Nehemiah 5 & 6 Finishing the building work and sorting out issues

Nehemiah 5
Some of the poor people left in the land of Judah were struggling and took loans and mortgages on their fields, going to far as selling their children into servitude.

The issue for Nehemiah is that the people loaning money and taking interest and a proportion of the crops and buying the children were not Assyrians or Babylonians or even other nations, Jews were doing this to fellow Jews.
This is contrary to the law of Moses which does not allow Jews to charge interest (at least to Jews) and to respect the poor.

The news of this outraged Nehemiah who spent some time pondering the issue and once he had made up his mind he called the nobles and leaders together and charged them with the wrongdoing - the wounds of the exile where the nation was carried off into slavery and exile were still fresh and the injustice of Jews taking advantage of their own people for profit would have been particularly galling.

When challenged they could not answer, and in the end were convinced enough to write off debts and stop charging interest on the loans.
In front of the priests the leaders made a solemn promise to not treat their fellows as non jews by charging interest

Nehemiah pointed out that while he was governor for a period of 12 years he did not take his allocated share of the taxes from the people, previous governors took full advantage, taxing the people for their food allowance. Moreover he fed over 150 officials and Jews at his own cost every day.

The rich no longer taking advantages probably would have helped Nehemiah by limiting the number of needy.

Nehemiah 6
Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem are particularly upset that the wall had been finished, the gaps filled in in, though the gates not yet fully secured and installed.
Sanballat sent messages to Nehemiah requesting a meeting, which Nehemiah declined with the excuse that he was busy building walls. - 5 times Sanballat tried to lure Nehemiah into an ambush and death or capture.
The last time a letter was delivered - rumour has reached Sanballat and vouched for by Geshem.
Nehemiah did not dignify this with anything more than saying that they made it up!

Once the wall was completed Sanballat and his cronies and in particular making Geshem to seem better than he was. But the completed wall kind of took the wind out of their sails. the fact that the Jews did not rebel against the overlord nor did Nehemiah try and set himself up as king meant that none of the charges could stick.

Nehemiah 3 & 4 Builders and opposition

Nehemiah 3

This chapter describes the volunteers who actually rebuilt the city walls of Jerusalem, people from all walks of life appear to have taken part - from the high Priest, tradesmen and just people who lived by the wall site.
The nobles of Tekoa were recorded as refusing to get their hands dirty but were happy enough to order their serfs.

The list of names is quite long and I have no plans to name them all as my typing is not that good!

Nehemiah 4

You know in many pursuits there is the excitement of starting the work, but that wears off quickly and you are left with hard work.

At the point that the initial excitement has worn off and the magnitude of the work they have started kicked in our old "friends" Sanballat and Tobiah turned up to observe and sneer at the works, bringing an army with him.

"what do these feeble Jews think they are doing, they will never rebuild the walls, the stones are burned beyond repair, and they are supposed to offer sacrifices - it'll be dark soon too."
"Come on lads, you can do better than this - a fox climbing on that wall will knock it down"

Nehemiah called on God to hear the taunts and turn them back on Sanballat and Tobiah, meanwhile the wall reached half height.

This progress really upset Sanballat and the people surrounding Jerusalem decided to make an attack and stir up trouble. 
There is a joke that a man was in his house in danger of being flooded, as the water rose a boat came along and he was told "get in, the flood will get a lot worse". The man, climbing the stairs said "No, no go away, my God will save me". The boat went away
Things got worse and the floodwaters had risen and the man was climbing on to the roof of his house when another boat came along "Get in, the flooding is likely to rise some way yet".
"No, no go away my God will save me" replied the man.
As he is standing on the ridge of his house roof, holding on to the chimney, with water up to his chest a helicopter turned up to winch him to safety. But again he refuses saying "God will save me"
The flooding rises further and the man drowned - he squelched his way through heaven and shouted at God - "I had faith that you would save me, you really let me down" 
God replied "What are you doing here? I sent you two boats AND a helicopter"

Nehemiah is a bit more sensible than that - he prayed to God for protection, but he also set guards.

The enemies make their plans to attack, but the local Jews give warning to the builders who are waiting for them at the weakest points in the wall and armed to the teeth.
From this time half the workers are on guard to protect their colleagues - labourers did their work with a weapon in their hands and the bricklayers had a sword on their waist.

Nehemiah organised a trumpet signal to gather troops in case of attack as things were getting spread out.

