In this chapter, Nehemiah and the other community leaders sign a contract to obey the covenant with God.
Broadly speaking, this chapter has two sections. The first section is verses 1-27, which lists the names of the signatories. The second section is verses 28-39 which lists the details of the contract that they are signing.
It’s tough to come up with any definitive identification of the signatories in this document. Although there are several names familiar to us, we have reason to believe that most of the men mentioned here cannot be identified with biblical figures elsewhere. For instance, Daniel in verse 6 may appear to be a reference to the biblical prophet Daniel. However, the book with that same name identifies Daniel as a “son of Judah”, while in this passage Daniel is a priest (descendant of Levi). Baruch (also from v. 6) is a figure from the book of Jeremiah, but it’s unlikely to be the same person because Nehemiah live roughly 70 years after Jeremiah, so Jeremiah and the Baruch of his time are likely dead by now. Verse 2 mentions a Jeremiah and that is likely a different Jeremiah for the same reason.
More generally, people in biblical times would commonly reuse names (same as we do now), so just because we see a familiar name doesn’t mean it’s the same person. Given the context, I think most of these figures are leaders of the community from this one window of time and unlikely to be significant anywhere outside of the chronicles of Ezra and Nehemiah. On the other hand, many of these names are likely the same people as elsewhere in Ezra and Nehemiah, particularly Nehemiah chapters 7, 8 and 9 which include lists of central community figures and the Levites and priests. That doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t otherwise know: the text clearly tells us that these are “the leaders of the people” (v. 14), which for our purposes is perhaps all that matters.
I think the second section is much more interesting. In a similar way that the previous chapter was a reformulation of Israel’s history, this chapter may be viewed as a reformulation of the covenant, the Laws given through Moses. We won’t see anything in this chapter that is not mentioned in the Pentateuch, but we might observe a change in emphasis on some laws over others.
Verse 30 begins with reiterating the importance of separating from foreign peoples. I think this was an important principle in Moses’s time but it is even more urgent in Nehemiah’s time due to the intermarriage crisis that we saw in Ezra 9-10. This played directly into the attack upon Nehemiah’s effort to build the wall. Nehemiah 4:3 tells us that Tobiah is an Ammonite (a hostile foreign neighbor to Israel and Judah), but Nehemiah 6:17-19 tells us that many nobles of Judah “were bound by oath” to Tobiah due to intermarriage between Tobiah’s family and influential Judeans. It’s clear that Tobiah cultivated ties with influential Judeans by intermarriage and then used his position to undermine Judah’s national interest. This is especially relevant to Nehemiah because Tobiah was one of the chief antagonists against building the wall.
Observing the Sabbath is perhaps another special interest of Nehemiah’s, though we won’t see this until chapter 13 when Nehemiah observes people of Judah failing to keep the Sabbath. I’ll talk about it more then, but it forms a second and lesser “moral crisis” after intermarriage with foreigners.
The rest of the commands mentioned in this document are related to giving. There was the obligatory 1/3rd shekel tax for maintenance of the temple, the firstfruits offering and the tithe offered by the people for the Levites (which was itself tithed for the support of the priests). Although the temple was recently rebuilt, without financial support the priests and Levites would have to go back to farming or find other jobs and the religious system basically falls apart.
I’m not sure if Nehemiah is emphasizing these laws because they are the most important or perhaps they are what the people were neglecting to obey. Although my first instinct suggests that the people are lukewarm towards their faith and that is why they are ambivalent about giving, the previous several chapters have generally shown the people are actually quite dedicated to their faith. Therefore, I think it’s more likely that they are failing to support the Levites and priests out of ignorance, or possibly because of their poverty. We certainly know that the people are under a heavy burden of taxation from the Persian kings (cf. Nehemiah 9:36-37), so I could understand why paying another 10% tax in addition to their other burdens would be a problem for the poorer people.
This chapter leaves out many other laws of the covenant (for a brief summary, see Exodus 20-23), for instance the observation of the festivals like the Passover. Normally Passover is incredibly important, and earlier in Nehemiah we saw the people observe Sukkot so it’s not like they considered the festivals unimportant. I think it’s more likely that this document is a pledge to fix problems that Nehemiah and the other leaders see in their society. That is, this chapter is not so much a reformulation of the Law as a selection of the commandments that are most relevant to their current social and religious problems. It is incomplete and selective not because they are trying to reimagine the commandments but because Nehemiah and the other leaders only view some of these laws as relevant to solving their current problems.
In conclusion, Nehemiah is basically a fundamentalist. When faced with social and religious problems, he turns to Israel’s historical law for the solution. He does not believe that Judah needs to re-invent its culture and traditions for the modern era; rather, he seeks to return to what Judah and Israel was originally supposed to be, a people dedicated to God and living by God’s commands. Although their present situation has changed, Nehemiah does not want to adapt or create a new law; he wants to turn back to the God of their fathers. As a strictly theological point, this means that Nehemiah does not view the exile as God’s repudiation of the covenant. If the covenant were broken, then there would be no point in signing a new document agreeing to obey some of the laws of Moses. Instead, I would argue that Nehemiah views himself and his people as still living in the same covenant with God, and this is about returning to obedience to the covenant, but with a particular emphasis on the parts of the Law that are relevant to their current problems.
In the next chapter, Nehemiah gives us a census of the people living in Jerusalem and the outlying towns.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Friday, February 23, 2018
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 9
In this chapter, the people observe a day of fasting and the Levites stand and recite the history of Israel from Abram to the present day.
To me I think this is a very interesting chapter. In verse 1 it tells us that this day of fasting occurred on the 24th day of the month, while the festival of Sukkot in the previous chapter ended on the 8th day. So it’s a couple weeks later, but the general mood of the people is still directed towards religious observation.
In the previous chapter, verses 7-8 of that chapter told us that the priests and Levites were translating and interpreting the text to explain it to the people. A big part of the scriptures is recounting the history of Israel, and in this chapter we get a paraphrase of what the priests said when they recounted that history.
The reason why I find this so interesting is because it tells us, in their own words, how the people of Nehemiah’s time remembered their own history and how they viewed themselves. We can look for differences between the priests’ account here and what we read in the biblical histories to see if they are emphasizing anything or leaving anything out from their retelling. It gives us an opportunity to study their self-perception; the previous books of the bible (Genesis, Judges, Samuel, etc) show us what the people of Israel thought about their own history while it was happening, and this chapter shows us what the people of Jerusalem think about their history as they reflect upon it retrospectively.
I see two major omissions in this passage. The first is it omits the story of the generation that died in the wilderness. The priests mention that Israel rebelled against God, but do not mention how God punished them by destroying a generation. Verses in 18-21 emphasize that while Israel sinned against God, God “did not forsake” them and provided for Israel during their wandering years. This is true, but it is a selective truth. They are cherry-picking God’s forgiveness of Israel (which was real) but leaving out the many times that God punished Israel (which was also real).
The second major omission is David and Solomon. Or perhaps we could generalize and say “the good kings”. Verses 27-30 accurately describe the Judges period, when Israel sinned, was oppressed, cried out to God and were delivered. Over and over and over again. However, particularly during the reigns of David and to a lesser extent Solomon, the text in Samuel strongly emphasizes David’s purity of heart and devotion, and the people were devoted to God as a byproduct.
The narrative in this chapter is constructed as if Israel were sinning over and over and never had any good moments. Again this seems like a selective truth; while the priests are not saying anything that couldn’t be supported by the historical texts, they are leaving out the parts of the history that contradict the ideas they are trying to express.
It would not have supported their point if the priests had said, “Israel sinned most of the time, but here are a couple exceptions when our fathers were faithful”. Instead, the narrative we see is “Israel sinned continuously, but God was faithful in spite of our sins.”
What is the point, then? What do I believe the priests are trying to express to the people through their collective history? The priests’ narrative presents Israel as being being rebellious against God, but God remaining merciful towards Israel. God planted them in the promised land and did not forsake them. Above all, we see God is faithful to Israel and faithful to the covenant. Pointing out the instances of Israel’s faithfulness towards God would have diminished the impact of God’s faithfulness, because God’s faithfulness is emphasized in large part through its contrast with Israel’s unfaithfulness.
We see Israel being planted in a good land and “growing fat” (v. 25). Whenever Israel becomes fat and content, “they did evil before you” (v. 28). Even though God “delivered them into the hands of their oppressors” (v. 27), he “bore with them for many years” (v. 30) and “did not make an end of them” (v. 31).
To summarize, I think there are three core points in this story. In no particular order, the first point is that Israel was weak and poor, but when God blessed them they became arrogant and rebelled against him. The second is that God is reaching out to his people over and over while the people reject him over and over. The third is a contrast between the faithful and compassionate God who remains true to Israel, while Israel is faithless and turns away from God continually.
