06/11/2025 – Day 346 – Nehemiah – Chapters 10 – 13 / 1 of 2 / Chapter 10 – “An Oath”
Excerpts – from the commentary – pgs. 130 to 134:
“We saw that it was common in the ancient world when formulating relationships to recall the course they had taken in the past, then assume “obligations” for the future. We have come now to the exiles ‘firm covenant’, or resolution to be faithful (9:38). Its formal and binding character is indicated by the fact that it is written, and that the leaders of the community, with governor Nehemiah at their head, set their seal to the document (9:38 – 10:26) — just as witnesses were called to observe and validate political treaties – following which it was read publicly for the general consent of the community. The solemnity of the pledge is expressed in strong terms in 10:29, where the people ‘enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s law’. The meaning is that they recognize the justice of incurring the wrath of heaven should they depart from the commitment they now give (cf: the curses – and alternative blessings – of Deuteronomy 28, the classic Old model for this idea).
We have thus a further instance of the importance for Old Testament piety of the outward sign and the communal act. Two thousand years of church history teach us that this ice never adequate in itself as an offering to God. Yet it has a value which we may too readily despise. Solemn and public undertakings can make us forcefully come to terms with the obligations that rest upon us as God’s people. The correct insistence on inwardness is religion can degenerate into indiscipline. And once again it is of value to know the pious intentions are shared.
The pledge itself falls into general and particular affirmations (vv. 28-29, 30-39). The general affirmation, explicitly involving the whole community, recalls the measures of Ezra 9, 10. The people will hold themselves separate from ‘the peoples of the lands’. We have noted before that this is, in practice, a religious separation. All who wished to affirm loyalty to Yahweh were welcome to do so (Ezra 6:21). By the same token, the ‘peoples of the lands’ are those who worship other gods, and who will tend to seduce the exiles into idolatry. (The principle of separation, on those grounds, was first articulated in Exodus 34: 10-16.). The need to be separate is simply a logical inference from the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (Exodus 20:3); cf. also Exodus 34:17 for a restatement of the same foundamental principle, following immediately upon the prohibition, therefore, was of paramount importance to Israel’s faith.
The point is further stressed by the expression ‘all who have separated themselves… to the law of God‘. This is to say that obedience to the law is a whole way of life which marks out God’s people as a people apart from others by the very way in which they function as a community. (We have elaborated this in our comments on Nehemiah 5.). Adherence to the law was never meant to be what it later became in some quarters, a pedantic and nitpicking attention to detail that knew and cared little about real rights and wrongs (cf. Matthew 23:23). Rather it was the mark of those whose governing desire was to be like God and to show in a community what a people of God could be like. If we are tempted to think of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah as unattractively exclusivist, we may reflect that the separation of Judah from the peoples was part of a plan of God which was ultimately for the peoples. The religious element is present here in the qualification ‘all who have knowledge and understanding’. This, and the fact that the separation from the ‘peoples of the lands’ clearly involves an act of the will, shows that mere pedigree is not the same as faithfulness of God.”
AN OATH – II
The peoples pledge continues (vv. 30-39) with particular obligations which they lay upon themselves. These relate to intermarriage (again) (v. 30), to the sabbath (v. 31) and to provision for the upkeep of the Temple and clergy (vv. 32-39). There is clearly an attempt to assent to all the extant laws (of the Pentateuch) one by one. In a sense those which are reflected here are representative of the whole law. All the elements of the people’s affirmation can be traced to one requirement or another, implicit or explicit, in the Pentateuch. Yet they are not simply a random selection. Nor do they constitute mere enumeration of laws. Rather they correspond to issues which faced the community at the time. And they often show signs of modification and conscious reapplication of the laws in question.
The former point hardly needs demonstration. The commitment to the Temple occupies most space here and is a dominant concern of Ezra-Nehemiah (in the later book as well as the former, since the impulse to rebuild the city is closely bound up with the fact that it is the place where, above all, Israel’s God is worshipped). The need to furnish and maintain it may have been felt with increasing acuteness following the initial generosity of both Cyrus (Ezra 1:4) and Antaxerses (Ezra 7: 15-16). There is an analogy, therefore, between the people’s readiness to meet the ongoing needs in the area of worship and the need, already identified (Nehemiah 7:4), to populate Jerusalem. The business of being faithful to God would require a commitment that was open-ended and which made its mark upon every day of the life of the community, and of every member of it. The Temple, then, is a burning issue. So too, as we know well by now, is intermarriage. And sabbath-breach is also singled out as a problem (in 13:19ff.”
Soli Deo Gloria!