A (0:00)

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.

A (0:25)

Family. Welcome to day 344. We are looking at Nehemiah chapters 8, 9, and 10 today. I'm super, super excited because guess what? The walls have been built. That's right. Nehemiah was able to build the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days. And today we're gonna dive into the aftermath of rebuilding that wall. Remember days ago I said that our framework for the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are. Are that the people are going to return, they're going to rebuild, and then they are going to repent. All right? So today is actually a hinge point, because we're gonna get to a place in Nehemiah chapter 8 where the people are gonna repent. It's one thing to rebuild. The walls needed to get rebuilt. That's a practical need that the people had. But that does not mean that they have been spiritually awakened, that they've been spiritually renewed. And so we are gonna look at the spiritual renewal that happens. And I am going to give you context clues, nerdy nuggets, and a timeless truth, like, every day. So if you haven't gotten the reading done today, if you haven't read Nehemiah chapters 8, 9, and 10, this is where I want you to stop the video. Pause the audio. Go get the reading done. Go get the reading done. Solid reading, not hard. And come on back when you got the reading done. All right, I'm going to give two big pieces of context, okay? First, on yesterday's reading, we've got the completion of a wall. So that means we're coming into today's reading with a complete wall. Now, there is a debate between scholars on which wall was actually rebuilt. Now, this may straddle the fence between a nerdy nugget and a context. Truth, obviously, it's context, because by the time we're in Nehemiah chapter 8, the walls are rebuilt. So the real question is which walls? Now, the debate on which set of walls Nehemiah rebuilt is whether or not he rebuilt the inner original walls of David and Solomon or did he rebuild the broad outer walls of Hezekiah's time. Okay? And here's the reason that it's important is because he either rebuilt walls around 32 acres of land or around 125 acres of land. Okay? Now, you may not remember this, but in the reign of Hezekiah, okay, he extended the walls of Jerusalem. Hezekiah extended the walls of Jerusalem, creating what is now known as the broad wall, which were an impressive new set of walls outside and extending David and Solomon's original walls. He did this to prepare for the coming Assyrian invasion, but also to house the refugees from the fall of Israel in the north. These new walls extended Jerusalem to the east and practically quadrupled the size of the city to around 125 acres. This was the size then of Jerusalem in the century before its fall to the Babylonians. The debate then is which set of walls Nehemiah actually rebuilt? Did he rebuild the original inner walls of David and Solomon, or did he rebuild the broad outer walls that Hezekiah had constructed? Okay, and obviously the reason that debate is important is because if he did rebuild the 125 acres of wall that is insanely impressive in 52 days. Okay, it's not that it's not impressive if it's the smaller inner wall of David and Solomon's time. It's just different. And if you start going down the nerdy trail of trying to figure this one out, there's scholars on both sides of this. Okay, so that's a. That's a nerdy nugget. Context clue. All right, so let's move on. Let's. I'm gonna give you a little bit more context as we dive into chapter eight. Okay? Chapter eight, verse two, says this. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra. So here we go. Ezra's back. Okay, so now Ezra and Nehemiah are teaming up for leading a spiritual renewal for the people. Okay, so on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Watergate in the presence of the men, women, and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the book of the Law. All right, let's get some context. What is this? Seventh month? Okay, it's easy for modern American Western readers to just kind of read verse two and just brush past the fact that it's the first day of the seventh month. Now, for those of you who may not know this, the seventh month is insanely important in the Jewish calendar. Okay? It's the month of Tishri. Okay? Tishri is the seventh month, and it's actually arguably the most important month on the Jewish calendar. There are three big things that happen in the month of the seventh month. Okay? The first day of Tishri is the Feast of Trumpets. This is Rosh Hashanah. This is outlined in Leviticus, chapter 23, verses 23 to 25, numbers chapter 29, verses 1 through 6. This was considered a Sabbath and a day of solemn assembly. Okay, so they're gathering on the first of the first day of the seventh month because it's Rosh Hashanah. And of course, the text is not going to tell you that. It's just going to tell you the date. That would be like you're reading something, you know, in. In popular American culture, and it just says, yep, and they were gathered on the fourth of July. Now, someone from a different culture or different time period, the fourth of July means nothing to them. Right. Or the fourth day of the seventh month means nothing. We would immediately realize the fourth day of the seventh month is the fourth of July. That's a holiday. Okay. And you could do the same with tons of holidays, right? September's the ninth month. You know, September 11th is a day that we recognize in our nation. I remember exactly where I was on 9 11. So imagine if somebody just wrote, you know, the 11th day of the ninth month. For someone with no context, that means nothing. But if you're an American and you were alive during the terrorist attacks of. Of 9 11, then you remember exactly where you were. That has tons of implications. Okay, so for most of us, we're just reading on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra, like, okay, cool. First day of the seventh month. Why is the text telling me that? It's telling me that. Because that has tons