Year 2, Week 28, Day 3 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 28, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Nehemiah 10-11.

Today’s reading continues the Book of Nehemiah. There is a close connection between the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. After the walls are repaired, Ezra reemerges in Nehemiah 7 to play a key role in leading the people to renew their covenant with the LORD. The people committed to renew the covenant at the end of yesterday’s reading: “Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests” (Nehemiah 9:38). Thus, Nehemiah 10 provides a list of the people who officially apart of renewing the covenant, but also a summary of the content of the covenant, which concludes with a commitment to the House of God: “For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God” (Nehemiah 10:39). Nehemiah 11 provides information about the commitment to repopulate Jerusalem: “Now the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem. And the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem the holy city, while nine out of ten remained in the other towns. And the people blessed all the men who willingly offered to live in Jerusalem” (Nehemiah 11:1-2). Lots were cast to help determine who would relocate to Jerusalem.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading focus of their commitment in renewing their covenant with the LORD: “The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes” (Nehemiah 10:28-29). Such a response to the LORD was fitting in light the the deep mercy that the LORD had showed to Israel through the years and up to their very moment: “But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them…you in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness…and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies…Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God” (Nehemiah 9:17,19a,27,31). Renewing their faithfulness was not to get the LORD to be merciful towards them; they were stimulated to renew their faithfulness because the LORD was merciful to them.

As a part of their covenant renewal the people were specifically explicit in the areas they were committed to obey the LORD. There are at least four categories of commitments that are included in their covenant renewal. Each of the categories reflect their resolve toward holiness, that is, to be set apart from what displeases the LORD as well as set apart unto what pleases the LORD. First, the people rejected mixed marriages: “We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons” (Nehemiah 10:30). The LORD’s prohibition against mixed marriages was not about ethnic factors whatsoever; but about the reality that being unequally yoked in marriage leads to false worship:“You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4a).

Second, the people embraced keeping the Sabbath: “And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt” (Nehemiah 10:31). While the original Sabbath instructions regarding work cessation did not address commerce or the purchase of food, it seems that as the people were renewing their faithfulness to the covenant, Rather than flirting with compromise, they determine to prohibit all Sabbath transactions with outsiders and expand this to include other holy days. The people also resolved to practice the release of debts every seventh year: “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD’S release has been proclaimed” (Deuteronomy 15:1-2).

The rest of the commitments pertained to the supporting the work of the Temple: “We also take on ourselves the obligation to give yearly a third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God” (Nehemiah 10:32).; as well as supporting the priests who perform the work of the Temple: “We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the LORD; also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God” (Nehemiah 10:36-37a). The people first showed their commitment to separate from the world, but then immediately coupled that as they showed their commitment to obey the LORD as well as support the worship of God.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe