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.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 6
In this chapter, Sanballat and his allies resume their threats and deception against Nehemiah and the other Jews.
This chapter feels like a continuation of chapter 4. It does not repeat the same material, but it continues along the same lines, with Sanballat and his friends spewing threats and rumors in a continued effort to disrupt the construction of the wall. We learn from verse 1 that the wall was built, but that the gates and doors had not yet been placed in it, so the wall is still incomplete. Depending on how you count, there are three or four distinct attacks in this chapter, so just like in chapter 4 I will go through the attacks and Nehemiah’s responses.
The first attack is distraction. Sanballat and Geshem invite Nehemiah to go down to Ono to meet together. As an aside, I’ve heard more than one speaker now say “if someone is inviting you to “oh no”, you should always decline” or variants of that. Anyway, to modern readers this language of “let’s meet together” sounds very peaceful and friendly, but I would like to point out that in the bible this phrase is also sometimes used for “meeting in battle” (one example is 2 Samuel 2:13). While I think a peaceful interpretation may be supported, I also think that this invitation hints at a challenge for Nehemiah to come down and fight it out with Sanballat and his supporters.
Either way, it is clear that Nehemiah going down to meet with Sanballat (whether to talk or to fight) does not serve towards Nehemiah’s purpose in building the wall. Nehemiah’s response to these attempts at distraction is focus. He focuses on his vision, which is to finish the wall, and his response shows this. He says, “I am doing a great work”, why should I disrupt the work just to meet with you (v. 3). To me, meeting with Sanballat feels like an attempt to placate one’s ego. Sanballat is an influential but distant man who has been eminating threats against Nehemiah, but without any concrete action. Sanballat is a man filled with talk and little action (driven by circumstance I am sure, it’s unlikely Sanballat was in a position to act against Nehemiah). In contrast, Nehemiah sometimes speaks but his focus is on action: building the wall and rallying other men to build the wall.
In this instance, Sanballat is attempting to reduce Nehemiah to his level. Why else would Sanballat ask Nehemiah to go out and meet him, rather than Sanballat himself coming up to Jerusalem to meet Nehemiah? Sanballat is in the middle of Oh No, spending all his time trying to tear down Nehemiah. Nehemiah is in Jerusalem fulfilling his vision. If Nehemiah went out to Ono, he would become like Sanballat, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and in that way he would cease to be a threat to Sanballat.
Sanballat represents the status quo. Change is threatening to Sanballat because Sanballat is dominant in the current world system. Everyone who is trying to change the world will always face a Sanballat in their life because there’s always at least one person who wants to keep the world exactly the way it is, regardless of how messed up that might be. By going out to meet Sanballat, we become like him because at that point, we have thrown away our vision which is the only thing separating us from Sanballat in the first place.
Nehemiah refuses Sanballat’s invitation all four times, and passes the first test.
The second attack is when Sanballat again threatens Nehemiah, this time implying that Nehemiah was trying to make himself king, which would have been a direct act against their Persian authorities. Interestingly, the conclusion of Sanballat’s statement is the same as his first attack, which is to come and meet with him (v. 7).
This is basically attempted blackmail. The opened letter is intended to show that somebody was “reporting” Nehemiah to the Persians for his supposed treachery. Sanballat is basically saying, “here is this letter I found that says you’re going to betray the Persians, and I heard that somebody is going to report you to the king for it, so how about coming to meet me now?” Previously Sanballat was asking “nicely” for Nehemiah to come meet him, now he is trying to more or less extort Nehemiah into doing it under the threat of falsely reporting him to the Persian king.
In this case, Nehemiah responds to Sanballat, basically just denying the allegation and remaining in Jerusalem to continue building the wall. Nehemiah is effectively daring Sanballat to report him to the king and trusting in his superior relationship with the king to get him through whatever crisis follows. Remember that Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king, which is a highly trusted and influential role. In the end, it appears that Sanballat did not follow through with his threat because we never hear about this letter again. If Sanballat had reported Nehemiah to the king and the king found the allegation false, it is possible that Sanballat himself would have been punished for lying, so I would guess that actually following through would have carried a risk for Sanballat as well. Otherwise we would have expected Sanballat to report Nehemiah to the king.
The third attack is via Shemaiah, a Jewish man and secret ally of Sanballat. This follows on the same kind of threats as before, warning Nehemiah that men were coming to kill him and he should go hide in the temple. This again sounds innocent to us, how could going to the temple be a bad thing? Besides distracting Nehemiah from the work, this would have also looked suspicious to the Persians because the temple is kind of like a fortress and it’s also where Jewish kings were crowned in the past. For instance, remember the story of Joash in 2 Kings 11 when he was anointed by the high priest and overthrew Athaliah from the temple. 2 Kings 11:14 specifically says that the king was “standing by the pillar, according to the custom”. So apparently it was customary for kings to be anointed as king next to a particular pillar in the temple, and this may have been foreshadowed if Nehemiah fled to the temple.
