We shall continue the study of the book of Nehemiah of the Old Testament this week.
Recap of Last Week’s Reading:
Let’s recap what happened in the immediately preceding chapters:
The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem was finally finished in spite of much opposition, but Nehemiah discovered that very few people actually resided in Jerusalem, making the defense of the city difficult and casting the future of the city in doubt. So God put into his heart to do something about it (7:5) and the first step he took was to retrieve the official record of the list of returnees at the decree of Cyrus. In the meantime, “all the people assembled as one man” in Jerusalem and urged Ezra (who appeared not to have taken the lead as he did upon his return 13 years ago) to bring out the Book of the Law to read to them for the whole morning. It was followed by other Levites explaining or translating to the people so that they could understand what was being read. The next day, there was a smaller crowd, mainly consisting of the heads of the families and the Levites and Priests for a “small group Bible study” led by Ezra. Upon the reading of the feast of Tabernacles, they immediately jumped to observe it with about 2 weeks of preparation time. They built booths or tents as prescribed by the Law and observed the festival with great joy for 7 days and rested, as prescribed on the 8th day (i.e. 22nd of the month).
(1) What was the impact of the observing of the Feast of Tabernacles, especially with the day of rest of the 8th day, which was a day of worship, as described in 9:1?
(2) How might you explain the fact that upon the first reading of the Book of Law by Ezra (and explained by the Levites) the people responded with genuine weeping only to be told to rejoice by Nehemiah (8:10), which they certainly did with the joyous celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, only to turn to even greater mourning, with fasting and the wearing of sackcloth and having dust on their heads now?
(3) From chapter ten, we understand that they had been moved to make a very serious commitment in the form of a covenant with God to comply with His Law from then onward. Here, after their expression of contrition, both for the sins of their fathers and themselves, they said a long prayer as a prelude to this extremely serious commitment which set the tone for the religious life of the nation for the next few centuries, even until the time of Jesus:
a. In the prelude or preparation for this solemn commitment, they spent a quarter of the day (likely 3 hours) in reading the Book of the Law and another 3 hours in confession and in worship: Do you think there is any significance to the sequence? If you emulate what they did, what impact do you think it would have on you?
b. The Bible emphasizes that those who were preparing for such a commitment were those “who had separated themselves from all foreigners”. Why does the Bible choose to emphasize this, in addition to describing the serious act of external expression of contrition in v. 1?
The rest of the chapter is their corporate prayer as a preface to the agreement or covenant they were about to make with God in chapter 10. Let’s reflect on each segment of this important prayer, and attempt the following:
- Discern the theme or emphasis of each segment;
- Understand why they expressed it as part of the preface or basis of their re-commitment to the Lord;
- See how you may identify with their prayer.
(4) Vv. 5-6: An Adoration
a. Why did they start their prayer with adoration?
b. What is meant by “you alone are the Lord (i.e. Yahweh)”? (Italics, mine)
c. They mentioned God as the Creator not just of the sky, but of the entire universe — pause and meditate on how vast the universe is as we know it.
d. God is also the Creator of the earth and seas and all that is in them — pause and see what a picture this might depict in your mind.
e. “You give life to everything”— pause and reflect on what it means that God is the life giver to “everything”.
f. Turn from the physical world to the spiritual realm: Who is God?
g. Write your own words of adoration after these reflections.
h. Compare your words of adoration with those in the beginning of this prayer in v. 5. Can you identify with their feelings toward the Lord?
(5) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
(1) Vv. 7-8: Chosen by the faithful God
a. What is the significance of recalling the choosing of Abraham?
b. How and why did God choose Abraham?
c. Why did they conclude that God is righteous?
d. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(2) Vv. 9-12: Deliverance from slavery
a. In delivering them from slavery, what are the three verbs (or actions) of the Lord being highlighted in their prayer in Vv. 9-10.?
b. In punishing Pharaoh and delivering the Israelites with His miraculous power, God has “made a name” for Himself “which remains to this day”: Have you ever thought of this as an important result of the Exodus? How may you apply to your own salvation?
c. What immediately followed their deliverance from Egypt? (9:12)
d. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(3) Vv. 13-14: The Giving of the Law
a. How was the Law given?
b. Why did the prayer mention that the laws are just, right and good within the context of this prayer and the ensuing re-commitment?
c. Why, of all the laws, did they single out the Sabbath?
d. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(4) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
(1) V. 15: The Heavenly Provision
a. Of all the provisions God made for them, why did the prayer highlight the giving of manna and of water from the rock?
b. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(2) Vv. 16-18: The sin of the golden calf
a. What description did they use to describe the sins of their forefathers, especially in the casting of the golden calf?
b. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer—their sins or God’s mercy and why?
(3) Vv. 19-21: 40 years in the wilderness
a. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer and why?