of implications. Okay, so first day of the seventh month is Rosh Hashanah. It was also considered the beginning of the Jewish year. Later, because of what Ezra did in chapter eight, it also became a day when the Torah was publicly read. Okay, so that wasn't the tradition. That's what Ezra's doing on Rosh Hashanah. And because Ezra does it now, now it becomes a tradition going forward. Okay, but that's not the only thing that's significant about the seventh month. It's not just the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. The tenth day of Tishri, the seventh month is the day of atonement. That's right. Yom Kippur. So Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are in the same exact month. You could read all about Yom Kippur in Exodus chapter 39, 10 and Leviticus 16:1, 34, and numbers 29, 7, 11, 11. The most important day of the Jewish calendar, a day of national atonement for Israel, the priesthood and the tabernacle, the temple itself. This was the one day that the high priest entered the holy of holies to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, to cleanse the temple priesthood and people. So the presence of Yahweh could stay in the temple for another year. As mentioned above, this involved a seven step ritual. Okay. And then from the 15th of Tishri to the 21st of Tishri, that's the seventh month, is the feast of tabernacles known as Sukkot or the Feast of Booths. You can read all about this in Exodus, chapter 23, verses 16 and 17, Leviticus, chapter 23, verses 33 to 44, or Deuteronomy 16, 13, 17. The Feast of tabernacles was to commemorate or to celebrate God's presence with the people in the wilderness. This was a week long celebration where the people lived in tents to remember the time their ancestors camped around the tabernacle in the wilderness and how Yahweh provided food for them to survive. The festival coincided with the end of the harvest season. And so this is a huge month. Okay, number one, it's the seventh month. And seven's a huge number in the Jewish world. Right? There's seven days of creation, there's seven instructions to build a tabernacle, there's seven steps of atonement, there's seven years to build the temple. John's Gospel, there's gonna be seven IAMs, seven discourses, seven signs, seven festivals. John's Apocalypse, the church becomes the eternal holy of holies, where heaven and earth become one, told through seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven signs and seven bowls. I mean, the number seven is all over the entire Bible, Old and New Testament. And so you get the re. You. You understand pretty quickly that the seventh month is going to be a big deal. And the seventh month on the Jewish calendar is the most important month. And it's the only month that has three holidays in one month. And like arguably some of the most important holidays, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the feast of Tabernacles. All right, that is going to give context for everything we're going to read in Nehemiah chapters 8 through 10. Okay, so the revival, the spiritual awakening that happens in Nehemiah chapters 8 through 10 aren't random. Okay, so that gives context as we move into our nerdy nuggets for this verse right here. Nehemiah, chapter 8, verse 14, says they found, written in the law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month. That so that they hadn't been practicing the festival of. Of Tab. The feast of Tabernacles, they'd been disobeying Yahweh, and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem. Okay, and then I want you to read verse 17. We're going to skip to verse 17. Says this. The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters, tents, tabernacles, booths, and lived in them. From the days of Joshua, son of Nun, until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this, and their joy was very great. Okay, so it's hard to even have context for that if you don't know what should be happening in the seventh month in the month of Tishri. All right, that's a lot of, I guess, nerdy. Just factual information. Let's get to the fun stuff. 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 the 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. Nehemiah, chapter 8, verses 2 and 5. What is going to prompt this entire spiritual renewal? Remember, the people have returned. They have rebuilt. And now it's time for them to repent. Okay, it's time for revival. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand it. He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Watergate in the presence of the men. Women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the book of the Law. And the people get to the place of hearing the book of the Law read out loud, and they decide, we need to repent. There are things we're not doing. We haven't been celebrating the feast of tabernacles. We haven't been tithing. We haven't been prioritizing the house of God. Literally, on and on and on and on and on. You read through chapters 8, 9, and 10, and the people are moved towards repentance. They are moved towards revival. And it all starts with the reading of the book of the Law, reading God's word. So something's happening there. In chapter eight, Ezra is reading God's word. And then the Levites are explaining the word of God to all of the people. So the entire nation is experiencing the spoken or preached or taught word of the Lord. It says this in verse four, Ezra, the teacher of the law, stood on a high wooden platform built for the occasion. Okay, and then verse five, Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them. And as he opened it, the people all stood up. Okay, and then it says in verse nine, then Nehemiah, the governor, Ezra, the priests, the teacher of the law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them, all this day is holy to the Lord your God. The do not mourn or weep. For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the law. Okay, why are they weeping? Because they are finally realizing their sin, their rebellion, their disobedience. And that breaks their heart. And