Nehemiah again refuses. He basically says, even if my life is in danger it is not right for me to flee before the enemy. It is a different kind of distraction, but with the same end result: if Nehemiah had fled, the work would have been disrupted. Think about it this way: if Nehemiah flees from the wall, then how can any of his men remain? Nehemiah is the first person threatened but if he left, the threats would fall on whoever remained, because Sanballat would not stop until the work was either finished or destroyed. Nehemiah is actually sheltering his men from these threats because so long as he remains the leader of this effort, all of Sanballats attacks will be directed against him.
In the end it all proves to be a vapor. Sanballat continues issuing threats and rumors and insinuation, and Nehemiah may very well be afraid, but he cuts through it by staying focused on his vision and refusing to be distracted, even by fear for his own life.
Lastly, this chapter concludes with a description of “many letters” (v. 17) passing between Tobiah (an ally of Sanballat) and the leaders of Judah. We learn specifically that many of the leaders of Judah had intermarried their families with these Samaritans. In my opinion, this is like a practical demonstration of why God commanded the Jews to not intermarry with foreigners, because Tobiah uses all of his influence and leverage with the leaders of Judah to undermine Nehemiah and Jewish interests. The leaders of Judah may have thought that they were strengthening themselves and their people, but here we can see it was doing the exact opposite, compromising the nation’s leadership by giving influence to the enemy. In the book of Ezra we saw Ezra trying to break apart the marriages between his people and foreigners, and I see this brief passage in Nehemiah as supporting evidence for why Ezra’s efforts were so important for preserving their nation (besides the moral reasons of obeying the Law).
The good news is that Nehemiah passes all of the challenges and the wall is completed. In the next chapter, Nehemiah assigns men to various responsibilities and takes a census of the people.
This chapter feels like a continuation of chapter 4. It does not repeat the same material, but it continues along the same lines, with Sanballat and his friends spewing threats and rumors in a continued effort to disrupt the construction of the wall. We learn from verse 1 that the wall was built, but that the gates and doors had not yet been placed in it, so the wall is still incomplete. Depending on how you count, there are three or four distinct attacks in this chapter, so just like in chapter 4 I will go through the attacks and Nehemiah’s responses.
The first attack is distraction. Sanballat and Geshem invite Nehemiah to go down to Ono to meet together. As an aside, I’ve heard more than one speaker now say “if someone is inviting you to “oh no”, you should always decline” or variants of that. Anyway, to modern readers this language of “let’s meet together” sounds very peaceful and friendly, but I would like to point out that in the bible this phrase is also sometimes used for “meeting in battle” (one example is 2 Samuel 2:13). While I think a peaceful interpretation may be supported, I also think that this invitation hints at a challenge for Nehemiah to come down and fight it out with Sanballat and his supporters.
Either way, it is clear that Nehemiah going down to meet with Sanballat (whether to talk or to fight) does not serve towards Nehemiah’s purpose in building the wall. Nehemiah’s response to these attempts at distraction is focus. He focuses on his vision, which is to finish the wall, and his response shows this. He says, “I am doing a great work”, why should I disrupt the work just to meet with you (v. 3). To me, meeting with Sanballat feels like an attempt to placate one’s ego. Sanballat is an influential but distant man who has been eminating threats against Nehemiah, but without any concrete action. Sanballat is a man filled with talk and little action (driven by circumstance I am sure, it’s unlikely Sanballat was in a position to act against Nehemiah). In contrast, Nehemiah sometimes speaks but his focus is on action: building the wall and rallying other men to build the wall.
In this instance, Sanballat is attempting to reduce Nehemiah to his level. Why else would Sanballat ask Nehemiah to go out and meet him, rather than Sanballat himself coming up to Jerusalem to meet Nehemiah? Sanballat is in the middle of Oh No, spending all his time trying to tear down Nehemiah. Nehemiah is in Jerusalem fulfilling his vision. If Nehemiah went out to Ono, he would become like Sanballat, doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, and in that way he would cease to be a threat to Sanballat.
Sanballat represents the status quo. Change is threatening to Sanballat because Sanballat is dominant in the current world system. Everyone who is trying to change the world will always face a Sanballat in their life because there’s always at least one person who wants to keep the world exactly the way it is, regardless of how messed up that might be. By going out to meet Sanballat, we become like him because at that point, we have thrown away our vision which is the only thing separating us from Sanballat in the first place.
Nehemiah refuses Sanballat’s invitation all four times, and passes the first test.