I mention these points because I believe that all three of these points can be found in the prophetic literature (particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah and possibly some of the minor prophets). Since many of these prophets predate Nehemiah, we can infer that Nehemiah was influenced by the prophets and not the other way around. Through this we can see how the prophetic literature has influenced religious thought in Nehemiah’s generation. To reiterate, I think this theology is well-based in the earlier historical texts, so I don’t think there is anything dishonest in the priests’ speech here. Instead, I think it represents a reformulation of their history.
It’s similar to how Chronicles is a reformulation of Kings; even though both books describes the same events without any major contradictions, the two texts have significant differences in their focus, which reflect the theologies of their respective authors. This chapter in Nehemiah is the same way: it describes the same events as Genesis, etc. without contradiction, but with a different tone from the prior text. I personally believe that is mostly because Nehemiah assimilated the prophetic ideology of Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, which I described in the three core points mentioned above.
Lastly, as a minor point, verse 2 casually tells us that the Israelites separated themselves from foreigners, which is funny because this was a major focus for Ezra, consuming two full chapters, and yet here it is described in exactly one verse.
The chapter concludes in v. 38 with “an agreement” the people are making with each other and with God. In the next chapter, we will learn about the contents of this agreement.
To me I think this is a very interesting chapter. In verse 1 it tells us that this day of fasting occurred on the 24th day of the month, while the festival of Sukkot in the previous chapter ended on the 8th day. So it’s a couple weeks later, but the general mood of the people is still directed towards religious observation.
In the previous chapter, verses 7-8 of that chapter told us that the priests and Levites were translating and interpreting the text to explain it to the people. A big part of the scriptures is recounting the history of Israel, and in this chapter we get a paraphrase of what the priests said when they recounted that history.
The reason why I find this so interesting is because it tells us, in their own words, how the people of Nehemiah’s time remembered their own history and how they viewed themselves. We can look for differences between the priests’ account here and what we read in the biblical histories to see if they are emphasizing anything or leaving anything out from their retelling. It gives us an opportunity to study their self-perception; the previous books of the bible (Genesis, Judges, Samuel, etc) show us what the people of Israel thought about their own history while it was happening, and this chapter shows us what the people of Jerusalem think about their history as they reflect upon it retrospectively.
I see two major omissions in this passage. The first is it omits the story of the generation that died in the wilderness. The priests mention that Israel rebelled against God, but do not mention how God punished them by destroying a generation. Verses in 18-21 emphasize that while Israel sinned against God, God “did not forsake” them and provided for Israel during their wandering years. This is true, but it is a selective truth. They are cherry-picking God’s forgiveness of Israel (which was real) but leaving out the many times that God punished Israel (which was also real).
The second major omission is David and Solomon. Or perhaps we could generalize and say “the good kings”. Verses 27-30 accurately describe the Judges period, when Israel sinned, was oppressed, cried out to God and were delivered. Over and over and over again. However, particularly during the reigns of David and to a lesser extent Solomon, the text in Samuel strongly emphasizes David’s purity of heart and devotion, and the people were devoted to God as a byproduct.
The narrative in this chapter is constructed as if Israel were sinning over and over and never had any good moments. Again this seems like a selective truth; while the priests are not saying anything that couldn’t be supported by the historical texts, they are leaving out the parts of the history that contradict the ideas they are trying to express.
It would not have supported their point if the priests had said, “Israel sinned most of the time, but here are a couple exceptions when our fathers were faithful”. Instead, the narrative we see is “Israel sinned continuously, but God was faithful in spite of our sins.”
What is the point, then? What do I believe the priests are trying to express to the people through their collective history? The priests’ narrative presents Israel as being being rebellious against God, but God remaining merciful towards Israel. God planted them in the promised land and did not forsake them. Above all, we see God is faithful to Israel and faithful to the covenant. Pointing out the instances of Israel’s faithfulness towards God would have diminished the impact of God’s faithfulness, because God’s faithfulness is emphasized in large part through its contrast with Israel’s unfaithfulness.
We see Israel being planted in a good land and “growing fat” (v. 25). Whenever Israel becomes fat and content, “they did evil before you” (v. 28). Even though God “delivered them into the hands of their oppressors” (v. 27), he “bore with them for many years” (v. 30) and “did not make an end of them” (v. 31).
To summarize, I think there are three core points in this story. In no particular order, the first point is that Israel was weak and poor, but when God blessed them they became arrogant and rebelled against him. The second is that God is reaching out to his people over and over while the people reject him over and over. The third is a contrast between the faithful and compassionate God who remains true to Israel, while Israel is faithless and turns away from God continually.
