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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey.

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Emily, welcome to day 342. We are in a brand new book of the Bible. We are in Nehemiah. Now, let me kind of add a little caveat to being in a brand new book of the Bible. This was not originally a separate book than Ezra. And so really we are in Ezra Part 2, aka Nehemiah. But we get to celebrate that it's another book of the Bible, another milestone as we inch closer and closer and closer towards the end of the year. Guys, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today's day three 42. We're about to be at day 365 soon, and I'm super, super, super excited, super proud of you. Today we got Nehemiah chapters 1, 2 and 3. We are going to be in the book of Nehemiah, AKA Ezra part two for four days. And we are going to now see the third wave of exiles return to Jerusalem under the leadership of my man, Nehemiah. All right, so if you haven't done the reading, how about you stop this video, pause the audio, go get the reading done, and when you got the reading done, come on back. Nehemiah is a fast paced, action packed book, so the reading, honestly, should not be difficult. And let's go ahead and put some things in context. All right? All right. We're going to dive into the first part of the episode, which, like we do every day, I'm going to give you context clues that will hopefully make the reading make way more sense, and then we'll dive into our nerdy nuggets. I'll try to give you as many nerdy nuggets as possible for today. And then I've got a double header, timeless truth for you. So first thing I want to do with our context today is just to go over the timeline. Okay. We have looked at a lot of things, especially in the last couple of books of the Bible. I kind of want to just give everyone a timeline. Now, I know dates may throw you off guard. For some people, dates are insanely orienting. For other people, dates can be disorienting. So sorry if dates are disorienting. They orient me big time. At least they help me understand what came first, what came second, what came third, what came before or after? Another thing. Okay, so we're gonna start this timeline with the return that Zerubbabel leads. Okay, this whole chain of events is kicked off in 5:38. Okay, 5:38 B.C. 538, 537 B.C. is the first wave of return from exile, led by Zerubbabel. Okay, Zerubbabel, whose name means planted in Babylon. Zerub planted. Babel. Babel. Babylon. Okay, planted in Babylon. Two years later, in 536, we're going to get. The foundation stone is laid for the second temple. So Jesus lived in Second Temple Judaism. Okay, it's. That's called the Second Temple period. So Zerubbabel's temple is the second Temple, Solomon's temple is the first. Okay, the foundation stone is laid for the second temple, but local opposition stops the work. That's 536 BC the work is stopped for 16 years. That gets us to 520 B.C. 520 B.C. we get the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah, who encourages. Who encourage Zerubbabel and the people to resume the temple work. Okay, 5:16, four years later, the second temple is finished in 516 B.C. then from 479 to. To pretty much 478, the events of the Book of Esther take place. And then right after that, you're going to get. Ezra is going to come up on the scene. In 458, 457, give or take, we're going to get the second return of Exiled Israelites that are going to come back from Persia back to Jerusalem, led by none other than my man Ezra. All right, so that's a timeline. Now, Nehemiah, chapter one is going to essentially orient us with some dates. It says this. In the month of Kislev, in the 20th year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hanani or Hanani, one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that have survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. Okay, so let's go back to that context. In the month of Kislev, in the 20th year, while I was in the citadel of Susa. Okay, 20th year of what? I love that. Because the Bible is not going to tell us outright the 20th year of, I don't know, the 20th year of Aretha Franklin's life. I don't know, the 20nd year of NASA being established. Like the 20th year of what? Well, it's the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes I, the same king who aided Ezra in his return. In Ezra, we looked at the reigns of the Persian kings and Artaxerxes. The first reigned from 464 to 423 BC which puts the events of Nehemiah beginning in 444 BC so Ezra had been back in Jerusalem for about 12 years when Nehemiah's story begins. 5:38, 5:37, first wave of returnees. Okay, come back with Zerubbabel. 