05/28/2025 – Day 332 – Nehemiah – Chapters 1 – 4 /4 of ? / Chapter Three -“Building Together” / Comment below with “Thoughts?” for discussion
“We have here a picture of concerted industry on a grand scale. The chapter is tantalizing on one level, because the topographical features, which the author could presume to be familiar to his readers, are largely lost on us. However the Sheep Gate (v. 1) is usually located in the north wall of the city (closest to the Temple and therefore build, and consecrated, by the priests). The description follow the walls in anti-clockwise direction, as did Nehemiah’s night ride.
Despite the obscurity of the topographical details, the purpose of the chapter is clear enough. Two points may be made.
(i)
There was obviously little doubt in the community (with some exceptions, v. 5) about the virtue of building walls. And the author agrees with the builders. This is not unremarkable in the view of the many things that are said in the Old Testament about the essential weakness of human might and the folly of trusting in it (cf. the walls of Jericho, Joshua 6:20, and the apparent impregnability of a later and grander Jerusalem than Nehemiah’s, Mark 13: 1-2). We have noticed on another occasion, however, that the temptations facing the returned exiles were chiefly those of assimilation rather than of pride in their own might. The building of these walls would be a testimony to God’s power rather than to their own, and to their determination to be a holy people, separated from others by their faithfulness to him.
It is important to bear in mind the potency of walls as symbols, quite apart from their physical strength. For Nehemiah, as we have noticed, news of a sad condition of Jerusalem’s fortifications had been a matter of personal humiliation. (See 2:3 and comment.). Walls have a significance which outlasts their actual usefulness. Anyone who has witnessed the annual rituals focusing on the walls of the old city of Derry in Northern Ireland, at which the resistance to and relief of a siege of centuries ago is commemorated, knows of this kind of power. Walls, like a flag, can provide identity and solidarity. It is in these terms that we should view the present activity. The Lord was giving his people a badge, a further token – alongside the Temple – that they were his people. (*A – below)
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Jimmy comment / Thoughts?:
(*A) – Highlighted here, as just on pointer to the incomprehensible perfect plan of our LORD. Just go through a quick panoramic view of the history of God’s chosen people. Think of the cry of the people: “How long O Lord?”, as they endured horrific cyclical suffering that would extend beyond say a single soul’s lifetime. Is it a lesson in “why do ‘good’ people suffer? Well, only God is ‘good’.
And then, we can look at Romans, chapter 11, as we discover that we Gentiles are actually grafted into God’s “chosen” people. Our modern day heretical replacement theory that pronounces that the Jewish people are no longer God’s chosen people, that ‘the church’ have replaced them. Well, they have obviously ripped out Romans, chapter 11 from their bibles. The infallible Word of God you say?
Recalling back to my youth of say six decades ago, there weren’t many Messianic Jews around. But today, they are proliferating in front of our eyes. Question for the replacement theory advocate heretics: Are these Messianic Jews included in your ‘church’ definition? Isn’t the church the one body in Christ?? “A thousand years are like a day” to God. Let’s hearken back to Isaiah who prophesied that the Jewish people would in fact someday return to their promised land, a prophecy fullfilled some 2,500 years later in 1948.
And, my question again: How can such a small group of people, relative to world population throughout history, survive through such horrific persecution. What did they do that was so bad relative to the rest of us Gentile sinners? And, with the Holocaust clearly in our rear view mirror, how is it that we return to this doctrine of incessant unrelenting hate that comes straight from the Devil and his minions?
See – Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God is Holy ; He keeps all of His promises. btw: The back end of this verse adds to the absurdity of replacement theory, as if we needed it.
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“The second point to note is that the solidarity or esprit de corps which walls can produce was actually experienced by the people. Everyone, apparently, was involved, from the High Priest down (v. 1). We need not suppose that the list is exhaustive. (It is often pointed out that there are a number of references to ‘second sections’ – without information about their corresponding first sections.). The point is that all kinds of people participated, named – besides the priests – according to family (e.g. v.3), town (v. 5) or even profession (v. 8). Some of those named were evidently influential (e.g. Shallum, v. 12, ruler of half of Jerusalem). Many did not actually belong to Jerusalem. Their co-operation on the walls is one of the Old Testament’s finest pictures of its ideal of Israelite brotherhood. Each worked, literally ‘by the side of’ the next, apparently without rivalry or envy. If there were differences of wealth and standing – and there are some hints that there were, in that some men are called ‘rulers’, and there is evidence of a burgeoning merchant class, v. 8 – they do not appear here. The only distinction recognized is that of belonging to the people of God and being engaged in his business.
This is not to say that there was no organization or authority. The whole enterprise is highly organized, and the authority of Nehemiah himself seems implicit. But these things do not obtrude. The dominant impression is of each individual cheerfully accepting his own role, and seeing how his work contributed to the whole. The pressure of adverse circumstances undoubtedly contributed to this — just as the experience of wartime in living memory teaches us that it does. A mood like this ought to characterize the Church at all times, however. The most challenging instance of it is recorded in Acts 2: 43-47.”
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Soli Deo Gloria indeed!