The Book of Nehemiah

Themes

Prayer

One of the main themes that has jumped out at me so far in my reading of Nehemiah is prayer. Prayer is not Nehemiah’s last resort but his first step. He spends a considerable amount of time in prayer before he acts. As you continue to read through the book, pay close attention to Nehemiah’s prayer life.

The work of rebuilding the wall did not begin when Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem or when he examined the wall to see what needed to be done. The work of rebuilding the wall began eight months earlier with Nehemiah’s prayer. He didn’t pray once and call it good; he dedicated himself to prayer for four months before he had an opportunity to act. By the time he made the request of King Artaxerxes, he knew what God was calling him to do, he had a plan, and he knew what he needed from the king.

At the beginning of the book, we see Nehemiah in a time of waiting and struggle as he sought God’s will in the situation. Later in the book, we see him take immediate action while he prayed as he set up guards to protect the work. Sometimes our prayers will lead to a time of waiting, but sometimes our prayers need to be coupled with action, and sometimes that action is unpleasant.

We also see different kinds of prayer in Nehemiah’s life. He spends deliberate time in prayer, and he prays throughout the day. He prays prayers of adoration and confession. He prays Scripture in his prayers, and he prays imprecatory prayers (asking God to exact justice on his enemies). He leads the people to pray, he recounts God’s faithfulness throughout Israel’s history, he repents for his sins and the sins of the people, and he prays boldly for God’s blessings.

Chapter 9 is a great example of a prayer that is God-focused, recounts His blessing and faithfulness to the Israelites, shows repentance for their unfaithfulness, and asks God for His renewed blessings. How often do we take the time to remember all of the blessings God has given us and His faithfulness in our own lives? I challenge you to begin writing down the moments in your life when God has proven faithful. Go back as far as you can remember and thank Him for the blessings that have brought you to where you are today. Remember the times you were unfaithful to Him, yet He never left you. For me, it is a time commitment, but it will be a list I can go back to again and again when I begin to doubt or fear.

Opposition of God’s Work

Nehemiah faced many obstacles as he sought to follow God’s calling on his life, the first of which was his own fear. Nehemiah was afraid to speak to the king about his desire to return to Jerusalem. He was afraid, but he didn’t allow his fear to stop him. His faith in God’s calling was stronger than his fear.

Because Jerusalem had been abandoned and without defenses for so long, there were many who had become accustomed to exploiting those left behind and those who returned without protection. When Nehemiah arrived and began rebuilding the wall, he was a threat to their way of life.

Their opposition of Nehemiah’s work escalates throughout the book. They begin with taunts and ridicule, they try to sway Nehemiah to their point of view, they threaten physical harm and destruction, and they slander Nehemiah’s reputation. In all of their attempts, Nehemiah stands firm, he keeps his eyes on the goal, and God blesses the work and frustrates the opposition.

One of my favorite parts of the book is in chapter 12 when the singers are walking along the newly rebuilt wall of Jerusalem during the dedication. Tobiah had scoffed at their work claiming that if a fox stood on the wall, it would collapse (4:3), yet in this chapter, the people were walking along the wall showing its sturdiness and effectiveness.

I love watching God show off!

A People Set Apart

It is important that we understand why God forbad the Israelites to intermarry with other nations. God is always concerned with the heart; He is not concerned with “race” (He only created one race–the human race).

He isn’t concerned with Israel’s racial purity. We know this because, throughout Israel’s history, God grafted individuals into the nation of Israel who were not part of her lineage. Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite. These women were not only grafted in to the nation of Israel, but they are both listed in the genealogy of Christ.

No one was forbidden from joining Israel, but it came with conditions. To become part of the nation of Israel meant to become an Israelite in every sense of the word. You had to choose God over the gods of your people. You had to follow the laws of God. You had to take part in the traditions and the rituals of the Jews.

More often than not, what happened when Israelites intermarried with other nations was that the Israelites’ hearts were turned away from God. Here in Nehemiah we read that the children from those marriages didn’t even speak Hebrew. They were not being taught the ways of God or the traditions of Israel. They were not growing the nation but pulling it apart.

We meet Tobiah early on in the book. By chapter 13, we see that he has moved into the store rooms of temple. He was an Ammonite who wanted the benefits of being part of Israel without fulfilling the requirements of that privilege.

While it is abundantly clear that not every Jewish child with Jewish parents would always follow God’s commands, it was at least accessible to him. But children from non-Jewish unions would not even have the opportunity since it was not a priority to educate them in the Word.

Nehemiah 3

The list provided in Nehemiah chapter 3 of everyone who got involved (and those who didn’t) in the rebuilding of the wall caught my attention. It may be a difficult chapter to read because of all of the names, but what caught my interest was their descriptions, their jobs. I went through the chapter in my Bible and underlined them:

• high priest
• priests
• goldsmiths
• perfumers
• many rulers
• the Levites
• temple servants
• merchants

It seems that no one was too important or too lowly to get involved in God’s work… except in verse 5. Here we are told that the nobles of the Tekoites “would not stoop to serve their Lord.”

