The wall of Jerusalem was now complete, and a celebration and dedication service had just been held at the Temple.
Read Nehemiah 13:1-4
1 On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud in the hearing of the people and there it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever be admitted into the assembly of God, 2 because they had not met the Israelites with food and water but had hired Balaam to call a curse down on them. (Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.) 3 When the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all who were of foreign descent. (See Deuteronomy 23:3-6).
This may sound very harsh in our modern inclusive world but the returning Israelites needed to understand that there was good reason for the law. To welcome foreigners who worshipped other gods into their midst could lead to a weakening of their desire for holiness and purity in their worship.
Read Nehemiah 13:4-5
4 Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, 5 and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil prescribed for the Levites, musicians and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests.
So soon, it seems, one of their main antagonists – Tobiah – was actually given a room within the Temple itself!
How could this have happened?
Read Nehemiah 13:6-7
6 But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission 7 and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God.
Before Cupbearer Nehemiah had been allowed to travel to Jerusalem, he had to agree a time for his return to Artaxerxes.
But while the cat’s away the mice will play. Nehemiah had left a happy worshipping community, but it’s so easy to slip into casual disobedience – no-one ever ‘slips’ into obedience!
Now Nehemiah had come back for a second time, and had discovered to his horror that one of Israel’s main enemies had been given a room in the Temple courts.
Read Nehemiah 13:8-9
8 I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. 9 I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.
Throwing Tobiah’s goods out demonstrates his anger – I imagined a pile left in the road outside!
Read Nehemiah 13:10-11
10 I also learned that the portions assigned to the Levites had not been given to them, and that all the Levites and musicians responsible for the service had gone back to their own fields. 11 So I rebuked the officials and asked them, ‘Why is the house of God neglected?’ Then I called them together and stationed them at their posts.
With no overall authority figure to keep them in line, there had been a careless dereliction of duty, and the officials he had left in charge were missing. Some positive action was needed.
Read Nehemiah 13:12-14
12 All Judah brought the tithes of grain, new wine and olive oil into the storerooms. 13 I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites.
14 Remember me for this, my God, and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.
Verse 13 contains an important principle for any who have to manage and distribute charitable donations – they have to be trustworthy!
What do you make of verse 14 ? (actually also Nehemiah 5:19, 13:22, 13:31)
The Israelites had been given a system of laws, offerings and sacrifices by which they could approach a Holy God. It was very much a system of good works – but it left room for doubts in the minds of believers that they may not have done enough to be considered righteous.
That was one reason why the New Testament Jews were so slow to accept the salvation offered by Jesus: ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Read Nehemiah 13:15-18
15 In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. 16 People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. 17 I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, ‘What is this wicked thing you are doing – desecrating the Sabbath day? 18 Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.’
In my living memory I have witnessed the decline of Sunday from being a ‘day of rest’ when many people attended church and tried to make the day ‘different’, to a day of activity (and since 1993 in the UK) a day of shopping. I can’t say it’s an improvement. Yet another of God’s laws overruled by legislation.
However, earlier in Nehemiah’s time it was one of the laws that everyone had agreed with. Look back to Nehemiah 10:28-29.
28 ‘The rest of the people – priests, Levites, gatekeepers, musicians, temple servants and all who separated themselves from the neighbouring peoples for the sake of the Law of God, together with their wives and all their sons and daughters who are able to understand – 29 all these now join their fellow Israelites the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God given through Moses the servant of God and to obey carefully all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord our Lord.
Until of course it had become an impingement on people’s liberties and freedom of expression; and of course Friday night was the ideal time for social gatherings at the end of the working week, so travelling restrictions, and last minute shopping soon eroded the Sabbath, which officially started at sunset.
Read Nehemiah 13:19-22
19 When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my own men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on the Sabbath day. 20 Once or twice the merchants and sellers of all kinds of goods spent the night outside Jerusalem. 21 But I warned them and said, ‘Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again, I will arrest you.’ From that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath.
22 Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and go and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy.
Remember me for this also, my God, and show mercy to me according to your great love
That worked as far as Sunday Trading was concerned, so it seems he later allowed the gates to be opened, but with Levites stationed strategically to apply the law.
Read Nehemiah 13:23-28
23 Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. 24 Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. 25 I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath in God’s name and said: ‘You are not to give your daughters in marriage to their sons, nor are you to take their daughters in marriage for your sons or for yourselves. 26 Was it not because of marriages like these that Solomon king of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel, but even he was led into sin by foreign women. 27 Must we hear now that you too are doing all this terrible wickedness and are being unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women?’
28 One of the sons of Joiada son of Eliashib the high priest was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite. And I drove him away from me.
Nehemiah was obviously furious, and these days what he did in verse 25 would be totally unacceptable behaviour, and I’m not sure that forcing people to take oaths would be that effective.
Read Nehemiah 13:29-30
29 Remember them, my God, because they defiled the priestly office and the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites.
30 So I purified the priests and the Levites of everything foreign, and assigned them duties, each to his own task. 31 I also made provision for contributions of wood at designated times, and for the firstfruits.
Remember me with favour, my God.
Do we ever struggle with people who are careless and not really that interested in their work? It was this rather than deliberate sin that Nehemiah had to try to deal with. And again he is not certain that he has done enough.
The Bible contains no more ‘history’ books before the New Testament, and we are left with a feeling of uncertainty – are the Israelites now going to be obedient? Will they survive with all the political upheavals that will follow?
God was still in control and he was still waiting for ‘just the right time’ (Romans 5:6).
What actually happened during the intervening years? Before ‘the last Old Testament prophet’ John the Baptist is sent to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous – to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luke 1:17)?
We have seen how Assyria first won large areas of the ‘Middle East’, only to loose it to the Babylonians. This was then taken by the Medes and the Persians.
A major change occurred when Alexander the great of Greece rampaged across a vast area from Europe to Asia.
The Hellenistic (from original name for Greece – Hellas) period that followed changed the customs of many of the people groups under Greek control, and the Greek language became the accepted language of many.
In Israel, the common people maintained Aramaic, while the nobility copied the Greek language of their masters. Spoken Hebrew was forgotten.
Then came the Romans
(Clicking HERE starts an animated map of the spread of the Roman Empire.)
The language spoken in the Western half of the empire was Latin, but Greek continued to be the language of choice in the Eastern half.
The scriptures were translated into Greek (Septuagint or LLX) just before the birth of Jesus, and copies quickly became the version available in New Testament times.
Now, where do the other Old Testament books fit in?
Job was very old – possibly the story relates to a time in the early years up to the entry into the promised land.
The events in Esther possibly happened during the Exile, before Ezra’s return to Jerusalem.
Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs – around the time of David and Solomon.
Many prophets were sent to warn unfaithful Israel, during the reigns of the kings that followed the break-up of Solomon’s empire. Many of these wrote books containing their prophecies and can be read in parallel with the books we have covered.
There is currently a useful internet article explaining where they fit in - click HERE.
It is unlikely now that I will do more studies, but I intend to revise many of the older ones – and Romans might still be a possibility.
To continue ‘the story so far’ I would recommend you start in John.