The second attack is when Sanballat again threatens Nehemiah, this time implying that Nehemiah was trying to make himself king, which would have been a direct act against their Persian authorities. Interestingly, the conclusion of Sanballat’s statement is the same as his first attack, which is to come and meet with him (v. 7).
This is basically attempted blackmail. The opened letter is intended to show that somebody was “reporting” Nehemiah to the Persians for his supposed treachery. Sanballat is basically saying, “here is this letter I found that says you’re going to betray the Persians, and I heard that somebody is going to report you to the king for it, so how about coming to meet me now?” Previously Sanballat was asking “nicely” for Nehemiah to come meet him, now he is trying to more or less extort Nehemiah into doing it under the threat of falsely reporting him to the Persian king.
In this case, Nehemiah responds to Sanballat, basically just denying the allegation and remaining in Jerusalem to continue building the wall. Nehemiah is effectively daring Sanballat to report him to the king and trusting in his superior relationship with the king to get him through whatever crisis follows. Remember that Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king, which is a highly trusted and influential role. In the end, it appears that Sanballat did not follow through with his threat because we never hear about this letter again. If Sanballat had reported Nehemiah to the king and the king found the allegation false, it is possible that Sanballat himself would have been punished for lying, so I would guess that actually following through would have carried a risk for Sanballat as well. Otherwise we would have expected Sanballat to report Nehemiah to the king.
The third attack is via Shemaiah, a Jewish man and secret ally of Sanballat. This follows on the same kind of threats as before, warning Nehemiah that men were coming to kill him and he should go hide in the temple. This again sounds innocent to us, how could going to the temple be a bad thing? Besides distracting Nehemiah from the work, this would have also looked suspicious to the Persians because the temple is kind of like a fortress and it’s also where Jewish kings were crowned in the past. For instance, remember the story of Joash in 2 Kings 11 when he was anointed by the high priest and overthrew Athaliah from the temple. 2 Kings 11:14 specifically says that the king was “standing by the pillar, according to the custom”. So apparently it was customary for kings to be anointed as king next to a particular pillar in the temple, and this may have been foreshadowed if Nehemiah fled to the temple.
Nehemiah again refuses. He basically says, even if my life is in danger it is not right for me to flee before the enemy. It is a different kind of distraction, but with the same end result: if Nehemiah had fled, the work would have been disrupted. Think about it this way: if Nehemiah flees from the wall, then how can any of his men remain? Nehemiah is the first person threatened but if he left, the threats would fall on whoever remained, because Sanballat would not stop until the work was either finished or destroyed. Nehemiah is actually sheltering his men from these threats because so long as he remains the leader of this effort, all of Sanballats attacks will be directed against him.
In the end it all proves to be a vapor. Sanballat continues issuing threats and rumors and insinuation, and Nehemiah may very well be afraid, but he cuts through it by staying focused on his vision and refusing to be distracted, even by fear for his own life.
Lastly, this chapter concludes with a description of “many letters” (v. 17) passing between Tobiah (an ally of Sanballat) and the leaders of Judah. We learn specifically that many of the leaders of Judah had intermarried their families with these Samaritans. In my opinion, this is like a practical demonstration of why God commanded the Jews to not intermarry with foreigners, because Tobiah uses all of his influence and leverage with the leaders of Judah to undermine Nehemiah and Jewish interests. The leaders of Judah may have thought that they were strengthening themselves and their people, but here we can see it was doing the exact opposite, compromising the nation’s leadership by giving influence to the enemy. In the book of Ezra we saw Ezra trying to break apart the marriages between his people and foreigners, and I see this brief passage in Nehemiah as supporting evidence for why Ezra’s efforts were so important for preserving their nation (besides the moral reasons of obeying the Law).
The good news is that Nehemiah passes all of the challenges and the wall is completed. In the next chapter, Nehemiah assigns men to various responsibilities and takes a census of the people.
Monday, November 13, 2017
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 5
In this chapter, Nehemiah confronts the nobles of Judah and forces them to return the property and servants that they purchased from the Jews under duress.
Basically what’s going on is that there is another famine in Judah, like the famine that struck Egypt and the promised land during the time of Joseph (Genesis 41-42). The wealthy men, by virtue of their wealth, have accumulated grain and are now selling it back to the Jews at extortionary prices, using the money to buy property and making slaves of the Jews. Verse 11 tells us that they were taking “the hundredth part” of money and grain, which is referring to a 1% interest rate. That sounds low, but it’s likely that they were charging the people 1% per month, so around 12% per year.
At this point, I should mention that Deut 23:19-20 specifically commands the Israelites to refrain from charging their brethren interest, so in this case the nobles are violating the Law of Moses as well as exploiting their countrymen in a time when the poor Jews would have been unable to resist.
