poor, he took action.  I am going to read between the lines a little bit here.  It appears that to one degree or another, the wealthy described here had built their wealth, at least in part, on the basis of being descended from those who had been taken into Exile from Jerusalem or the surrounding area.  However, they used that wealth to gain more wealth from other Returned Exiles who failed, for one reason or another, to capitalize on that heritage.  The wealthy were using their wealth to take advantage of the misfortunes of those who were not wealthy.  Rather than helping their coreligionists when they experienced misfortune, they were taking advantage of their misfortune.  The passage does not spell out the point I am about to make, but I think it fits what the passage does say.  The wealthy had gained their wealth because of favorable business arrangements which they were able to gain because they were members of the Returned Exiles.  However, rather than offer similar favorable arrangements with the less well off members of the Returned Exiles, they took advantage of their misfortunes to pad their own wealth.  Once they had gained their wealth they began to see themselves as having more in common with the corrupt officials of the surrounding peoples than with their fellow Jews. 

The corrupt officials among the surrounding peoples realized that they were going to be unable to stop Nehemiah from refortifying Jerusalem.  Further, he was convincing the Jews to close ranks and support each other rather than take part in the corrupt practices from which these officials profited.  So, they tried to set up a clandestine meeting with Nehemiah.  Again the passage does not say this, but the wording suggests to me that they implied an opportunity for Nehemiah to collaborate with them for both to profit.  Nehemiah, however, believed that they intended to ambush him if he went to the meeting.  When that failed, they attempted to blackmail Nehemiah with false accusations.  Again, the passage does not clearly say this, but the blackmail appears to have been, “Either cut a deal with us, or we will tell the King that you are plotting rebellion.”  That failed because Nehemiah was acting within the mandate he had received directly from the King of Persia and Nehemiah knew that it would take more than mere rumors and unsupported allegations to undermine his position.  They next attempted to take advantage of Nehemiah’s paranoia to make him an ineffective governor.  They hoped to get him to hide from assassins, which would have served the dual purposes of making him less aware of corruption among those under his authority and discredited him with his supporters for taking protective measures which were not available to them.

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.