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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
Hey, it is Shelby and CJ here. Thank you for joining us. Day after day as we walk through God's word together. We're in the Book of Nehemiah, chapters seven through nine, and Nehemiah is still rebuilding despite opposition. What else is happening in the story as we pick up today?
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A
CJ yeah, so Nehemiah 7 through 9, there's a lot that happens here.
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B
That's our favorite phrase on this podcast, and you just use it.
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A
A lot that happens.
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B
Yeah, a lot going on in these chapters.
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A
So at the Beginning of Nehemiah 7, Nehemiah puts a few people in charge, and he finds that list of the people who returned that we read about in Ezra 2. And then in Nehemiah 8, Ezra stands up and he reads the law of Moses before the people. And they weep, presumably because they recognize their guilt and how they've fallen short and how that explains their current predicament, living in exile and now having to return. But Ezra urges them to celebrate all that the Lord has done. So they reinstitute the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles, or what some Jews still call Sukkot today in the Feast of Booths. If we remember from some of the episodes in the Torah, it was a time to commemorate God's general provision during the agricultural calendar. We learned about that in Deuteronomy 16. And it was also a time to commemorate when Israel dwelled in booths and were provided for during their wilderness wanderings and their sojourn. And we learned about that in Leviticus 23. So in this case, we're reminded of the biblical themes of Exodus and God's faithfulness in the wilderness and how he's always sustaining and upholding his people, which is obviously, it's a perfect time to commemorate that and reinstitute that sort of feast at this time. Right?
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B
Yeah, it absolutely is. Okay, so what happens after they reinstitute the Feast of Booths?
- [01:46]
A
So there was feasting and there was delight in Nehemiah 8. But now the people, led by the Levites, confess their sins and they praise the Lord. And this sort of, this. This confession gives a summary, really, of biblical history up to this point. And at the very end, we see that all the Jews are in the land. And after this prayer of confession, they still end up praying for a full restoration. Okay, so Nehemiah 9, 36, 37, we read here we are today slaves in the land you gave our ancestors so they could enjoy its fruit and goodness. Here we are, slaves in it. Its abundant harvest goes to the Kings you have set over us because of our sins. They rule over our bodies and our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress. So even though we recognize God's faithfulness and in this partial restoration and bringing people back, I think that people are still yearning for this fuller restoration, which probably segues nicely into what we can take away from these passages today. So I don't mean to take your job, but.
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B
No, you can take my job anytime, C.J. first of all, but I was going to ask, do we see Jesus in this text and what do we take away?
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A
Right, exactly. So I think this prayer of confession, still looking forward to some future fuller ultimate restoration. I think we still feel that today it's like we recognize our partial restoration in the sense that we're believers and following the Lord and we're promised much in the life to come, but we're still yearning for that ultimate restoration when we're reunited with the Lord. So I think, really, we can put ourselves in this part of the story pretty easily.
- [03:17]
B
Yeah, absolutely. My takeaway is going to be pretty personal from these chapters as well. There's a point in Nehemiah 8 where Ezra is reading the law, and it describes what some of the Levites are doing, and it says that they explained the law to the people as the people stood in their places, so they went out into the crowds, and as they're hearing this, they're explaining it, and it says they translated and gave the meaning so that the people could understand what was read. And cj, I. I hope and pray that a little bit of what we're doing on the podcast here is in that same vein that people are listening to this as they're going on a walk, as they're commuting, as they're doing the dishes with their earbuds in, and we're meeting them right where they're at, and they've done their Bible reading, and then we're explaining it and we're translating so they can know the meaning of it. And so that's a really cool verse in this, and it relates a lot to even what we're practically doing here day to day. So I think that's my takeaway for this episode. Okay, we're gonna wrap, wrap up the Book of Nehemiah tomorrow.
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That's right.
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We'll be back then.
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