When Ezra returned to Jerusalem, he found the men of Judah intermarrying with foreign women, which was contrary to the Law. This chapter is Nehemiah’s equivalent experience, and Nehemiah’s response is also quite similar. Like Ezra, Nehemiah gathers all the people together and then publicly confronts the leading men of Judah and tells them that they are doing wrong. Also like with Ezra, the men agree that they are doing wrong and promise to fix their behavior. Verse 13 confirms that they “did according to this promise”, so it appears as though Nehemiah’s intervention fixed the problem.
The last 6 verses of this chapter include Nehemiah’s descriptions of his own righteous behavior as governor (which directly confirms his political role as ruler of the Judeans on behalf of the Persian king). What it boils down to is that he refused to take food or money from the people (which was a right conferred on the governor) and on the flip side, he permitted 150 men to eat from his table, for free, provided from his own personal wealth.
This is the first sign that Nehemiah was a wealthy man. We knew that he was an influential official in exile, but that was most likely as a slave in the king’s household. It’s possible he could attain great wealth through his role and the king’s generosity, but it’s not a certainty. So apparently Nehemiah is a wealthy man, and he refuses to use his position to enrich himself at the expense of the Jews. We learn from v. 8 that other Jews are not faring as well in exile, and that many Jews had to be “redeemed” (i.e. re-purchased) from slavery in Babylon. The upshot is that Nehemiah himself is using his personal wealth to redeem other Jews from their slavery.
Coming to the end of this chapter, I would like to again ask the question: what lessons can we learn from this chapter? I think there are a couple directions we could take this chapter, but I think what stands out to me is contrasting Nehemiah with the Judean nobles and in particular, how they use their wealth.
Like the nobles of Judah, Nehemiah is a wealthy man, and his wealth gives him influence. However, the way Nehemiah uses his wealth could not be any more different. The nobles use their wealth as leverage to continue enriching themselves. Not only does Nehemiah not take advantage of his people, he uses his wealth to purchase freedom for some and provide food for others, free of charge.
Nehemiah probably owns land (though he says in v. 16 that he did not buy any land, which probably refers to buying property from distressed owners) and he certainly owns large flocks and herds. One thing I’ve learned as I became an adult is the power that comes with wealth to produce yet more money. If you have a million dollars, you can buy businesses or land and property, you can hire employees and produce new wealth. It’s very likely that Nehemiah was doing that, growing his flocks and herds to sustain his table and his own personal lifestyle while serving as governor.
In fact, in v. 10 Nehemiah says that he was also lending money and grain to the poor Jews, but he was doing so without interest which is really the important part. It is possible to run a business in an honest and fair way and to become wealthy through honest and fair means. I think God is happy to have his people become wealthy through honest trade and honest labor. However, the Jewish nobles are seeking to enrich themselves to the detriment of their brothers, which is a poisonous attitude. What do they want the money for? Is this not greed? Is this not coveting, which the LORD condemned in Deut 5:21, the tenth commandment?
In discussing Nehemiah chapter 3, I talked at length about the importance of unity and collaboration for the community to succeed in building the wall. It might seem like Nehemiah is going off topic in this chapter, but I think the attitude of the Judean nobles is cutting directly against the unity of the people, because the nobles are seeking to benefit themselves by hurting their neighbors. There cannot be unity between two people if one is taking unfair advantage of the other, because it destroys any possibility of trust between them. The nobles see the poor not as their brothers, but as targets or resources to be exploited. The poor see the nobles not as their brothers, but as oppressors or predators. In an indirect way, this actually threatens Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild the wall, so Nehemiah is earnest to fix this issue above and beyond the pursuit of justice.
Nehemiah does the opposite with his wealth. Rather than using it as leverage to exploit the poor, he uses his wealth to help his people. He grows his wealth through honest means and uses the excess to literally feed his people. Rather than destroy unity, this helps to build unity because it enhances trust between the people and Nehemiah. The people know that Nehemiah is not trying to take advantage of them, so they don’t have to be on guard or protect themselves against him.
If you’ve ever felt like someone was trying to take advantage of you, it’s as if you have to draw a shield between yourself and that person. You create barriers between yourself and that person as a defense mechanism, but a side effect is that you cannot be fully honest and open with that person. Through his generosity, Nehemiah breaks down those barriers and walls between him and the people he is leading.
For instance, in the past I used to have a manager at work that never really convinced me he was supporting my personal interests. I always felt like he would help me if it didn’t conflict with what he wanted, but that he would always put his own interests and the interest of the team above myself. I’m not sure that it’s true, but it’s the impression he created in me and as a result, I never felt like I could really trust him. On the other hand, I had another manager who always seem really honest to me and it was clear he supported me as an individual more than the team. Like if I wanted to transfer out of the team, he would have helped me even though it would have hurt the team’s effort. Ironically, because I knew that he would support me, it left me free to sacrifice my own interests on behalf of the team. For so long as I had a manager who wasn’t taking care of me, it’s like I instinctively knew that I had to take care of my own interests because nobody else was doing it. When I had a manager who I knew was going to look out for my interests, I felt like I could put the team first because I knew that my manager would never ask me to do something that would hurt my career and that he would always counsel me if he felt I was making decisions that did not benefit me.
