06/04/2025 – Day 329 – Nehemiah – Chapters 5 – 9 / 4 of ? / Chapter 8 commentary – “The Need to Know” and “A Time to Dance”
Picking up J.G. McConville’s commentary from pg. # 115, under (ii):
“This chapter is the most important, however, for its picture of Israel at worship. The buzz of excitement at finishing the walls has hardly had time to settle by the first day of the seventh month.. We might expect a natural readiness to praise God on this occasion, therefore. It is interesting to find, then, that behind the thanksgiving lies, not the mere fact of the new walls, but a reading of the law (vv. 1ff.). Israel rejoices in response to the word of God. The building of the walls is set in its context. The enemies of Israel have been thwarted not because of an isolated, once-for-all action of God – that could always be interpreted as a fluke — but because of God of Israel is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
A number of points can be made here. We confine ourselves initially to observing what this relationship between the word and thanksgiving says about worship. We have in these verses one of the most graphic portrayals of Israel at worship in the Old Testament. There is in the first place a tremendous solemnity about it. Ezra stands on a wooden pulpit. (The word actually means ‘tower’. It looks as if there was no ready-made word for pulpit.). We are close here to the beginnings of the Jewish synagogue, which may have originated in the Babylonian exile, where the law was regularly read from a raised platform, and where places were reserved for the most eminent synagogue members close to the spot where the law was read (cf. v. 4b). The effect was to show that those who wielded authority in the community were themselves under the authority of God, and that therefore it was the word of God that regulated the whole life of the community. We can almost hear the hush as Ezra opens the book and the people stand (v. 5). Something of this has been preserved in those church traditions where the Bible is carried solemnly to the pulpit before the minister arrives, so that the whole congregation places itself symbolically under the authority of the word.
Ezra’s congregation showed no reluctance, it seems, to listen to the long sermon (v. 3)! Rather, there is great concern that as many as possible should hear and understand. ‘All who could hear with understanding’ (v.2) probably refers to children who are old enough to ‘stay with the grown-ups for the sermon’, as we might put it. But even among those who were mature enough to understand, Ezra did not take understanding for granted. The activity of the Levites in verses 7-8 could either be translation — on the supposition that the people’s language had been influenced by the Aramaic of Babylon and perhaps other dialects — or simply, and most probably, elucidation of things which may been difficult to grasp. The law-reading thus entirely corresponds to what is laid down in Deuteronomy 31: 9-13; where provision is made for reading the law every seven years at the Feast of Booths,. There as here, we find a concern that those who hear may really understand and not just pay lip-service. For on their understanding depends the reality of their experience of God, and the likelihood of its being transmitted to the next generation. Ezra may have been stepping into the seven-year cycle. The tone of the chapter makes it more likely, however, that he is re-initiating something that had lapsed.
This need for understanding the word of God, and the fact that it cannot be taken for granted, has been recognized by the Church in its most active periods. Creeds and hymns, passion plays and the lowly jingle have all played their part. In the 20th century a whole world of communications aids lies at our feet. We may not know how the Levites ‘gave the sense’ (v. 8 – they may have done it in an ad hoc way as questions arose); but if it is our real concern to pass on a knowledge of the Christian faith that goes beyond a meagre minimum, we will refuse to make a ‘sacred cow’ of any inherited method and tap all the expertise of the day in order that we might know more of our God.
The setting was solemn, but it was evidently not inhibiting. The people cried ‘Amen’, raised their hands in prayer and prostrated themselves in adoration . Certain modern church movements have sought to recapture something of its self expression. For others it seems to be, well, overdoing it a bit! Of course, the preferences of ancient Israel cannot be made the measure of acceptable style in modern worship. Our spiritual forefathers were informed by their culture, as we are. For the Hebrew, emotion inevitably expressed itself in physical attitude. This was because the self was conceived was a unity to a far greater extent than in most modern western culture, where there has been, in many reaches of the Church, a reaction against externalism in religion and a concentration upon inwardness. This is well and good apart from the constant danger that, when outward expression of emotion has been abolished, the vaunted inner passion can be well gone before anyone — including the person concerned has noticed! The point that is enduring here is that the reading of the word produced a response which was heartfelt and which was evident to and shared by the congregation. Whatever our cultural or temperamental prejudices, we must find ways, as congregations of God’s people, not only of hearing, but of knowing that we have heard together. For the experience of togetherness is part of hearing, and that way lies increased faith.”