I mention these points because I believe that all three of these points can be found in the prophetic literature (particularly Isaiah and Jeremiah and possibly some of the minor prophets). Since many of these prophets predate Nehemiah, we can infer that Nehemiah was influenced by the prophets and not the other way around. Through this we can see how the prophetic literature has influenced religious thought in Nehemiah’s generation. To reiterate, I think this theology is well-based in the earlier historical texts, so I don’t think there is anything dishonest in the priests’ speech here. Instead, I think it represents a reformulation of their history.
It’s similar to how Chronicles is a reformulation of Kings; even though both books describes the same events without any major contradictions, the two texts have significant differences in their focus, which reflect the theologies of their respective authors. This chapter in Nehemiah is the same way: it describes the same events as Genesis, etc. without contradiction, but with a different tone from the prior text. I personally believe that is mostly because Nehemiah assimilated the prophetic ideology of Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, which I described in the three core points mentioned above.
Lastly, as a minor point, verse 2 casually tells us that the Israelites separated themselves from foreigners, which is funny because this was a major focus for Ezra, consuming two full chapters, and yet here it is described in exactly one verse.
The chapter concludes in v. 38 with “an agreement” the people are making with each other and with God. In the next chapter, we will learn about the contents of this agreement.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 8
In this chapter, Ezra recites the law to all the people and they celebrate the festival of Booths, which in Hebrew is called Sukkot.
Yes, that’s right, Ezra. You might have thought we were in the book of Nehemiah, and indeed we are, but here is Ezra again. Not only do we bring out Ezra, but what does Ezra read? The book of the law of Moses. In my opinion, there are only two possibilities for what this might be. It’s either the Pentateuch in its entirety (Genesis through Deuteronomy), or it is the book of Deuteronomy alone. I think both are viable interpretations, and especially since Nehemiah specifies that it’s the “Law of Moses”, I am inclined to think it might be Deuteronomy alone. Either way, there are a couple points I want to talk about. First is the cultural act of recitation of the scriptures, second is the challenges that ancient people faced in understanding and interpreting their scriptures, and third is how this chapter relates to our own attempts to understand the exact same ancient book.
Beginning with the first point, books are rare and expensive in this time period, much more so than many modern readers may understand. Modern readers may look back upon the past and think that because we have a “large” number of ancient books available to us (such as the bible itself), that books were equally plentiful in the past. To such readers, I would reply as follows: suppose every book you wanted to own, you had to copy by hand. That is, in order to own a bible, you must first take somebody else’s bible and copy the entire thing down with pen and paper, and then you can keep the copy that you wrote out. In this kind of a world, how many books would you own? Would you transcribe your own copy of Harry Potter? Would you write down a copy of the Lord of the Rings? How many books would you really own? Whatever answer you come up with, now apply that to a culture that is significantly more poor, agrarian, and where you are probably illiterate because the only school you ever had is your mom.
it is likely that each community would have only a handful of copies of the Torah, perhaps even just one. Many people in this time period are also illiterate, which is one important reason why they have professional scribes like Ezra. As was true for so many hundreds of years, the people received the Torah the way it was originally intended, which was through oral recitation. Most scholars believe that the Torah was originally transmitted orally for some time before it was ever written down at all. This chapter leaves no doubt that the Law has now been written down, but even then it is clearly not prevalent as a written text and it is not available to the population the way the bible is available today. For the vast majority of people, gathering to hear the Law read aloud was the only method and time they would ever receive it, for all of the reasons mentioned above.
In verse 5, it says that the people stood to hear the Law. Could you imagine standing for four or five hours (from early morning until midday, v. 3) listening to a man read from a book? Surprising as it sounds, the book of Deuteronomy is substantially archaic in both language and content by the time of Nehemiah. My readers may not have considered how long of a time has passed since Deuteronomy was composed. At the latest, it was written during the reign of Hezekiah, and at the earliest many hundreds of years before even then. In verses 7-8 we learn that the priests have to both explain and translate the text for the people to understand it. That’s because first of all, many passages in Deuteronomy are just as hard for ancient Jews to understand as they are to modern readers. They may have some cultural context that we don’t, but at a very basic level they are just people, the same as us, and there is no magic power that they possessed to understand the bible which went away before modern times. Things that confuse us in Deuteronomy would very likely confuse ancient Jews as well.
Secondly, they have to translate the text because the common Jewish language changed from the time of Deuteronomy to the time of Nehemiah. This is another shift most modern readers would not think about or notice, but at some point during the exile, the people of Judah stopped speaking Hebrew and started speaking Aramaic as the common language of society. Obviously there were still some people who spoke Hebrew, and that’s how the priests could cotninue to maintain their religious traditions, but over time Hebrew became more and more a language of religion and not a language of communication.