At this stage nobody got undressed or took off their weapons for any reason

Nehemiah 1 Rebuilding a nation

Nehemiah 1

There was once a tombstone that read "Here lies the body of a politician and an honest man" - many people have pondered how they managed to get two bodies in the one tomb!

Reading the book of Nehemiah, one cannot help but think the epitaph would be fitting, here is a politician with faith and integrity, as we shall see.

If the book of Ezra was about the rebirth of the Jewish, Monotheistic, faith Nehemiah is the rebirth of the Jewish national identity, and the 2 fit together.

Nehemiah was one of the Israelite exiles taken to Babylon. He had reached a position of trust and authority as cupbearer to the king.
He had a visit from his brother who had visited Susa from Jerusalem and he asked how things were going in the homeland.

The report disturbed him so much that he spent several days fasting and praying - the land was being settled but the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins and the people were at threat from attack and pillage as they had no defences.

Nehemiah reminds God that he promised that if the people turned back to him, God would gather them from exile.

Nehemiah 2

The events of Nehemiah 1 actually affected his work life - there is a valuable lesson here I think, nobody should have to suffer in silence and a good employer will care enough about their employees to spot dropping standards or changed behaviour and see what they can do.
Artaxerxes (what a cool name with 2 X's!) astutely notices that Nehemiah is not his usual cheerful self and deduces that something is wrong and it does not appear to be physical.
Nehemiah is aware that he is on very thin ice - if the king is in a bad mood, his demeanour could get him summarily executed on the spot and he is afraid, but answers the king that his sad because the city where is ancestors are buried lies in ruins and the walls and gates destroyed by fire.
The king asks "What is it that you want?" 

There are what I sometimes call "Arrow prayers". In a situation that is tricky or dangerous or upsetting I sometimes pray a very quick silent prayer of "HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!" or something similar, Nehemiah has a similar moment now, making a quick arrow prayer before answering "If it pleases you, please send me back to Jerusalem so I can rebuild the walls"

This is a big ask - Nehemiah is paid to serve wine in Susa, not work as a bricklayer a thousand miles away!
The king asked how long was the journey and when would he be back - with this response, Nehemiah set a time limit on his trip
Nehemiah also decided that God was with him so far, so he might as well push his luck a bit - and asked for letters of authorisation to the provincial governors along the way until he reached Judah and to the royal park keeper allowing him to take timber to build his residence and the walls.

Nehemiah attests that because God was with him the king gave all he requested and more - he sent an armed and mounted guard with Nehemiah 

2 local leaders, Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite heard about this and decided to try and stop the rebuilding project.

Arriving in Jerusalem Nehemiah rested 3 days and then made a night time inspection of what used to be the city walls - Nehemiah had given no indication of his plan to the leaders in Jerusalem.
Next day he told the officials, nobles, priests and workmen "look at the trouble we are in, Jerusalem lies in ruins, the gates burned with fire, lets rebuild and no longer live in this disgrace" He also told them of the favour of the king and the help from God that had bought him to this place.

Sometimes an account like Nehemiah's telling of the goodness of God is very powerful, my own story is rather less dramatic and I promise to share it one day - but this post has gone on long enough I think!

Anyway the people decided to start working on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem - Sanballat and Tobiah and an Arabic leader called Geshem heard about the rebuilding of the walls they came to ridicule, intimidate and try to stop the work - first accusing the Jews of rebelling against the king.
Nehemiah personally knew the king and queen (the regional officials almost certainly did not) and that the king had sent him , but he declares that God will give the builders success and really they have no claim to Jerusalem or share in the city.

Ezra 7-10 What a priest did

Ezra 7 & 8

Ezra has yet to appear in the book that bears his name, but now he is ordered by the Emperor of Babylon, at his own request, to pay a visit to Jerusalem.

Ezra was a priestly descendant of Aaron the first high priest and had made study of the law of God his main life's work and tried to live according to the law of God.

Ezra arrived in Jerusalem soon after the opening of the temple and had taken 4 months to travel.

Ezra had been given a letter by the king instructing all people in the empire to support the Jews and give gold, silver and freewill offerings to Ezra and any Jews who chose to go with him.

Ezra realised that God was with him and gathered the leaders and refused the offer of an armed escort, but travelled with over 1100 fellow Jews.

They spent some time in prayer and fasting before the journey asking for protection.

