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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Neh. 7-9
It is really hard to tell what Nehemiah is recording from his time and what he is repeating from earlier records here. Chapter 7 is obviously from the records in Ezra 2, though it is not an exact match. And chapter 9 is a prayer recounting Israel’s history. I have no idea if the celebration and prayer recorded by Nehemiah happened in his time or previous to his arrival. Thus, the only thing I’ve got in my head from all of this is that there is a lot of history here. Not just from our current day perspective, but also from Nehemiah’s day. History is important because without it we know neither ourselves nor God. Such knowledge is the first step toward wisdom, because it is this knowledge that leads us to salvation.
In thinking about all the history, I realize what Solomon stated in Ecclesiastes. Nothing ever changes under the sun. The human experience is cyclical and always returns to the same place. Until God intervened. He disrupted that historical cycle with Jesus. This explains the concept of being born again. God wipes out things past and gives us a whole new history – one full of life and mercy rather than death and judgment. He removes us from the cycle that we can’t break. And through it all, regardless of what any of us does, God remains the same.
Neh. 10
The returned exiles recommitted themselves to God with the vow recorded in this chapter. Again, I have no idea if this happened before or after Nehemiah’s arrival and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall. What I do know, that is not yet evident in the reading, is that this vow, like all the others, did not last very long. Thus, this becomes part of our history lesson. It doesn’t matter how well intentioned we are at any given moment. The hard truth is that we cannot remain fully committed to God on our own. We don’t just need another do-over; what we need is a whole new way of doing things. If history tells us anything at all, it tells us that we need Jesus.