By the time we get to the New Testament, Hebrew ceased to be the language of religion as well and the entire New Testament text was spoken in Aramaic and written in Greek. There are oblique references to Hebrew in the New Testament, but its usage in the text was essentially nonexistent. It’s an interesting quirk of history that Hebrew reemerged as a spoken language in modern day Israel, because for a very long time the common spoken languages in the Mideast were either Aramaic, Arabic, Persian or other variants. Even among the Jews it was not a commonly spoken until sometime in the 19th century when a deliberate effort was made to restore it (for both cultural and political reasons). That is a topic for another day.
I see this as a reminder that while we may perceive the bible as a single book where somebody sat down and just wrote the whole thing over a long weekend, the bible is actually many books written over a long time. There is certainly a common purpose that runs through the biblical text, but at the same time it should more properly be understood as a historical progression of thought and events. In a broad sense, the bible is a history of God’s promises and interactions with his people spanning over perhaps 1,200 years. Remarkably, people living in later parts of the biblical period are now reading earlier parts of the bible and we get to see them struggle through the challenges of language and interpretation that we face in nearly the exact same way.
Verses 9-12 are interesting because we see the people respond to the Law with grief. Similar to the prayer of Nehemiah in chapter 1, the people realize with a sudden clarity what is the depth of their sin before the LORD. Nehemiah and the priests respond by saying that understanding itself should be a source of joy. Yes, the people and their ancestors have sinned, but understanding the Law is the first step towards obeying it, and the people should rejoice that they have begun to understand and obey.
In verse 14, we see the attitude of the people. I can just imagine the people reading through the Law being like, “wow we can’t mix fibers of different kinds? I’ll have to go buy a new shirt!” It’s like this big exploration process as they discover what is in the Law. So anyway, they read about this festival in the Law and the instantaneous reaction is that they must go and celebrate it right away. I find their enthusiasm for obeying the Law to be almost naive in its innocence, which is endearing to me. As a people, the Jews are learning about the Law for the first time in their lives and immediately obeying it in all of its eccentric details.
I think there is an important connection between the priests’ assurances in v. 11 and the people’s eagerness to obey in v. 16-17. Machiavelli says that it is better to be feared than loved. That is not how God operates, because Machiavelli was only seeking obedience: God wants devotion. The people could have responded to the Law with fear, having seen the extent of their sin and God’s threatened punishment, and that fear might have caused them to celebrate the festival. But Nehemiah and the priests comfort the people and encourage them to have joy in their discoveries, and like Nehemiah says in verse 12, that joy is what gives them strength to endure, strength to pursue God and strength to overcome the many challenges their society faces.
In the next chapter, the people observe a day of fasting and repentance.
Yes, that’s right, Ezra. You might have thought we were in the book of Nehemiah, and indeed we are, but here is Ezra again. Not only do we bring out Ezra, but what does Ezra read? The book of the law of Moses. In my opinion, there are only two possibilities for what this might be. It’s either the Pentateuch in its entirety (Genesis through Deuteronomy), or it is the book of Deuteronomy alone. I think both are viable interpretations, and especially since Nehemiah specifies that it’s the “Law of Moses”, I am inclined to think it might be Deuteronomy alone. Either way, there are a couple points I want to talk about. First is the cultural act of recitation of the scriptures, second is the challenges that ancient people faced in understanding and interpreting their scriptures, and third is how this chapter relates to our own attempts to understand the exact same ancient book.
Beginning with the first point, books are rare and expensive in this time period, much more so than many modern readers may understand. Modern readers may look back upon the past and think that because we have a “large” number of ancient books available to us (such as the bible itself), that books were equally plentiful in the past. To such readers, I would reply as follows: suppose every book you wanted to own, you had to copy by hand. That is, in order to own a bible, you must first take somebody else’s bible and copy the entire thing down with pen and paper, and then you can keep the copy that you wrote out. In this kind of a world, how many books would you own? Would you transcribe your own copy of Harry Potter? Would you write down a copy of the Lord of the Rings? How many books would you really own? Whatever answer you come up with, now apply that to a culture that is significantly more poor, agrarian, and where you are probably illiterate because the only school you ever had is your mom.
it is likely that each community would have only a handful of copies of the Torah, perhaps even just one. Many people in this time period are also illiterate, which is one important reason why they have professional scribes like Ezra. As was true for so many hundreds of years, the people received the Torah the way it was originally intended, which was through oral recitation. Most scholars believe that the Torah was originally transmitted orally for some time before it was ever written down at all. This chapter leaves no doubt that the Law has now been written down, but even then it is clearly not prevalent as a written text and it is not available to the population the way the bible is available today. For the vast majority of people, gathering to hear the Law read aloud was the only method and time they would ever receive it, for all of the reasons mentioned above.