Take a look at that list above again and see who these nobles thought were beneath them. They believed themselves better than the high priest, than the rulers, than the Levites. The self-importance is astounding! Yet how often do we do the same thing?

God has called us to serve. This looks different for different people, but we don’t often recognize it. We give accolades to those who stand on the stage but neglect those who set up the tables and chairs. Pastors can achieve celebrity status while the 2nd-grade Sunday school teacher receives no mention. We romanticize missionary work and disregard custodial work. But all of it is God’s work.

May we never think ourselves above serving the way God wants us to serve!

Nehemiah 5

Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem to find that the people were being oppressed. Yes, there was some outside oppression, but much of it was coming from their own people. Because of the famine, the people had mortgaged their lands, sold themselves and their children into slavery, and struggled to provide food for their families.

We are told that Nehemiah and his men had gone to great lengths to purchase back any Jewish slaves from the surrounding nations, yet there were Jews holding other Jews hostage as their slaves.

To fully understand why Nehemiah was so upset, we need to look back at Deuteronomy 23:19-20, Leviticus 25:35-42, and all of Deuteronomy 28. These passages explain that while the Israelites were welcome to charge interest to outsiders, they were not to charge interest among themselves; how the Jewish nation was to take care of the poor among them; and what the consequences would be for obedience and disobedience of God’s law.

Beginning in Nehemiah 5:14, Nehemiah sets himself up as an example to follow. He was entitled to a food allowance because he was a governor. This money would have been an additional burden on the Jewish people, so Nehemiah didn’t take it. He also worked alongside the people to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem rather than standing over them as a task master. And out of his own abundance, he provided a daily feast for the people. He used what God had given him to bless others. He explains in verse 15 that he did this “because of the fear of God.”

Lists of Names

Lists of names and numbers in Scripture can sometimes cause our eyes to glaze over as we quickly scan the pages. But these lists do serve a purpose. In Nehemiah 7, we are given a list of those who returned to Jerusalem. While this isn’t exactly a genealogy, it serves many of the same functions. Below is a link to a blog post about reading genealogies in Scripture.

Because Nehemiah had the genealogies, he recognized when there were foreigners among the Jews. In verses 61-65, we find that some could not prove their lineage and were therefore excluded from the priesthood until a future priest could take care of the situation.

Remember that God isn’t interested in bloodline or “race” purity. He is interested in heart purity. There are many examples of Gentiles being accepted into the Israelite people, but they must be willing to follow God’s law and live in devotion to Him.

A Word about the Levites

If you look back to the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you will find that the tribe of Levi did not inherit land. Their job was to man the tabernacle in the wilderness, and later in the temple. They were tasked with the daily sacrifices for the sins of the people and didn’t have time to work the land. So they provided for themselves and their families with the offerings brought to the Lord.

This is important because when the offerings stopped coming in to the temple in Jerusalem, the Levites were forced to leave their task so they could provide for their families. In chapter 13, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to find that the offerings had ceased again. His actions might seem severe to us on the surface, but Tobiah taking up residence in the storeroom of the temple was literally taking the food off the Levites’ tables. It was another way Tobiah and his cohorts were oppressing the Jewish people.

Scripture Memory

We will be memorizing Nehemiah 1:5-11 this month. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy finding a passage to memorize that didn’t have a list of difficult names in the middle. Ultimately, I thought memorizing a prayer would be a great way to begin praying Scripture if you do not currently have that practice.

I’ve written this blog post to help you understand why it is important to commit Scripture to memory and give you some tips for how to do it. 

And you can click here to download a printable of the passage.

The Feast of Booths (Tabernacles)

All of Israel’s feasts were established by God to commemorate what He had done for the Israelites. The goal is to remember. Chapter 8 of Nehemiah leads us into chapter 9 where the history of God’s faithfulness to His people is rehearsed. While we no longer celebrate the feasts, we would do well to remember God’s faithfulness in our own lives.

We first learn about the Feast of Booths in Leviticus 23:33-43. It is called the “Feast of Booths” because the Israelites would live in leafy structures for a week. It celebrated that God had cared and provided for the people while they wandered through the wilderness living in tents after the exodus from Egypt. He provided manna for them and protected them from enemy nations.

The feast took place right before the harvest in the Fall (September to October). Zechariah 14:16-19 shows us there is a connection between the feast and the blessing of rain. In John 7:37-38, Jesus is celebrating the feast when He refers to Himself as “living water.” So while the Feast of Booths commemorates what God did for the Israelites in the wilderness, it also pointed them (and us) to Jesus, the promised Messiah.

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