Between those two managers, I was always willing to work harder for the person who supported me in part because he made me feel safer and in part because I had an instinctive desire that I wanted him to succeed as a manager because in a sense, I want good people to win. He was helping me so it seemed only natural that I would seek to benefit him by producing strong results.
I see this same attitude with Nehemiah. He is seeking the good of his people, and it seems only natural that the people would reciprocate by helping to build the wall. In this way, Nehemiah demonstrates his leadership skills as well as his altruistic use of wealth.
In the next chapter, the verbal attacks of Sanballat resume.
Basically what’s going on is that there is another famine in Judah, like the famine that struck Egypt and the promised land during the time of Joseph (Genesis 41-42). The wealthy men, by virtue of their wealth, have accumulated grain and are now selling it back to the Jews at extortionary prices, using the money to buy property and making slaves of the Jews. Verse 11 tells us that they were taking “the hundredth part” of money and grain, which is referring to a 1% interest rate. That sounds low, but it’s likely that they were charging the people 1% per month, so around 12% per year.
At this point, I should mention that Deut 23:19-20 specifically commands the Israelites to refrain from charging their brethren interest, so in this case the nobles are violating the Law of Moses as well as exploiting their countrymen in a time when the poor Jews would have been unable to resist.
When Ezra returned to Jerusalem, he found the men of Judah intermarrying with foreign women, which was contrary to the Law. This chapter is Nehemiah’s equivalent experience, and Nehemiah’s response is also quite similar. Like Ezra, Nehemiah gathers all the people together and then publicly confronts the leading men of Judah and tells them that they are doing wrong. Also like with Ezra, the men agree that they are doing wrong and promise to fix their behavior. Verse 13 confirms that they “did according to this promise”, so it appears as though Nehemiah’s intervention fixed the problem.
The last 6 verses of this chapter include Nehemiah’s descriptions of his own righteous behavior as governor (which directly confirms his political role as ruler of the Judeans on behalf of the Persian king). What it boils down to is that he refused to take food or money from the people (which was a right conferred on the governor) and on the flip side, he permitted 150 men to eat from his table, for free, provided from his own personal wealth.
This is the first sign that Nehemiah was a wealthy man. We knew that he was an influential official in exile, but that was most likely as a slave in the king’s household. It’s possible he could attain great wealth through his role and the king’s generosity, but it’s not a certainty. So apparently Nehemiah is a wealthy man, and he refuses to use his position to enrich himself at the expense of the Jews. We learn from v. 8 that other Jews are not faring as well in exile, and that many Jews had to be “redeemed” (i.e. re-purchased) from slavery in Babylon. The upshot is that Nehemiah himself is using his personal wealth to redeem other Jews from their slavery.
Coming to the end of this chapter, I would like to again ask the question: what lessons can we learn from this chapter? I think there are a couple directions we could take this chapter, but I think what stands out to me is contrasting Nehemiah with the Judean nobles and in particular, how they use their wealth.
Like the nobles of Judah, Nehemiah is a wealthy man, and his wealth gives him influence. However, the way Nehemiah uses his wealth could not be any more different. The nobles use their wealth as leverage to continue enriching themselves. Not only does Nehemiah not take advantage of his people, he uses his wealth to purchase freedom for some and provide food for others, free of charge.
Nehemiah probably owns land (though he says in v. 16 that he did not buy any land, which probably refers to buying property from distressed owners) and he certainly owns large flocks and herds. One thing I’ve learned as I became an adult is the power that comes with wealth to produce yet more money. If you have a million dollars, you can buy businesses or land and property, you can hire employees and produce new wealth. It’s very likely that Nehemiah was doing that, growing his flocks and herds to sustain his table and his own personal lifestyle while serving as governor.
In fact, in v. 10 Nehemiah says that he was also lending money and grain to the poor Jews, but he was doing so without interest which is really the important part. It is possible to run a business in an honest and fair way and to become wealthy through honest and fair means. I think God is happy to have his people become wealthy through honest trade and honest labor. However, the Jewish nobles are seeking to enrich themselves to the detriment of their brothers, which is a poisonous attitude. What do they want the money for? Is this not greed? Is this not coveting, which the LORD condemned in Deut 5:21, the tenth commandment?
