Renewal

Recap

Today we continue our journey through the book of Nehemiah!

This is our fifth Sunday studying Nehemiah, and so far we’ve covered the first five chapters, out of 13 total. But we aren’t going to be continuing that pace, we just have one more week planned in Nehemiah after this, because even though we’re technically not even halfway through the book, there’s really not too much left to cover in the story.

Today we’re going to cover a lot of ground in terms of chapters, starting in chapter 6. But first let’s do a quick recap.

The main character in Nehemiah is Nehemiah! He’s a cupbearer to king Artaxerxes of the Persian empire, during a time when the Jewish people were transitioning from being in Exile to returning to their ancestors’ homeland and rebuilding and resettling in and around Jerusalem.

Nehemiah got permission from the king to leave him temporarily and go to Jerusalem to help rebuild the city. The temple had been rebuilt and dedicated, but the rest of the city itself was in ruins, and Nehemiah just couldn’t live with that, so he journeyed to Jerusalem with the king’s blessing, and he’s been leading the efforts to rebuild the walls and gates of the city.

And so far, he’s been a pretty good example of Godly leadership. He’s shown that he trusts in God, and shows wisdom and discretion in how he handles himself in various situations, and he’s shown that his life is just saturated in prayer. Some of his prayers are better examples to follow than others, but he’s still going to God with everything on his heart, acknowledging God’s presence and power and sovereignty, while also recognizing his own role and being a willing participant, a worker. We’ve seen how trusting God doesn’t mean expecting him to just do everything for you. He became part of the solution.

And then he ran into some opposition. Those guys Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem got really ticked off when they found out the Jews were rebuilding Jerusalem. They mocked and insulted the workers, and plotted against them to kill them. But the Jews learned about their enemies’ schemes, and they responded in two ways. First, they prayed to God. Second, they stationed guards and prepared themselves so they were ready at all times to defend themselves. They worked with a sword in one hand, and a trowel in the other. And they continued to pray. So again, they put their faith in God, while also taking responsibility for their own actions and making every reasonable effort to be prepared to defend themselves, while still continuing to do the work they were called to.

So last week Mike made the point that that we should expect opposition and problems when we engage in the work of God. And when we face that opposition, that doesn’t mean the work stops. Nor does it mean we completely ignore the opposition. We trust God, address the opposition appropriately (without stooping to their level, by the way, but with wisdom and grace), and continue to do the work God has set before us.

Mike brought us through the end of chapter 5 last week, in which we found another type of opposition, or setback. This time not from outside opposition, but in the form of social injustice plaguing them from within. They were not treating each other like brothers and sisters, as God’s people should. So Nehemiah led reform among the people in chapter 5, and they were convicted of their sin, and praised God for it! And it was a great reminder that confession and repentance is a gift from God. When God shows us sin in our life, we have the great gift of being able to confess and repent of that sin, and PRAISE God for it. What follows confession and repentance should always be joy and praise, NOT a continuing and lingering feeling of guilt, but gratitude and peace in light of God’s forgiveness and mercy.

Rumors

Alright, so now we’re to chapter 6, and we’re going to find that the opposition and conflict is not quite over yet. Let’s read together from chapter 6, where the focus returns to the construction of the wall:

Nehemiah 6:1–9 CSB

1 When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that no gap was left in it—though at that time I had not installed the doors in the city gates—2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me a message: “Come, let’s meet together in the villages of the Ono Valley.” They were planning to harm me. 3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing important work and cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?” 4 Four times they sent me the same proposal, and I gave them the same reply. 5 Sanballat sent me this same message a fifth time by his aide, who had an open letter in his hand. 6 In it was written: It is reported among the nations—and Geshem agrees—that you and the Jews plan to rebel. This is the reason you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king 7 and have even set up the prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf, “There is a king in Judah.” These rumors will be heard by the king. So come, let’s confer together. 8 Then I replied to him, “There is nothing to these rumors you are spreading; you are inventing them in your own mind.” 9 For they were all trying to intimidate us, saying, “They will drop their hands from the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands.

So, Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem have changed their strategy a little bit; they’re not planning a full-on assault now, rather they are trying to intimidate Nehemiah himself. They try to get him to meet up with them, but he realizes that it’s really just a trap.

They’re persistent though, aren’t they!? They try sending this letter to Nehemiah four times! When that didn’t work, Sanballat tried to basically blackmail him with false rumors!

Remember, the Jews who returned from exile, and Nehemiah himself, while they’re rebuilding their city, they are still under Persian rule. They’re still part of the Persian empire, and Nehemiah is still under the direct employ of the king himself. So these rumors that Sanballat came up with were that the Jews planned to rebel against the king, and questioned their motives for building. He was basically threatening to accuse Nehemiah of treason. Similar accusations DID actually stop the construction of Jerusalem, if you remember back in Ezra chapter 4, it was a very similar situation.