(4) Vv. 22-25: Promise fulfilled
a. The prayer dealt with their entrance into the Promised Land: Can you list all the clauses that begin with “you”?
b. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(5) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
(1) Vv. 26-27: Deliverance in spite of sin
a. In contrast to the previous segment, v. 26 is marked by the pronoun, “they”: Can you list all the clauses that begin with “they” in this verse?
b. However, what is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(2) V. 28: The repeated pattern
a. What is the repeated pattern highlighted by this prayer?
b. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer and why?
(3) Vv. 29-31: God’s long-suffering
a. How did the forefathers test the Lord?
b. Did God really ignore or overlook their sins? Why or why not? What was the proof?
c. What is the emphasis in this segment of prayer?
(4) Vv. 32-35: The hardship was real
a. What was the hardship that this prayer referred to?
b. This is a confession of the most recent sins that led to their present hardship:
- List the sins that were being confessed.
- How did this prayer show their contrition?
- On what basis did this prayer ask for God’s mercy now?
(5) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
(1) Vv. 36-37: Still in Slavery
a. Now that they were able to rebuild not only the temple, but the city, why did they say that they were still in “great distress”?
b. How did the ending of this lengthy prayer serve as a transition to their public commitment to follow the Law as a nation?
(2) What did they do to make it a “binding agreement”?
(3) Who were the people who participated in the “sealing” of this agreement? Though no one really knows the reason, have you noticed that the name of Ezra was missing from this document?
(4) While the rest of the people were not part of the official “sealing” procedure, how did they bind themselves to this agreement? Who were the “rest of the people”?
(5) What is the commitment they are making now concerning the Law of Moses?
(6) How does this commitment reflect on the lessons they have learned from their past and present?
(7) What can you learn from your reflection on their prayer in the last chapter and the commitment they now make that you may apply to your life?
Here they set out their specific commitments to follow the Law of God and to carefully obey all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord:
(1) The first commitment is about inter-marriage with their neighbors. Why was it mentioned as their first commitment? How important was it?
(2) In keeping the Sabbath, what particular sin were they repenting from? How important was this commitment?
(3) How was the next commitment (10:31b) related to the rebuke of Nehemiah in 5:9-11? How important was this commitment?
(4) What was the next commitment in 10:32 about? (See Exod. 30:11-16.) How important was the impact of this commitment? (The change from half a shekel in Exod. 30:13 to a third might simply reflect the change in the monetary system over the years, especially under the Persian monetary system.)
(5) Now the priests and Levites also made their commitment to provide wood for burning at the altar which appears to clarify the responsibility in this respect in Leviticus 1:17 and 6:12ff. Since this was likely a response to their previous negligence, what might have happened before this commitment was made as far as the making of sacrifices was concerned at the altar?
(6) Then the people committed to bring their tithes again to the house of the Lord which included the annual tithes of the first crops and fruits, the offerings in lieu of their first-born, etc. How important was this commitment?
(7) Finally, they specified the resumption of the proper procedures of ensuring tithes were properly collected and accounted for with the purpose that they will not “neglect the house of our God” (10:39). How important was this commitment, considering such was probably neglected in the last 70 years after the temple was rebuilt?
(8) Pause for a moment at this point, and imagine a new society of God’s people where there was no more inter-marriage with neighboring idol worshipping gentiles, where Sabbath was honestly kept, where extreme poverty was avoided, temple worship was resumed with proper offerings at the appointed times and the people were tithing as they should: How different would such a society be from the past?
(9) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?
(1) The problem in 7:4 that “the city was large and spacious but there were few people in it” was now solved. From vv. 1-2, who were the volunteers and who might not be?
(2) What might be the significance that the city of Jerusalem be populated adequately?
(3) This was the first time Jerusalem was called the Holy City since their return. What significance might it add to the repopulation of the people inside the city?
(4) Nehemiah now listed the provincial leaders who settled in Jerusalem (either voluntarily or not) and they included the people of Judah and of Benjamin, priests, Levites, and gatekeepers. What might be the reason for his emphasis in v. 20 that the rest (which should be the majority) lived outside of Jerusalem, each on his ancestral property?
(5) What might be the reason that the (Persian) king gave orders that the temple activity be regulated (i.e. be maintained), especially through the singers?
(6) Jamieson, Fausset & Brown’s commentary points out that the “whole region in which the villages here mentioned [in 11:25-30] were situated had been completely devastated by the Chaldean invasion and therefore it must be assumed that these villages had been rebuilt…” (p. 627). What might be the reason that Nehemiah took the time to tell us that the people of Judah now lived in them?
(7) In summary, what is the picture being painted by Nehemiah in this chapter and what might be his message?
(8) What is the main message to you today and how may you apply it to your life?