In discussing Nehemiah chapter 3, I talked at length about the importance of unity and collaboration for the community to succeed in building the wall. It might seem like Nehemiah is going off topic in this chapter, but I think the attitude of the Judean nobles is cutting directly against the unity of the people, because the nobles are seeking to benefit themselves by hurting their neighbors. There cannot be unity between two people if one is taking unfair advantage of the other, because it destroys any possibility of trust between them. The nobles see the poor not as their brothers, but as targets or resources to be exploited. The poor see the nobles not as their brothers, but as oppressors or predators. In an indirect way, this actually threatens Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild the wall, so Nehemiah is earnest to fix this issue above and beyond the pursuit of justice.
Nehemiah does the opposite with his wealth. Rather than using it as leverage to exploit the poor, he uses his wealth to help his people. He grows his wealth through honest means and uses the excess to literally feed his people. Rather than destroy unity, this helps to build unity because it enhances trust between the people and Nehemiah. The people know that Nehemiah is not trying to take advantage of them, so they don’t have to be on guard or protect themselves against him.
If you’ve ever felt like someone was trying to take advantage of you, it’s as if you have to draw a shield between yourself and that person. You create barriers between yourself and that person as a defense mechanism, but a side effect is that you cannot be fully honest and open with that person. Through his generosity, Nehemiah breaks down those barriers and walls between him and the people he is leading.
For instance, in the past I used to have a manager at work that never really convinced me he was supporting my personal interests. I always felt like he would help me if it didn’t conflict with what he wanted, but that he would always put his own interests and the interest of the team above myself. I’m not sure that it’s true, but it’s the impression he created in me and as a result, I never felt like I could really trust him. On the other hand, I had another manager who always seem really honest to me and it was clear he supported me as an individual more than the team. Like if I wanted to transfer out of the team, he would have helped me even though it would have hurt the team’s effort. Ironically, because I knew that he would support me, it left me free to sacrifice my own interests on behalf of the team. For so long as I had a manager who wasn’t taking care of me, it’s like I instinctively knew that I had to take care of my own interests because nobody else was doing it. When I had a manager who I knew was going to look out for my interests, I felt like I could put the team first because I knew that my manager would never ask me to do something that would hurt my career and that he would always counsel me if he felt I was making decisions that did not benefit me.
Between those two managers, I was always willing to work harder for the person who supported me in part because he made me feel safer and in part because I had an instinctive desire that I wanted him to succeed as a manager because in a sense, I want good people to win. He was helping me so it seemed only natural that I would seek to benefit him by producing strong results.
I see this same attitude with Nehemiah. He is seeking the good of his people, and it seems only natural that the people would reciprocate by helping to build the wall. In this way, Nehemiah demonstrates his leadership skills as well as his altruistic use of wealth.
In the next chapter, the verbal attacks of Sanballat resume.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Bible Commentary - Nehemiah 4
In this chapter, the enemies of the Jews begin to conspire against them, without success.
I think this is a really interesting chapter. In broad terms, I want to discuss two patterns in this chapter. The first is the pattern of attack; that is, the methods that Sanballat, Tobiah and their friends use to attack the Jews. The second is the pattern of defense; what the Jews do in response to the attacks that they suffer.
The first attack is mockery and insults. Sanballat and Tobiah mock and insult the Jews when sitting amongst their allies, but the words reach Nehemiah and the Jews (verse 5 makes this clear, that their words reached the builders and demoralized them). The message is clear: the Jews are weak and they will not be able to complete the work of rebuilding the wall. I think it’s really interesting that the way Sanballat tries to stop the Jews is by telling them they cannot succeed. If he actually believed that, he wouldn’t have felt the need to do anything; the Jews would have simply failed on their own. Ironically, the attack itself is proof that Sanballat himself believes the Jews are capable of accomplishing what they set out to do.
Nehemiah doesn’t have any particular response to this first attack; they simply continue building the wall. The lesson is that certain kinds of attacks should not be engaged. If Nehemiah had responded by going to speak to Sanballat or sending messages back to him, then first of all, it would have distracted Nehemiah from rebuilding the wall, and second, it would have created more opportunities for Sanballat to continue attacking in this way. As someone who largely grew up on the internet, one of the first lessons I learned is that certain kinds of arguments simply can’t be won. There are certain battles that you can only lose and the best thing to do is to not fight them.
It would be like Sanballat is saying, “the Jews are feeble and won’t succeed” and Nehemiah replies, “yes we will.” What would that accomplish? Are you really going to change Sanballat’s mind? Is he someone that Nehemiah can reason with? Through careful demonstration of their building progress to date, their careful organization, can you really convince Sanballat that the project will be successful? It’s funny because the idea is so absurd. Sanballat isn’t criticizing the Jews because he believes they will fail, it’s because he wants the Jews to believe they will fail.