5:36, the foundation stone is laid for the second temple, but local opposition stops the work. The work stops for 16 years. In 5 20, the Ministry of Haggai and Zechariah kickstart the building, the building project to resume. They got four years, from 5:20 to 5:16, until the second temple is finished. And then 4:79 to 4:78, we've got the events of Esther that are going to take place. And then we get a second wave of return of returnees from exile led by Ezra in 4:58, 4:57. And now in 4:44 B.C. we've got Nehemiah leading the third wave of returnees back to Jerusalem. All right, talk about a robust timeline. All right, you should, you should feel very oriented, okay? Especially if you wrote those dates down while I was talking. You've honestly got a massive map or a roadmap of just a timeline. Now, heads up, okay? The Jewish people are going to experience 400 years of silence, which means if we're in 444 B.C. we're 444 years before Christ and prior before the birth of Christ, we're going to get 400 years of silence, which means we're like 40 years away from the end of the Old Testament. Like, we're. You should hear 444 B.C. and think to yourself, we're coming down to the wire. Like, the next thing that's going to happen is the end of the Old Testament is coming, and then we're going to get 400 years of silence and then Jesus is going to be born. Okay? The incarnate Christ, the son of the living God. All right, one final piece of context. Okay, so Nehemiah is going to hear that the situation in Jerusalem is not the best, could be better, that there are walls that are burned down, that the people that the temple has been rebuilt by, but that their living conditions are pretty bad because they're living unprotected. Okay? It would be very, very, very unsafe to live in an ancient city with no walls. It, it genuinely just means anyone can attack you at any time. So Nehemiah's heart is broken. It says this in verse four, chapter one, verse four. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept for some days. I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. And, okay, so Nehemiah is really moved by the fact that, you know, his ethnic people, like the Jewish people are. There's a remnant of people living in Jerusalem. Remember, you know, there's upwards of hundreds of thousands, if not a million Jews living in the Persian empire. There's only 50,000 that went back to Jerusalem. So it's a remnant. And he's mourning over the fact that there's a remnant of people who live in Jerusalem under dilapidated conditions. And he's broken by it. He fast, he prays. Okay, now he wants to go rebuild these walls. And if you don't have context in the book of Ezra, you may be like, why? Why does it take a lot of courage to go ask, you know, the king, if we can go rebuild these walls? Well, if you remember, okay, this exact same king, Artaxerxes, had already said no on rebuilding walls. You can rebuild a temple. You can go, Zerubbabel, you go rebuild the temple. Hey, Ezra, you go make sure that there's religious reform. Make sure that people are obeying the Torah, but that Nehemiah is going to go rebuild the walls. But the king had already said that rebuilding the walls is a no go. Okay, so we know from Ezra, chapter 4, verses 7 to 23, that prior to the events of Nehemiah, Artaxerxes had forbidden new work on rebuilding Jerusalem. So although he had aided Ezra in his return, which had a primarily religious focus, he wasn't necessarily as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily. Okay, Walls meant that we could defend ourselves against the Persians if there was some kind of revolt. Okay, so that's why temple. Not that threatening walls. It's a whole nother story. I said that not as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily. This policy of Artaxerxes will, however, change because of the face, because of the integrity, and because of the prayer of his cupbearer Nehemiah. So let's dive into Nehemiah as a person. That's all of the context that I think we need. Okay, now let's. Let's actually focus in on who is this guy Nehemiah? First of all, he has a heart. His heart breaks after the things that break God's heart. He is broken not because of his own situation in life, but because of what the lives of other people. So immediately we're at compassion, empathy, okay? That he has broken to his core not because of anything that really affects his day to day life, but because of people who he's never met, people who he doesn't know. He wants the quality of their life to be awesome. That's a great starting point when we begin to cry out to God, if God were to answer all your prayers, would you be the only person blessed? That's a challenging question, right? Like, if God were to answer your prayers, who would actually benefit from God answering your prayers? Because Nehemiah is not a direct beneficiary on the prayers that he's praying. But you can hear it right here. You can start to see his character and a little bit of the worldview that both Ezra and Nehemiah share. In verse 7 says, we have acted very wickedly towards you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant, Moses. Is it really we or is it they? Right. For a lot of us, we would have been praying to God and we would have said they. But Nehemiah understands this is not an individualistic culture that he's living in. So for Nehemiah, it's if they have done something that does mean we have done something to break God's heart. And now my heart's broken because God's people are living in a land with no walls