But Nehemiah basically just shrugged these rumors off and said “nope, not true. You are inventing these rumors in your own mind.” And instead of “dropping his hands from the work” Nehemiah doubled down on his efforts.

Manipulation

But the opposition, the intimidation, continued! There’s one more tactic they tried, and I want to read this together because it’s pretty interesting.

Nehemiah 6:10–14 CSB

10 I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was restricted to his house. He said: Let’s meet at the house of God, inside the temple. Let’s shut the temple doors because they’re coming to kill you. They’re coming to kill you tonight! 11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? How can someone like me enter the temple and live? I will not go.” 12 I realized that God had not sent him, because of the prophecy he spoke against me. Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He was hired, so that I would be intimidated, do as he suggested, sin, and get a bad reputation, in order that they could discredit me. 14 My God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who wanted to intimidate me.

Tobiah and Sanballat got really devious and sneaky! If you want to give them credit for anything, it’s that they were very persistent, and very determined to see Nehemiah fail. They’ve resorted to hiring other people to try to get to Nehemiah, rather than approaching him directly themselves.

In this case, it’s Shemaiah, who we really don’t know anything about other than Sanballat and Tobiah got to him somehow, and he’s now trying to set a trap for Nehemiah. Basically, he says “hey, Nehemiah, your enemies are coming to kill you tonight, so let’s go hide in the temple and lock the doors, they won’t be able to get to us there!

What’s the problem with that? Well, Nehemiah was familiar enough with the law of Moses to know there was a problem with that. Check out Numbers 18:7

Numbers 18:7 CSB

7 But you and your sons will carry out your priestly responsibilities for everything concerning the altar and for what is inside the curtain, and you will do that work. I am giving you the work of the priesthood as a gift, but an unauthorized person who comes near the sanctuary will be put to death.”

God was assigning the Levites to the priestly duties of the temple, and it’s saying here that if anyone other than the priests entered the temple, they could be executed for it. Nehemiah was NOT a priest! He would have been an unauthorized person, and he knew that! So, he saw through Shemaiah’s “prophecy” and realized it was yet another trap.

This time, it was a trap that targeted Nehemiah’s sense of self-preservation, and was wrapped up in the guise of religious context. Here’s Shemaiah, who is evidently supposed to be a man of God, using his religious influence to try to trick Nehemiah into sinning, resulting in a bad reputation at the very least.

That never happens these days, does it? Whether it’s leaders and influencers, or friends and family, there may be times when the context of religion is used to manipulate people or to justify sin. That’s why it’s so important to know the word of God, to know the truth for yourself, and measure the words of anyone else, myself included, up against the words of God.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should always be suspicious and jaded towards everyone all the time! It’s important to have people in our lives who we can trust their motives and intentions. But even the most trustworthy people with the best intentions are still imperfect, sinful humans, so it’s crucial that our faith is never rooted in any one person’s leadership or mentorship or friendship. Those are wonderful things, and they can help us grow in our faith, but they aren’t the root of our faith. Our faith is rooted in who God is, the truth of scripture and the message of the gospel.

Nehemiah had a faith rooted in his knowledge of God’s word, and as a result was not swayed by the manipulative words of Shemaiah, someone who claimed to be sent by God. Nehemiah heard his advice and said “nah, I know God, and he didn’t send you.”

I think it’s a pretty cool moment, another really great example of Nehemiah’s wisdom in navigating all this conflict.

Completion

Let’s keep reading, the last few verses of chapter 6 kind of wrap up this section of the narrative:

Nehemiah 6:15–19 CSB

15 The wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul. 16 When all our enemies heard this, all the surrounding nations were intimidated and lost their confidence, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God. 17 During those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. 18 For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, since he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah. 19 These nobles kept mentioning Tobiah’s good deeds to me, and they reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.

So, despite all the years of setbacks, and the relentless opposition they faced, the wall was finally finished, and it only took them fifty-two days! I mean, that’s a pretty long project, but still pretty impressive I think, that they were able to get it done that quickly once they actually started the work.

But my favorite part of this, and probably even my favorite verse in this whole book is verse 16.

Nehemiah 6:16 CSB

16 When all our enemies heard this, all the surrounding nations were intimidated and lost their confidence, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God.

Even their enemies had to admit and acknowledge that the Jews’ success was accomplished through the people’s hard work, yes, but ultimately it was by God’s power the task was accomplished. And this was made all the more evident precisely because of the opposition they faced. And that may be one reason God allows for opposition at times, because it ultimately results in people being pointed to HIM and his hand in the work. In this case, all the intimidation attempts backfired, and the intimidators became the intimidated.