We also have certain voices that cannot be reasoned with. Sometimes these voices are external critics, other people, and other times they are internal voices, our own doubts and fears telling us that we are weak and we cannot succeed (not in a schizophrenic way… hopefully you know what I mean). Sometimes there are opinions in life that we can reason with, where a careful argument and evidence can be worthwhile. There are other opinions that nothing will ever change. It is very important that we learn to tell the difference, so that we don’t spend our lives waging arguments and fighting battles that cannot be won.
After Sanballat hears about the Jews’ continued progress, he is very angry (again) and wages his second attack which was planning a physical attack against Jerusalem to kill the builders and stop the wall. I think it’s interesting how often Nehemiah was told that Sanballat was planning an attack (ten times, according to v. 12). If the Ammonites and Arabs actually wanted to attack Jerusalem, they probably would have been more secretive about it rather than tell the Jews in their neighborhood. From this, it seems like scaring the Jews is still part of their plan, perhaps even a large part of their plan.
Verse 10 is an interesting interlude in the story because it shows that the criticism of Sanballat was starting to take root amongst the people of Judah. They began repeating his words, saying that the strength of the Jews was failing, there is still a great task left to accomplish and finally that they would fail to rebuild the wall. Nehemiah does not directly respond to this sentiment, and while the Jews are discouraged they do not stop building.
The first attack was mockery and criticism. The second attack is fear and the threat of a real, physical attack. Nehemiah’s responds to both, though again we do not see him addressing Sanballat himself but only the Jews. It is clear once again that the battleground is mostly in the minds and hearts of the Jews, to keep them united and keep them working towards the goal of building the wall, as Nehemiah recognizes the futility of engaging with Sanballat.
In the previous chapter, I talked about how the wall could only be built through the unified effort of the whole Jewish community working together for the common good. In this chapter, the majority of the attacks are designed to break that unity by either discouraging or scaring the Jews into stopping the work. Nehemiah’s response, then, is to encourage the Jews, to keep them united and to keep them actively building the wall so that the work would not stop.
Nehemiah’s response is firstly to set guards. Secondly, when he “sees their fear” (v. 14) he encourages the people by reminding them of the people they are fighting for. If they were only building the wall for themselves, it would not be enough because the task was hard and long. I think this is a powerful lesson that, weird as it may sound, we are capable of doing more if we do it on behalf of somebody else than if we are doing it for ourselves. Nehemiah could have said, “fight for yourself, they will kill you if you don’t build this wall”; but he didn’t. He said, you are building this wall and fighting this enemy to protect the people you care about.
Even though I think Sanballat was largely trying to work through fear, verse 15 establishes that setting guards “frustrated their plans”, which is interesting because he did such an absolutely awful job of keeping their plans secret. So, I’m not entirely sure what they were hoping to accomplish but it suffices to say that Sanballat and his allies failed to stop the Jews, whether by violence or by threat.
Lastly, verses 16-23 presents the Jews standing with a hammer or tool in one hand and a sword in the other hand. I think this is such a poignant image that I simply have to expound some kind of lesson or teaching from it, though I’m not sure exactly what.
All of the people in Jerusalem are carrying two identities at the same time. One identity is that they are warriors. Every man is armed and ready to fight at the moment of need. The other identity is that they are builders, with each man carrying burdens or tools to build the wall. As far as Nehemiah reports, the people never have to actually fight a battle against their enemies. They are prepared to fight continually, but they have to fight only rarely (or never). Meanwhile, they are constantly building. In the same way, I think we need to keep our focus on always building, always creating new things, always building new ministries and building up the church. We also need to stay constantly vigilant so we are ready in case someone or something tries to attack what we are building and stop the work.
In any case, the construction continues and Sanballat’s attacks are defeated. This is not the end of the conflict, but in the next chapter Nehemiah takes on a new adversary, the nobles and wealthy men of Judah itself.
I think this is a really interesting chapter. In broad terms, I want to discuss two patterns in this chapter. The first is the pattern of attack; that is, the methods that Sanballat, Tobiah and their friends use to attack the Jews. The second is the pattern of defense; what the Jews do in response to the attacks that they suffer.
The first attack is mockery and insults. Sanballat and Tobiah mock and insult the Jews when sitting amongst their allies, but the words reach Nehemiah and the Jews (verse 5 makes this clear, that their words reached the builders and demoralized them). The message is clear: the Jews are weak and they will not be able to complete the work of rebuilding the wall. I think it’s really interesting that the way Sanballat tries to stop the Jews is by telling them they cannot succeed. If he actually believed that, he wouldn’t have felt the need to do anything; the Jews would have simply failed on their own. Ironically, the attack itself is proof that Sanballat himself believes the Jews are capable of accomplishing what they set out to do.