to protect them. All right, we, we, we, we, we, we. Not me. I've tried to teach our team that at the church. Hey, like, everything is we, we, we, we, we, we, we. Gotta, we gotta move out of an individualistic, hyper individualized, like, mindset and adopt a we, a group mindset. One of the big nerdy nuggets that I really want to focus on. Probably the major nerdy nugget that I want to focus on is that Nehemiah is going to get depicted as a new Joshua. Now, there's a lot of nerdy nuggets that honestly, I don't say because in my head I'm like, oh, you guys are smart. You could see that. I try to reserve nerdy nuggets for the things that you may not be able to see on your own. So Nehemiah is set up as a new Joshua, which makes sense why? Because Ezra was set up as a new Moses and Joshua is Moses's king Aid. He's his younger counterpart. And Nehemiah is going to be seen that same way as it relates to Ezra. Okay, so if Ezra's a new Moses, every Moses needs a Joshua. So Nehemiah is going to come alongside an older Ezra to begin to push for a lot of the same things. Okay, so Ezra, Nehemiah, different assignment, but same agenda. Okay? One is pushing for religious reform, Torah like, observance, and one is pushing for the physical walls to be built back up. Different assignment, but the same agenda. And I could get into a timeless truth right there. Sometimes we assume that just because someone has a different assignment than us, then they're on a different agenda, but that's not true at all. There could be churches or Christians with a different assignment. And so often we're so quick to jump to conclusions about whether or not what that church is doing or whether or not what that Christian is doing is kingdom focused or pushing the kingdom of God forward. And honestly, you may want to suspend judgment because that person just may not have the same assignment as you. That church may not have the same assignment as your church, and churches have assignments, but we all have the same agenda. And churches go about fulfilling the Great Commission differently. And that's great. That's awesome. Every church doesn't need to look the same. And sometimes there can be a lot of rhetoric online that's like, well, if your church isn't doing this, they're not really a church. They're not the church. It's like, calm down, man. There are some churches that are really called to pioneer in terms of missions. That doesn't mean that's the assignment on every church. There are some churches, they have an assignment to record albums and to release music that. That moves the body of Christ forward. That doesn't mean that that's every church's assignment. And the church that spends money on albums isn't evil just because they're not spending money on overseas missions. These two organizations may have a different assignment from God, but the same agenda. Missionaries and albums are both moving the kingdom of God forward. And so sometimes we can be. We can have a little bit of a Judas Spirit. You know, there's a woman pouring an alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. You'd be like, we could have used that to feed the poor. It's like, yeah, but that wasn't that woman's assignment. The Holy Spirit told her to pour that alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. Had the Holy Spirit told that woman to go sell that jar and give the proceeds to the poor, then that's what she should have done. And a lot of times, we love to judge other people based on the assignment that God gave us. There are certain churches, hey, God may have an assignment on that church to be politically engaged. That's fantastic. Nothing wrong with that. But those churches can't then judge other churches who don't do that. Uh, every church has a different assignment, but we all have the same agenda. And that agenda is to move the kingdom of God forward, to edify and to build up God's church. And so, Ezra, Nehemiah, different assignments, same agenda. They're building up the people of God. Whether that's a wall or a temple or through Torah observance, they're building up the people of God. They're building people. They're not really just building a temple or building walls. They're building people. And the quicker we can all see, hey, different assignments, same agenda, the more we can all just, like, work together to move the ball down the field. All right? When you begin to compare Nehemiah and Joshua, you begin to see that there's tons and tons and tons of similarities. Okay, there's gonna be seven opposition reports in Nehemiah. I'm gonna give you the verses, and you can look them up on your own. Nehemiah 2:10, Nehemiah chapter 2, verse 19, Nehemiah 4. 