Ezra 9 & 10

Ezra heard that the exiles who had returned during the time of Cyrus and after had not kept the law of God by giving their daughters in marriage to non Jews and married their daughters as well.

Ezra tore his clothes and pulled his hair out weeping and at the evening sacrifice time he prayed for God's forgiveness on his people.

The people saw this and were ashamed making a promise that they would do away with their foreign wives - this took rather longer than the three days that Ezra had wanted, but in the end they sorted things out.

This is a bit of a short post, but I've left out all the names.....

Ezra 6 An official break

Ezra 6

If you recall in the last chapter the governor of East Euphrates and his cronies tried to sabotage the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and were told by the Jewish leaders that Cyrus had given not only permission to rebuild the temple but actual orders.The governor, Tattenai, wrote a letter to the emperor, Darius, to get his view, if you remember Xerxes ordered a halt to the building work.Darius ordered a search of the records and indeed in the citadel of Ecbactana in Media, they found the original decree from Cyrus.Darius sent a memorandum to Tattenai saying the following In the first year of Cyrus the king, Cyrus the king made a decree: Concerning God’s house at Jerusalem, let the house be built, the place where they offer sacrifices, and let its foundations be strongly laid; with its height sixty cubits,and its width sixty cubits; with three courses of great stones and a course of new timber. Let the expenses be given out of the king’s house. Also let the gold and silver vessels of God’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought again to the temple which is at Jerusalem, everything to its place. You shall put them in God’s house.Now therefore, Tattenai, governor beyond the River, Shetharbozenai, and your companions the Apharsachites, who are beyond the River, you must stay far from there. Leave the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in its place. Moreover I make a decree what you shall do for these elders of the Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the River, expenses must be given with all diligence to these men, that they not be hindered. That which they have need of, including young bulls, rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings to the God of heaven; also wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word of the priests who are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail; 10 that they may offer sacrifices of pleasant aroma to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons. I have also made a decree that whoever alters this message, let a beam be pulled out from his house, and let him be lifted up and fastened on it; and let his house be made a dunghill for this. May the God who has caused his name to dwell there overthrow all kings and peoples who stretch out their hand to alter the same, to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius have made a decree. Let it be done with all diligence.Somehow I doubt that this is what Tattenai had in mind - they are now forbidden to interfere or even visit and sneer at the work or try and discourage the Jews. Also now Tattenai has to pay the bills for this work! In Jerusalem the news was recieved joyously and the work on the Temple continued until they were able to re-open the temple in the 6th year of Darius reign - the new temple appears to be bigger than the size recorded in the book of Kings for the temple (60x30x20 cubits compared to 60x60x60 cubits now!)At the dedication they sacrifices 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs and 12 rams as a sin offering (one for each tribe of Israel) - This sounds a lot but when Solomon dedicated the original temple he sacrifices 22000 cattle and 120000 lambs and sheep so in fact it was very subdued by comparison.Also the Jews celebrated the passover as required, which they did with joy as the emperor had given his blessing and help in the re-building of Israel.

Ezra 4 and 5 Opponents of faith

Ezra 4

If you are a person of faith, have you ever struggled with opposition or circumstances? I have, and if truth were told many people of faith sometimes struggle against opposition sometimes it is internal rather than abuse or threats to life and limb.
I'd like to say that now I am entirely comfortable with my faith and beliefs, but I'm not! 

The reason I bring this up is that in this chapter the enemies of Judah have seen the returning exiles rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and they want to either take part or stop it completely, they went to the leaders of the people in Jerusalem saying that they worshipped the same God since they were sent to live in the area by the Assyrian empire.
The leaders of Judah decline the offer of help - they will rebuild the temple themselves as Cyrus, emperor of Persia had ordered.

On hearing this the people tried to discourage the project completely - causing hassle and frightening the Jews. they also spread rumours and gossip among the Persian officials in the region where news would get back to Babylon.
They kept this up for years, until the death of Cyrus and with his successor Xerxes.

They went so far as to write a letter to the new emperor accusing the Jews of plotting rebellion against the king and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple.

Xerxes replied to the letter - he has understood the letter, and checked the histories and found that Judah had once had powerful kings and caused problems and rebellions in the past - so he ordered a stop on all building projects.

The work did not begin again for the rule of Xerxes and began again in the rule of Darius.

Ezra 5

With the hiatus of building, God sent a couple of prophets, Haggia and Zechariah. When the priests and leaders heard the prophets they started to rebuild the temple again, with the prophets actually helping them.