So that wraps up chapter 6! The wall is finished! But we’re still not even halfway through the book, so what’s the rest of the book about?

Well, chapter seven is mostly just a documentation of all the exiles who returned, and we’re not going to read through all that today. But it IS interesting to note that they still couldn’t totally let their guard down, so Nehemiah did continue to help organize and appoint people in charge of maintaining their defenses and keeping the gates.

But I’m going to skip now to the very end of chapter 7, and read through some of chapter 8.

This is really fun, because our old friend Ezra makes a cameo appearance here.

Public Reading

Nehemiah 7:73–8:12 CSB

73 The priests, Levites, gatekeepers, temple singers, some of the people, temple servants, and all Israel settled in their towns. When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, 1 all the people gathered together at the square in front of the Water Gate. They asked the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had given Israel. 2 On the first day of the seventh month, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding. 3 While he was facing the square in front of the Water Gate, he read out of it from daybreak until noon before the men, the women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the book of the law. 4 The scribe Ezra stood on a high wooden platform made for this purpose. Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah stood beside him on his right; to his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. 5 Ezra opened the book in full view of all the people, since he was elevated above everyone. As he opened it, all the people stood up. 6 Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and with their hands uplifted all the people said, “Amen, Amen!” Then they knelt low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. 7 Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah, who were Levites, explained the law to the people as they stood in their places. 8 They read out of the book of the law of God, translating and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was read. 9 Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all of them, “This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. 10 Then he said to them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.” 11 And the Levites quieted all the people, saying, “Be still, since today is holy. Don’t grieve.” 12 Then all the people began to eat and drink, send portions, and have a great celebration, because they had understood the words that were explained to them.

Alright, this is really cool! And it’s leading up to a climax in the story that’s far more significant than just the wall being finished.

The people are gathered at the water gate, and the old priest Ezra comes out and stands up in front of everyone. He unrolls the scroll and reads from the law of Moses, from dawn until noon. That’s a long time! But the people listened intently. And notice how they worshiped God with their whole body. They stood up to hear God’s word read, they lifted their hands, and they knelt down to worship God with their faces to the ground.

The people heard and understood, and they had a couple of reactions: one was to worship God as they were faced with the reality of who He is. The second was to weep and mourn as they were faced with their own failure and the reality of their sin. The law revealed how they and their ancestors had not honored their covenant, their marriage vows with God. It revealed their adultery, and that, rightly, made them sad!

However, the leaders told them not to cry, not to be sad, but to party instead! Why is that? Why wouldn’t they encourage the broken and contrite heart that leads to repentance and renewal?

Well, they actually do explain why. They say “This day is holy to Yahweh your God.” What do they mean by that? It’s not a Sabbath, it’s the first day of the seventh month, which falls during their New Year celebration, which they were commanded by God to observe with joy and feasting! So, it’s actually pretty ironic. The people want to mourn their sin, but they would just be adding to their sin if they didn’t party instead of mourn!

There will come a time later for solemn reflection, but first they’re going to observe the festivals and feast with joy.

Let’s finish reading chapter 8:

Festival of Shelters

Nehemiah 8:13–18 CSB

13 On the second day, the family heads of all the people, along with the priests and Levites, assembled before the scribe Ezra to study the words of the law. 14 They found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Israelites should dwell in shelters during the festival of the seventh month. 15 So they proclaimed and spread this news throughout their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill country and bring back branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make shelters, just as it is written.” 16 The people went out, brought back branches, and made shelters for themselves on each of their rooftops and courtyards, the court of the house of God, the square by the Water Gate, and the square by the Ephraim Gate. 17 The whole community that had returned from exile made shelters and lived in them. The Israelites had not celebrated like this from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. And there was tremendous joy. 18 Ezra read out of the book of the law of God every day, from the first day to the last. The Israelites celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly, according to the ordinance.

Alright, so they figured out “hey, we’re supposed to be doing this festival of shelters thing, like right now!” And they actually did it! Again, this was part of the celebration of the new year, which began the month they were brought out of slavery in Egypt. And the festival of shelters was meant to remind the people of the time they spent living in tents as they journeyed through the desert.

Meanwhile, Ezra is continuing to read out of the law every day, for seven days.

But the people, even though they’ve been partying, they still have to deal with this issue of their sin. Their broken vows, their fractured relationship with God.