In verse 5, it says that the people stood to hear the Law. Could you imagine standing for four or five hours (from early morning until midday, v. 3) listening to a man read from a book? Surprising as it sounds, the book of Deuteronomy is substantially archaic in both language and content by the time of Nehemiah. My readers may not have considered how long of a time has passed since Deuteronomy was composed. At the latest, it was written during the reign of Hezekiah, and at the earliest many hundreds of years before even then. In verses 7-8 we learn that the priests have to both explain and translate the text for the people to understand it. That’s because first of all, many passages in Deuteronomy are just as hard for ancient Jews to understand as they are to modern readers. They may have some cultural context that we don’t, but at a very basic level they are just people, the same as us, and there is no magic power that they possessed to understand the bible which went away before modern times. Things that confuse us in Deuteronomy would very likely confuse ancient Jews as well.
Secondly, they have to translate the text because the common Jewish language changed from the time of Deuteronomy to the time of Nehemiah. This is another shift most modern readers would not think about or notice, but at some point during the exile, the people of Judah stopped speaking Hebrew and started speaking Aramaic as the common language of society. Obviously there were still some people who spoke Hebrew, and that’s how the priests could cotninue to maintain their religious traditions, but over time Hebrew became more and more a language of religion and not a language of communication.
By the time we get to the New Testament, Hebrew ceased to be the language of religion as well and the entire New Testament text was spoken in Aramaic and written in Greek. There are oblique references to Hebrew in the New Testament, but its usage in the text was essentially nonexistent. It’s an interesting quirk of history that Hebrew reemerged as a spoken language in modern day Israel, because for a very long time the common spoken languages in the Mideast were either Aramaic, Arabic, Persian or other variants. Even among the Jews it was not a commonly spoken until sometime in the 19th century when a deliberate effort was made to restore it (for both cultural and political reasons). That is a topic for another day.
I see this as a reminder that while we may perceive the bible as a single book where somebody sat down and just wrote the whole thing over a long weekend, the bible is actually many books written over a long time. There is certainly a common purpose that runs through the biblical text, but at the same time it should more properly be understood as a historical progression of thought and events. In a broad sense, the bible is a history of God’s promises and interactions with his people spanning over perhaps 1,200 years. Remarkably, people living in later parts of the biblical period are now reading earlier parts of the bible and we get to see them struggle through the challenges of language and interpretation that we face in nearly the exact same way.
Verses 9-12 are interesting because we see the people respond to the Law with grief. Similar to the prayer of Nehemiah in chapter 1, the people realize with a sudden clarity what is the depth of their sin before the LORD. Nehemiah and the priests respond by saying that understanding itself should be a source of joy. Yes, the people and their ancestors have sinned, but understanding the Law is the first step towards obeying it, and the people should rejoice that they have begun to understand and obey.
In verse 14, we see the attitude of the people. I can just imagine the people reading through the Law being like, “wow we can’t mix fibers of different kinds? I’ll have to go buy a new shirt!” It’s like this big exploration process as they discover what is in the Law. So anyway, they read about this festival in the Law and the instantaneous reaction is that they must go and celebrate it right away. I find their enthusiasm for obeying the Law to be almost naive in its innocence, which is endearing to me. As a people, the Jews are learning about the Law for the first time in their lives and immediately obeying it in all of its eccentric details.
I think there is an important connection between the priests’ assurances in v. 11 and the people’s eagerness to obey in v. 16-17. Machiavelli says that it is better to be feared than loved. That is not how God operates, because Machiavelli was only seeking obedience: God wants devotion. The people could have responded to the Law with fear, having seen the extent of their sin and God’s threatened punishment, and that fear might have caused them to celebrate the festival. But Nehemiah and the priests comfort the people and encourage them to have joy in their discoveries, and like Nehemiah says in verse 12, that joy is what gives them strength to endure, strength to pursue God and strength to overcome the many challenges their society faces.
In the next chapter, the people observe a day of fasting and repentance.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 7
In this chapter, Nehemiah gives instructions for keeping the gates, and then reads from a census of the returning exiles.