Nehemiah and Ezra essentially saying, hey, hey, hey, don't just mourn. Don't just be sad. Let's change. Okay, so the people are going to covenant together to obey the Torah, to obey the word of the law. Okay, we could go to chapter 9, go to verse 38. In view of all this, we are making a binding agreement, putting it in writing. And our leaders, our Levites and our priests are affixing their seals to it. Okay, so they are going to reassert themselves as a covenant community. God, we're sorry that we haven't been walking in covenant obedience. We want to walk in covenant obedience. Let's repent so that we could see spiritual awakening, spiritual revival. Okay. A big theme of all of chapter nine. I'll read nine. Chapter nine, verse 33, is that God is faithful even when his people are unfaithful. It says this in chapter nine, verse 33, in all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous. You have acted faithfully while we acted wickedly. Okay? Big, big theme in Nehemiah. 10:39, the people are going to realize they've neglected the house of the Lord so that the end of chapter 10 is all about tithes and offerings. Okay? And then 1039, it's going to. Or 1038, a priest descended from Aaron is to accompany the Levites when they receive the tithes. And the Levites are to bring a tenth of the tithes up to the house of our God, to the storerooms of the Treasury. Verse 39. The people of Israel included. The Levites are to bring their contributions of grain, new wine, olive oil to the storerooms where the articles for the sanctuary and for ministering priests, the gatekeepers and the musicians are also kept. We will not neglect the house of our God, is what they say. That's what they commit to. We will not neglect the house of our God. So renewal, repentance, revival. It's amazing. Okay, now, you know, heads up. Not gonna last long, but we're on the right track, okay. Which leads us into our timeless truth for the day. And our timeless truth is pretty simple. There is no revival without a return to the written word of God. What starts this entire emotional spiritual renewal revival? It's Ezra reading the book of the law. Just reading the Bible. Someone asked me recently, why did you start the Bible department? Why did you start Arma? Like, why. Why are you dedicating so much of your life and so much of your energy and so much of your time and so much of your team's resources just to biblical literacy or the reading of the Bible or engaging with the Bible. And I said, because I think that a return to the Scriptures always pre. Prepares the way for revival. And I believe God. God for revival. I want to see revival. I want to see limbs grow back, man. I. I want to see dead people come to life. And there's a bit of this, I don't know, in the Pentecostal space. I won't name names, but there's this, like, undertone that as long as we have the Holy Spirit, that's all we need. And I would say, no, no, no, no, no. We need the Holy Scriptures. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hey. A return to the Scriptures is what precedes revival, not just an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It's not just God. Pour out your spirit. You know, there's this kind of line of reasoning that can kind of go as follows. You Know the New Testament Church, they didn't have Scriptures, but they had the Holy Spirit. And because they had the Holy Spirit, they were fine. And I hear that. But we do have the Scriptures. And why are we acting like we have to choose between the Scriptures and the Spirit? We have the scriptures that are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and we have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as New Testament believers. And everything starts with returning to the Scriptures, people falling in love with the Scriptures, people falling in love with truth, with what God has to say, with the words of God, which point to the author of the Scriptures, which is God himself. So this pattern is true all throughout the Hebrew Bible. In Josiah's time, this story can be found in Second Kings, chapter 22 to 23, or Second Chronicles, chapter 34 to 35, they find the Book of the Law. Same thing happens in Josiah's age. And what does it do? It leads to revival. It leads to spiritual renewal. Why? Because returning to the Book always leads to the reviving of the soul. Returning to the Book always leads to the reviving of the soul. Maybe you're a young leader. You want to see revival. Me, too. You want to see college campuses turned upside down for the glory of God. Me, too. You want to see churches full of people every Sunday? We don't have enough seats for people. Me, too. You want to see missionaries deployed all around the world to flood the 10:40 window to go into Muslim countries with the Gospel? Me, too. I want to see revival. And I've just studied enough church history and a pattern in Scripture to know that if we want to see revival, then we have to have a radical return to the Scriptures. There is no revival without the Bible. It's not possible. Because what happens, there's a return then to the Scriptures which brings repentance, and it's the confession of sin and the turning away from sin in the. In the love of what God loves and the hate of what God hates that actually is the seedbed for revival. All right? That's our timeless truth for the day. That's not just true in Ezra and Nehemiah's time. That's not just true in Josiah's time. That's not just true for these biblical characters. That is true today. If we want to see revival, then, man, we better return to the Scriptures because that is a, like, foolproof way to actually begin to see spiritual awakening in our nation, on our college campuses, in our cities, and all across the country. Love you guys. So proud of you. Especially if you're on a streak. I'll see you tomorrow as we end the Book of Nehemiah. Tomorrow we end the Book of nehemiah on day three. 45. I'm super, super excited. Tomorrow we're going to dive into Nehemiah, chapters 11, 12, and 13. Can't wait to see you. I'll be right here. Same time, same place. Love you. Peace.