The reading of the law, as we have seen (VV 1-8), produced a profound emotional response. There was clearly a strong element of penitence in this, for we are told that the ‘people wept’ (v – 9). Ezra and Nehemiah, however, believe that the appropriate first response to the rebuilding of the walls is joy. They therefore send the people off to feast and make merry, drawing the under privileged into their festivities (vv. 10-12). If there is to be a time of rigorous self-examination (cos. 9,10) let it first be remembered that God is good, and means it well with Israel.
The people’s initial tearful response, followed by the command to rejoice and to share with the poor, raises the question of what was read to the people that produced such reactions. The words of Ezra and Nehemiah, backed up by the Levites, in verses 9-12, suggest that there were two elements which made an impression. (This is apart from the law’s many commands, which had evidently produced a sense of sin and therefore weeping. Since Ezra and Nehemiah postpone consideration of these we shall do like likewise!)
The first element in the law-reading was evidently God’s desire to bless Israel, This might have stemmed from Genesis 1 with its declaration of God’s intent to bless the world he has made (vv. 28-31). With respect to Israel in particular, it will have emerged most strongly from Deuteronomy, with its descriptions of the wealth of the promised land (8:7-10). Perhaps it was because they had squandered all this that the people first wept. Now, however, they are directed to go and eat the fat of the land (v. 10). (There is some confirmation here that famine of 5:3, as we noted there, did not occur at the time of the construction of the walls.). This is in close conformity to the pattern in Deuteronomy where worship is conceived as a joyful participation in the plenty which God has provided (Deuteronomy 12:7; 14: 24-26).
This note of joy is sustained for a considerable period. The study to which the people give themselves on the second day (v. 13) issues in the Feast of Booths, which begins some weeks later and which is also characterized by rejoicing (v. 17b). The dwelling in booths was symbolic on more than one level. We have noticed already that it could be a sobering reminder of impermanence against a false trust of the walls. Yet is is also appropriate as a celebration of the wall-building because the success of this has marked a final stage of the ‘new exodus’ similar to that first exodus which gave the feast its original meaning (Leviticus 23: 42-43). Rejoicing like this in response to God’s goodness shows that the people of the Old Testament did not fall into the trap, which has not been universally avoided, of making all worship uniformity sombre. Such would be an insult to the God who desires above all moe of that uninhibitedness we have noticed already (cf. David’s abandon after bringing the ark to Jerusalem; 2 Samuel 6: 12b-15). And it cannot be overstressed that this is not self indulgence. Rather, like the more solemn response of verse 6, it has a function for faith , expressed in the assurance that ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength’ (v. 10). It is a vital for Israel to experience and affirm together the goodness of God. Thanksgiving to God for what he has done for a people cannot be dissipated into a thousand separate and unrelated responses. It is when the voice of thanksgiving is unanimous that it takes on an authentic ring and becomes strength, the strength of a sure faith.
Let is be stressed, however, that it is joy in God. What we witness here is not the tacking on of vacuous festivity to an act of worship which is itself kept drab. The rejoicing is worship. What must be cultivated is a rejoicing together in the goodness of God.
The second element in the law-reading which has conditioned the worship of the people is the call to neighbor-love. The good things of the land belong as of right to the poor, and their interest in it is guarded by the command to those who have to share with those who have not. It is no coincidence that the call to rejoice is accompanied by such a command. Exactly the same association of ideas occurs in those passages in Deuteronomy which we have already found to have exerted an influence on the present chapter (Deuteronomy 12:12; 14:29). The right of the poor is an implication of the brotherhood of Israel, an idea which we saw to underlie chapter 5. Indeed there should be no poor at all (Deut. 15:4). The point is plain. There can be no conscientious exultation in the plenty of God’s world while brothers and sisters go needy. It is hard to put limits to the radicalness of this principle for a western world that is shielded from want but knows all too well that much of the world is dying from it. ‘Let every one be fully convinced in your own mind”. (Romans 14:5).
Soli Deo Gloria!