In the first couple verses, Nehemiah finishes up his administrative tasks from the construction of the wall. It’s not enough to just build the wall, he also needs to appoint officials and guards to monitor the wall and ensure that their enemies don’t sneak in during the night or climb over the wall or something. Nehemiah also notes that the city is large and sparsely populated. This is something that will come up later, because Nehemiah is actually concerned about Jerusalem’s low population, though the exact reason for his concern is never explained.
Anyway, the bulk of this chapter is concerning the “genealogy” (v. 5) that lists all the families and cities of Judeans who had returned from exile. Verse 5 tells us that this book is of those who “first” came back. Before continuing, one important point to bring up here is that this genealogy is virtually identical to the listing from Ezra 2 (beginning in verse 6 of this chapter). There are various implications but I will limit myself to only say that they are clearly using the same common source material, and in my opinion its inclusion in these two books reinforces the authenticity of this source document. Since they are both copying the exact same genealogy, I think it’s important for us to understand what is their motivation for including it in their respective documents.
As previously discussed, Nehemiah is not among the first returning exiles. He came back as part of a second or more likely third wave to reinforce and strengthen the people in Jerusalem. The “book of the genealogy” is then a record of the people from the very first wave, their number, their families and their animals.
Earlier genealogies like in the book of Numbers had obviously military terminology, referring to groups of people and their commanders or leaders. On the other hand, the census here does not have any martial overtones that I can see. This is not the people organizing for battle like when they were marching into the promised land so long ago, under the leadership of Moses and Joshua. This is not a people returning to claim the land by force and drive out their enemies. Rather, they are returning to a desolate and partially depopulated land, to reclaim their homeland under the aegis of the Persian king’s permission.
The contrast with this earlier census could not be more striking. The last time Israel marched boldly into the promised land, their census counted around two million men, excluding women and children. They lost a generation in the wilderness, but nevertheless I see pride in Israel’s march across the Jordan, led by the priests and the tabernacle, and I see pride when they marched around Jericho seven times until the walls fell. There is a certain triumphalism in Israel’s victories and the trembling fear of their enemies.
The exiles who returned from Babylon numbered 40,000, fifty times fewer people than their first journey into their prospective homeland. To me, this second march feels hopeful but chastened. We see a chastened attitude in Nehemiah’s prayer, declaring in strong language the manifold sins of Israel and the LORD’s justice in punishing them. I can’t think of a single time that Joshua confessed his people’s sins and begged for mercy the way that Nehemiah did. When the LORD spoke to Joshua, Joshua was instructed to be bold and courageous. God was with them doing powerful things. I’m sure that Nehemiah sees the LORD’s hand in their favorable treatment, but again I feel like this is a humble and contrite Judah.
We see the LORD speak to Joshua repeatedly, but interestingly I don’t see any references to the LORD speaking to Nehemiah. We know that there were prophets who returned with the exiles, so it’s not that the voice of the LORD was gone completely. I do think it’s interesting how in this era, the word of the LORD is almost entirely contained within the mouths of the prophets. It’s also interesting how this period (the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther) do not contain any overt miracles like in earlier times. Joshua prayed for the sun to stop in the sky (Joshua 10), while Nehemiah prayed for a favorable response from the king. This is mostly off-topic but I think it’s really interesting and I only noticed it when studying this chapter and the contrast of this genealogy with earlier documents from Israel’s history. It reminded me again how different life is in the post-exilic era compared to Israel’s earlier periods.
So getting back on topic, the question is why does Nehemiah include this genealogy and more generally, what can we learn from this genealogy in Nehemiah’s story?
In my opinion, I think that the first couple verses in this chapter concludes Nehemiah’s “Wall Construction Story”. The book obviously continues, but that particular story as it relates to building the wall and Nehemiah’s conflict with Sanballat is now completed. Nehemiah takes this opportunity to recount the size and composition of the community. Different people can read this different ways, but the message I see in this chapter is the endurance of the community during their exile. They have suffered much, but they have survived and they have returned to the land that God called them to take as their inheritance. Similar to chapter 3, I also see a lot of diversity in this chapter, with people coming from many different towns and families (though for obvious reasons, they are all from Judah or Benjamin).
In conclusion, this chapter is sandwiched between the previous story about the wall and the next story about the celebration of the festival of Booths (Sukkot) which Nehemiah re-institutes. I don’t think it particularly relates to either story, so it’s possible that Nehemiah only put it here because it was a convenient place for him to put this material without interrupting the flow of the stories in his book.
In the next chapter, we will begin the story of Sukkot.