So they’re going to address that now in chapter 9:

Confession

Nehemiah 9:1–5 CSB

1 On the twenty-fourth day of this month the Israelites assembled; they were fasting, wearing sackcloth, and had put dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. 3 While they stood in their places, they read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day and spent another fourth of the day in confession and worship of the Lord their God. 4 Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani stood on the raised platform built for the Levites and cried out loudly to the Lord their God. 5 Then the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, “Stand up. Blessed be the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting.” Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

The rest of chapter 9 continues on with this prayer of penance and confession and praise and worship. It’s really quite beautiful, and might look very similar to something you’d find in the Psalms.

It’s also quite long, so I’m not going to read through the whole thing today, but it’s definitely worth reading when you have a few minutes to sit with it, maybe with a cup of coffee.

It acknowledges God’s faithfulness and mercy to the people and confesses their history of rebellion against him. Notice that they confessed both their sins AND the iniquities of their ancestors. They realize they’re just the most recent in a long line of failures.

Renewal

All of this culminates in a renewal of their sacred vows to God and each other.

Nehemiah 9:38 CSB

38 In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement in writing on a sealed document containing the names of our leaders, Levites, and priests.

Chapter 10 goes on to document everyone whose seals were added to this legal agreement, basically everyone who signed their name, saying “we are a part of this vow” followed by the details, the terms of that vow, in verses 33-35 they list all the things they promise to do moving forward.

And then in the next couple chapters we get a whole bunch more names documenting the families who stayed in Jerusalem to settle there. Don’t worry, I’m not going to read through all those.

The Law of God

For today I just want us to dwell for a moment on what took place in chapters 8-9.

What happened here really illustrates the power of God’s word to convict. In their case, it was specifically the law which convicted their hearts.

We use the word “law” in English translations, for the Hebrew word “torah” but that’s not a perfect translation, especially because of the way we think about “law” in our society.

The torah included all 5 books of Moses, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, which means a lot of it is what we would categorize as narrative. It’s not a legal document. It’s not organized like we organize law. If I asked you about the laws of our country, or state, or local regulations, you would point me to a website or some other resource where I could find very detailed and specific laws filed into categories and labeled with section numbers and headings, etc.

The torah, on the other hand, is not organized into categories. It does have commandments and ordinances and detailed instructions for worship and festivals, and for civil issues and penalties, etc, but those appear as one part of a larger story, and the whole story together is the torah.

Another way you’ll see the word “torah” translated is as “instruction” or “teaching.” I have found that “teaching” is a helpful way to think about “torah.” The rules and regulations are provided in the context of a story, and all together it’s the teaching of God to his people.

When you do look at specific commandments in the law, the point was not to provide guidelines for every possible scenario in life. That’s how we approach law today. There has to be a very clear, written out law for everything, and we hire lawyers to know and understand every letter of the law.

That’s not how they thought about law in the ancient world. I know when we read through Leviticus it might seem very long and repetitive, but when you think about it, it’s really quite short for a legal document that was meant to govern a whole nation. Can you imagine how long it would take to read every law that governs our nation? Let alone state and local laws?

But that’s because their approach to “law” was different from ours, in several ways. Even if you look at other ancient civilizations from that time and region, law wasn’t thought of as comprehensive but as principles which could be extrapolated to many different relevant situations. So even just from a cultural perspective, law was different.

But then God’s law is special, because it’s not just meant to keep people managed and at peace with each other. It addresses behavioral and social issues, yes, but it points out those things which are symptomatic of corrupted hearts. So, the law functions, not just to condemn certain actions or to manage certain behaviors, but to convict of the heart issues which lead to destructive behaviors.

The law, when we read it in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, it provides situational examples of how a community of God-followers should act. The details of such examples are very specific to their culture at that time, however they ALL stem from root issues that apply to every culture in every time.

That’s why, when Jesus started teaching about the law, he was using it to address issues of the heart: hatred, and lust, and pride. And that’s why, when asked about which law was the most important, Jesus was able to boil it all down to “Love God, and Love your neighbor.”

Ultimately, every sin, every destructive behavior is like fruit on a branch, and you can trace the source of that fruit down through the branches, and into the roots in the ground. Our hearts, our minds, are the roots of our actions.

Love God and Love your neighbor are the very bottom of the root. Looking at God’s teachings, you could extend out from that to identify a few key branches from that, things that God really cares about, like being loyalty to him, and the sanctity of human life, sexual morality, and social justice.

So in that regard, God’s “law” or his teachings, even the ones that aren’t culturally as relevant today, they still point us to him and reveals the corruption in our hearts. Lord willing, we’ll be exploring this concept even more in a few weeks, when we look more in-depth at how Jesus interpreted the law.

Conclusion

Here in Nehemiah, we get an example of when they actually got it right. They heard the teachings of God and responded with worship and confession and repentance, and I think the most climactic moment of this book is not when the people finish building the wall, but when they renew their vows to God to symbolize their restored relationship with him AND with each other.