FIRST – a housekeeping note…

I have typed so much that I’ve nearly worn out my keyboard I think. The h is temperamental. And sometimes the T and even the space bar.

It now has the tendency to drop extra f’s and h’s at random; even when my fingers aren’t touching the keys at all. I’ll look away to read a text and look back at the screen to find an Ffff that I did not type. So if you run across a random f that I have missed, or spot a word missing an h or something, that’s why. And- my apologies.

Also, I know the schedule has Malachi 1 for today, but I’m going to cover all 4 chapters of Malachi in the next post.

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PSALM 126

This brief Psalm is lovely and cheerful and I wonder if perhaps it was written for the Feast of Tabernacles we read about in Nehemiah 8. It ends with a definite “harvest” theme.

“He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭126‬:‭6‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Maybe it was sung by the choirs in the dedication parade when they marched around the city on top of the walls. I wonder if it was written by a descendent of Asaph or Jeduthun.

If the final verse feels familiar, it’s the basis for the old hymn Bringing In The Sheaves.

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NEHEMIAH – EPILOGUE

Nehemiah had first come to Jerusalem in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes. And 12 years later he returned to the capital in Susa, probably at the request of Artaxerxes. We don’t know exactly how long he was gone but it seems that most scholars estimate he was gone for 2-3 years.

While he was away, things in Jerusalem and Judea slid sideways in a hurry.

• The men had married Gentile women from neighboring pagan states. The children from these marriages couldn’t even speak Aramaic.
• People were laboring on the Sabbath and setting up markets; even Gentiles were selling goods in Jerusalem on the Sabbath.
• Tobiah the Ammonite (who was married into a leading family in Jerusalem that included Eliashib, see Neh. 6:17-19) had pressured Eliashib the high priest to make an apartment for him in the courts of the temple.

“While this was taking place, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after some time I asked leave of the king”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭13‬:‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When Nehemiah returns, he drops the hammer. Let’s look at how he dealt with each situation.

MIXED MARRIAGES – v1-3, 23-30

They’ve already been corrected about this by Ezra barely a generation before. Nehemiah knows this. Perhaps the people thought that Moabite or Ammonite women were ok because they descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew.

Nope.

“No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever, because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way, when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭23‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Some of the men had even married women from Ashdod. That’s Philistine territory.

“And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair. And I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭13‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

😧 Wow. He beat them and pulled out their hair? Seems harsh.

Compared to what the Babylonians did because Judah had fallen into idolatry, a beating and hair-pulling is getting off easy.

Nehemiah is not about to let his people go back down that road, even if it means getting rough with them.

Even the grandson of the high priest has married a foreign woman – the daughter of the evil Sanballat who tormented and threatened them the entire time they were building the wall.

“And one of the sons of Jehoiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite. Therefore I chased him from me.”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭13‬:‭28‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Fellas… I don’t care how pretty she is or how much money and influence her family has. Don’t marry, or even date, a woman who does not share your faith in Jesus.

SABBATH SINFULNESS – v.15-22

The first Sabbath that Nehemiah is back in town is a shock. Perhaps he was out having a morning cup of tea on his balcony with a view of the farms beyond Jerusalem. And he sees people… working?! They load up their farm wagons and donkeys and into town they come with goods to sell. Even the local Gentiles show up for the Farmer’s Market.

This is illegal. The laws concerning the Sabbath are well-known. This isn’t a matter of ignorance.

Nehemiah confronts the civic leaders and shuts the Saturday Market down. He locks the gates at sunset as the Sabbath begins and stations his own personal staff there to make sure they stay shut. The merchants who camped at the gates (a’ la’ Black Friday style) he threatens to arrest if they try it again.

Guarding the gates was an important job assigned to Levite families. Why weren’t they doing it? Why hadn’t they showed up to work? Well, that brings us to the biggest problem of all…

TEMPLE & TITHE TREACHERY – v.4-13

OR

CONTRIBUTION CANCELLATION

Remember Tobiah the Ammonite? He’s the bully who jeered at the wall-builders with this zinger…

“…That stone wall would collapse if even a fox walked along the top of it!”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭4‬:‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Tobiah is well-connected.

“For many in Judah had sworn allegiance to him because his father-in-law was Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan was married to the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah.”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭6‬:‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

His father-in-law is a Jewish leader (meaning that his wife is Jewish). His son is also married to a Jewish girl from a priestly family. I mean, he’s practically a priest himself – or so he fancies.

We’re not told what strings he pulled, but while Nehemiah was back in Susa, Tobiah has Eliashib clear out a large room for storing the tithes of the Levites in the temple courts and he moves in. There’s no place for the tithes to be received and distributed so they stop collecting them. Or perhaps Tobiah collects them for himself. The tithes are how the Levites eat. They get paid with food. No food, no Levites. No Levites, no gatekeepers or singers. The priests can only do the bare minimum of sacrifices without the Levites hauling wood and water and carrying off ashes and hides and such. They leave Jerusalem to go grow their own food. They can’t work for free and have their families starve. Tobiah has single-handedly shut down the temple worship and the entire economy of Jerusalem. Nehemiah isn’t going to let this stand.

I love it when we see great men of God being… human. Nehemiah vents some…ah… righteous indignation on Tobiah’s furniture.

“I became very upset and threw all of Tobiah’s belongings out of the room.”
‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It actually reminds me of Jesus cleansing the temple. I can picture Nehemiah just hurling furniture and clothing and whatnot into a pile out in the street.

Nehemiah reinstitutes the collecting of tithes for the Levites and gets a group of priests to cleanse the space and make it sanctified again so the tithes can be stored there. And this time he appoints a team of 4 men of integrity to oversee the tithes: a priest, a scribe, a Levite, and an stout young assistant. He also calls the Levites back into work and gets things running smoothly again.

These 3 problems are the exact things addressed by the prophet Malachi. It’s very likely that Malachi received his messages from the LORD either while Nehemiah was away and things began to slip, or perhaps at the same time and in partnership with Nehemiah to show that the LORD was behind Nehemiah’s reforms. Malachi is the final book of the Old Testament. And we start in the next post.