1, Nehemiah, chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. Nehemiah, chapter 4, Verses 15, Nehemiah, chapter 6, verse 1, Nehemiah, chapter 6', verse 16. Nehemiah is going to get reports from opposition, okay? And they're modeled after the opposition reports that the Canaanite kings have against Joshua. You can go read Joshua, chapter 5, verse 1, Joshua 9, 1, Joshua 10:1, and Joshua 11, verse 1. Why do the opposition reports mirror each other? Because Nehemiah is a new Joshua. This is really for tomorrow, but it's fine. We can get into it right now. In Nehemiah, chapter 4, verse 12 to 14, Nehemiah ascends the city walls with horns ready to blast and announce our God will fight for us. Guess what? Joshua is going to surround Jericho's walls with priestly soldiers carrying horns ready to blast in Joshua. Chap. 5 in. In saying the words, our God fought for us. Okay, you can see Joshua, chapter 10, verse 14, Joshua, chapter 10, verse 42, Joshua, chapter 23, verse 3, and Joshua, chapter 23, verse 10. One of the things that God is going to say to both Nehemiah and Joshua is do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses. That's Nehemiah 4:14, which sounds a lot like Joshua, chapter 10, verse 25. Okay, so there's a clear link between Joshua and Nehemiah. Okay, so you go ahead and compare all those on your own. Now, one of the things that I wanted to just make you aware of this is a nerdy, nerdy, nerdy nugget. Couple things. Susa was a winter palace. Okay? So just like Esther, Nehemiah begins in the city of Susa. Susa was not the capital of Persia. That was Persepolis. But it was an important administrative center with many state buildings that had been built by the Persian kings. It also was the location of a winter palace that was often used by Persian kings, which is why Xerxes was there in Esther and Artaxerxes is here in the book of Nehemiah. All right, last couple nerdy nuggets as we wrap up for today. Is that all of the guys who are in opposition, okay, There are three Persian officials who are in opposition of this wall getting built. They're mentioned as key leaders in opposition to the Jews. All three of them are actually recorded in Persian records. So, again, like, Persian records are corroborating what's happening here in the Bible. Sanballat, the Hornite, was the governor of the Samaritan area of the satrapy beyond the river Tobiah. The Ammonite was the governor of the Ammon region of that same satrapy in Gesham. The Arab was the governor of the northern Arabia as the same satrapy. Okay? The Persian kingdom used satrapies. You can Google that word if you want to. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. But that's just another example of how no archeological find in history has ever disproven the Bible. The Bible is trustworthy. And I think that is really, really, really, really cool. I'm pretty sure I already said that in Ezra, chapter 4, verse 7 and 23. Prior to the events of Nehemiah, Artaxerxes had forbidden new work on rebuilding Jerusalem. So although he had aided Ezra in his return, which had a primarily religious focus, he wasn't necessarily as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily. Yeah, I said this. This policy of Artaxerxes will, however, change due to his incredible cupbearer name. All right? And that's what today's reading is really all about. The fact that one dude named Nehemiah is able to get Artaxerxes to change his mind and actually be a proponent of the people rebuilding. One last verse that we're going to use as our timeless truth as we end the episode. This is Nehemiah, chapter 2, verse 4 and 5. The king said to me, what is it that you want? By the way, the king can tell that Nehemiah is sad. For context, being sad in the king's presence was a. No, no, okay. Absolutely not. You are not to be sad in the king's presence. Now, that's a whole nother lesson for a whole nother day. But Persian kings did not allow any personal emotion. You had to be professional when you were in the king's presence. And so Nehemiah is risking his own safety and welfare just by being sad. And he can't help it. He's literally heartbroken over something that does not really directly involve him, but he makes it his business, which is what great leaders do. The king then said, what is it you want? Then I prayed to God of heaven and I answered the king. I prayed to God of heaven and I answered the king. One of my big prayers for my son is always that he would grow in wisdom and stature and find favor with God and with man, grow in wisdom, grow in stature, find favor with God and with man. I love. We can see that exact template or that pattern right here. He prayed to God of heaven and answered the king. He had favor with God, but also favor with man. And I think there's a lot of people who have favor with men, but maybe not favor with God or favor with God but not favor with men. But really growing in wisdom and stature means that you have favor with God and favor with man. And that's not just true for Nehemiah. That's not just true in 444 B.C.that's true for you. That's true for me. That's timelessly true. That that combo will always work. That we pray to the God of heaven and then we have an answer for humans that are in front of us. All right. I hope that that's helpful. I'll see you tomorrow right here same time, same place for day three 43 as we continue our trek through Nehemiah, chapters four, five, six and seven. Super, super excited. We got four chapters of the Bible tomorrow. Four, five, six and seven. I'll see you right here. Love you. Proud of you. Peace.