Nehemiah doesn’t have any particular response to this first attack; they simply continue building the wall. The lesson is that certain kinds of attacks should not be engaged. If Nehemiah had responded by going to speak to Sanballat or sending messages back to him, then first of all, it would have distracted Nehemiah from rebuilding the wall, and second, it would have created more opportunities for Sanballat to continue attacking in this way. As someone who largely grew up on the internet, one of the first lessons I learned is that certain kinds of arguments simply can’t be won. There are certain battles that you can only lose and the best thing to do is to not fight them.
It would be like Sanballat is saying, “the Jews are feeble and won’t succeed” and Nehemiah replies, “yes we will.” What would that accomplish? Are you really going to change Sanballat’s mind? Is he someone that Nehemiah can reason with? Through careful demonstration of their building progress to date, their careful organization, can you really convince Sanballat that the project will be successful? It’s funny because the idea is so absurd. Sanballat isn’t criticizing the Jews because he believes they will fail, it’s because he wants the Jews to believe they will fail.
We also have certain voices that cannot be reasoned with. Sometimes these voices are external critics, other people, and other times they are internal voices, our own doubts and fears telling us that we are weak and we cannot succeed (not in a schizophrenic way… hopefully you know what I mean). Sometimes there are opinions in life that we can reason with, where a careful argument and evidence can be worthwhile. There are other opinions that nothing will ever change. It is very important that we learn to tell the difference, so that we don’t spend our lives waging arguments and fighting battles that cannot be won.
After Sanballat hears about the Jews’ continued progress, he is very angry (again) and wages his second attack which was planning a physical attack against Jerusalem to kill the builders and stop the wall. I think it’s interesting how often Nehemiah was told that Sanballat was planning an attack (ten times, according to v. 12). If the Ammonites and Arabs actually wanted to attack Jerusalem, they probably would have been more secretive about it rather than tell the Jews in their neighborhood. From this, it seems like scaring the Jews is still part of their plan, perhaps even a large part of their plan.
Verse 10 is an interesting interlude in the story because it shows that the criticism of Sanballat was starting to take root amongst the people of Judah. They began repeating his words, saying that the strength of the Jews was failing, there is still a great task left to accomplish and finally that they would fail to rebuild the wall. Nehemiah does not directly respond to this sentiment, and while the Jews are discouraged they do not stop building.
The first attack was mockery and criticism. The second attack is fear and the threat of a real, physical attack. Nehemiah’s responds to both, though again we do not see him addressing Sanballat himself but only the Jews. It is clear once again that the battleground is mostly in the minds and hearts of the Jews, to keep them united and keep them working towards the goal of building the wall, as Nehemiah recognizes the futility of engaging with Sanballat.
In the previous chapter, I talked about how the wall could only be built through the unified effort of the whole Jewish community working together for the common good. In this chapter, the majority of the attacks are designed to break that unity by either discouraging or scaring the Jews into stopping the work. Nehemiah’s response, then, is to encourage the Jews, to keep them united and to keep them actively building the wall so that the work would not stop.
Nehemiah’s response is firstly to set guards. Secondly, when he “sees their fear” (v. 14) he encourages the people by reminding them of the people they are fighting for. If they were only building the wall for themselves, it would not be enough because the task was hard and long. I think this is a powerful lesson that, weird as it may sound, we are capable of doing more if we do it on behalf of somebody else than if we are doing it for ourselves. Nehemiah could have said, “fight for yourself, they will kill you if you don’t build this wall”; but he didn’t. He said, you are building this wall and fighting this enemy to protect the people you care about.
Even though I think Sanballat was largely trying to work through fear, verse 15 establishes that setting guards “frustrated their plans”, which is interesting because he did such an absolutely awful job of keeping their plans secret. So, I’m not entirely sure what they were hoping to accomplish but it suffices to say that Sanballat and his allies failed to stop the Jews, whether by violence or by threat.
Lastly, verses 16-23 presents the Jews standing with a hammer or tool in one hand and a sword in the other hand. I think this is such a poignant image that I simply have to expound some kind of lesson or teaching from it, though I’m not sure exactly what.
All of the people in Jerusalem are carrying two identities at the same time. One identity is that they are warriors. Every man is armed and ready to fight at the moment of need. The other identity is that they are builders, with each man carrying burdens or tools to build the wall. As far as Nehemiah reports, the people never have to actually fight a battle against their enemies. They are prepared to fight continually, but they have to fight only rarely (or never). Meanwhile, they are constantly building. In the same way, I think we need to keep our focus on always building, always creating new things, always building new ministries and building up the church. We also need to stay constantly vigilant so we are ready in case someone or something tries to attack what we are building and stop the work.
In any case, the construction continues and Sanballat’s attacks are defeated. This is not the end of the conflict, but in the next chapter Nehemiah takes on a new adversary, the nobles and wealthy men of Judah itself.
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