In the first couple verses, Nehemiah finishes up his administrative tasks from the construction of the wall. It’s not enough to just build the wall, he also needs to appoint officials and guards to monitor the wall and ensure that their enemies don’t sneak in during the night or climb over the wall or something. Nehemiah also notes that the city is large and sparsely populated. This is something that will come up later, because Nehemiah is actually concerned about Jerusalem’s low population, though the exact reason for his concern is never explained.
Anyway, the bulk of this chapter is concerning the “genealogy” (v. 5) that lists all the families and cities of Judeans who had returned from exile. Verse 5 tells us that this book is of those who “first” came back. Before continuing, one important point to bring up here is that this genealogy is virtually identical to the listing from Ezra 2 (beginning in verse 6 of this chapter). There are various implications but I will limit myself to only say that they are clearly using the same common source material, and in my opinion its inclusion in these two books reinforces the authenticity of this source document. Since they are both copying the exact same genealogy, I think it’s important for us to understand what is their motivation for including it in their respective documents.
As previously discussed, Nehemiah is not among the first returning exiles. He came back as part of a second or more likely third wave to reinforce and strengthen the people in Jerusalem. The “book of the genealogy” is then a record of the people from the very first wave, their number, their families and their animals.
Earlier genealogies like in the book of Numbers had obviously military terminology, referring to groups of people and their commanders or leaders. On the other hand, the census here does not have any martial overtones that I can see. This is not the people organizing for battle like when they were marching into the promised land so long ago, under the leadership of Moses and Joshua. This is not a people returning to claim the land by force and drive out their enemies. Rather, they are returning to a desolate and partially depopulated land, to reclaim their homeland under the aegis of the Persian king’s permission.
The contrast with this earlier census could not be more striking. The last time Israel marched boldly into the promised land, their census counted around two million men, excluding women and children. They lost a generation in the wilderness, but nevertheless I see pride in Israel’s march across the Jordan, led by the priests and the tabernacle, and I see pride when they marched around Jericho seven times until the walls fell. There is a certain triumphalism in Israel’s victories and the trembling fear of their enemies.
The exiles who returned from Babylon numbered 40,000, fifty times fewer people than their first journey into their prospective homeland. To me, this second march feels hopeful but chastened. We see a chastened attitude in Nehemiah’s prayer, declaring in strong language the manifold sins of Israel and the LORD’s justice in punishing them. I can’t think of a single time that Joshua confessed his people’s sins and begged for mercy the way that Nehemiah did. When the LORD spoke to Joshua, Joshua was instructed to be bold and courageous. God was with them doing powerful things. I’m sure that Nehemiah sees the LORD’s hand in their favorable treatment, but again I feel like this is a humble and contrite Judah.
We see the LORD speak to Joshua repeatedly, but interestingly I don’t see any references to the LORD speaking to Nehemiah. We know that there were prophets who returned with the exiles, so it’s not that the voice of the LORD was gone completely. I do think it’s interesting how in this era, the word of the LORD is almost entirely contained within the mouths of the prophets. It’s also interesting how this period (the books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther) do not contain any overt miracles like in earlier times. Joshua prayed for the sun to stop in the sky (Joshua 10), while Nehemiah prayed for a favorable response from the king. This is mostly off-topic but I think it’s really interesting and I only noticed it when studying this chapter and the contrast of this genealogy with earlier documents from Israel’s history. It reminded me again how different life is in the post-exilic era compared to Israel’s earlier periods.
So getting back on topic, the question is why does Nehemiah include this genealogy and more generally, what can we learn from this genealogy in Nehemiah’s story?
In my opinion, I think that the first couple verses in this chapter concludes Nehemiah’s “Wall Construction Story”. The book obviously continues, but that particular story as it relates to building the wall and Nehemiah’s conflict with Sanballat is now completed. Nehemiah takes this opportunity to recount the size and composition of the community. Different people can read this different ways, but the message I see in this chapter is the endurance of the community during their exile. They have suffered much, but they have survived and they have returned to the land that God called them to take as their inheritance. Similar to chapter 3, I also see a lot of diversity in this chapter, with people coming from many different towns and families (though for obvious reasons, they are all from Judah or Benjamin).
In conclusion, this chapter is sandwiched between the previous story about the wall and the next story about the celebration of the festival of Booths (Sukkot) which Nehemiah re-institutes. I don’t think it particularly relates to either story, so it’s possible that Nehemiah only put it here because it was a convenient place for him to put this material without interrupting the flow of the stories in his book.
In the next chapter, we will begin the story of Sukkot.
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