Almost as soon as the work started again Tattenai, the governor of West Euphrates, and some of his cronies came to Jerusalem and demanded "Who gave the order to build the temple and equip it?"

The reply was put in a letter to the emperor, Darius now.
They reported that they had gone to Jerusalem and enquired and had the response that they were building the temple originally built by a powerful king of Israel in the past but due to the unfaithfulness of Israel and God had handed it over to Nebuchadnezzar to destroy and now Cyrus has given orders for it to be rebuilt and returned a lot of the precious items taken.

They also pointed out that if a search is made then Cyrus orders should have been recorded, but in the meantime, we have a temple to finish so please go away!

Ezra 3 Faith rediscovered

Ezra 3

Having been in exile for 70 years some deported Israelites have returned to Judah where they are attempting to re-start a religion that effectively stopped at the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

In 7 months the returning people had re-settled their towns and come together in Jerusalem.
The priests rebuilt the alter and offered sacrifices in accordance with the laws of Moses, even though the people were very afraid of the locals who were extremely hostile to Israel or Judah being re-established.
I guess that centuries of raiding and warfare are not easily forgiven or forgotten.

At this stage the temple is still in ruins - I guess some clean up had been going on but no building works had started.

At this stage they start rebuilding the temple. Money, food and drink were found for the carpenters and stonemasons. Local produce was sent to Tyre and Sidon to pay for cedar wood which was shipped to Joppa then transported overland to Jerusalem.

There is an interesting comment - "All this was done with the permission of Cyrus emperor of Persia".
There are some people who claim God is on their side and this gives them the right to behave very badly toward others and this sometimes lands them in trouble with secular authorities. My understanding of the teaching of the church is that secular authorities are to be respected and obeyed - Unless they start making rules that contravene the rules of God. 

A whole bunch of people are named as participating in rebuilding the temple.

As the temple was rebuilt there was music and psalms of praise with a refrain "The LORD is good and his love lasts forever" 

When the foundations were laid there are 2 reactions - the young people, born during the exile were jubilant and shouted for joy.
The older people who could remember the Temple before it fell wept, crying and wailing.
However from a distance it was all a noise and you could not tell if they were shouting for joy or wailing for the losses they had endured.

Today the only part of the temple left in Jerusalem is part of the foundations and it is still called the wailing wall.

Ezra 1 The story continues

Ezra 1

At the end of the books of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles the remaining tribes of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have been forcibly taken away from the land God had promised to their ancestors on the condition that their descendants follow God.

Now 70 years has passed and the Israelites have lived in the Babylonian empire as displaced and relocated hostages.
To put this into a modern context, I'm writing this in 2014 so the Normandy D day landings were 70 years ago this year.
If it were me leaving to return from 70 years in exile, my grandfather would have been carried away at the age of 14, and my parents would have spent their working lives in exile - 70 years sounds quite short but there are some real implications.

Cyrus became empire of the Persian empire and he issued a decree as follows - 
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whoever there is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel (he is God), which is in Jerusalem. 4 Whoever is left, in any place where he lives, let the men of his place help him with silver, with gold, with goods, and with animals, in addition to the freewill offering for God’s house which is in Jerusalem.’”
Text from the World English Bible (www.ebible.org)
Cyrus also returned to those who had a mind to return to their homeland all the items that his predecessor 70 years ago had taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem and a quantity of gold and silver utensils.
Cyrus ordered his treasurer Mithredath to make an inventory of the returned items so that it would be handed to the local governor Sheshbazzar.

Ezra 2
Many Israelites decided to return to their ancestral lands about 42,360 people returned to try and re-populate the land, rebuild a religion and rebuild the temple.

The leaders of the exiles offered gifts on their arrival in Jerusalem for re-building the temple donating about half a tonne of gold, three and a half tonnes of silver and 100 priest robes
If you compare the remnant of Israel here to the number who left Egypt in Exodus we are talking about less than 10% of the numbers.

Chronicles

The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles covers the whole history of Israel from basically Genesis.

The first 7 chapters are entirely genealogies of various people - the only curiosity is that verse 25 of chapter 1 contains the shortest verse in the old testament and the second shortest verse in the bible.
It has very little meaning the verse says "Eber, Peleg, Reu".

As the other half of this post here is a table of the kings of Israel and Judah 

United Israel		Years		Reign		Verdict
Saul		1050-1010 bc		40 years		Bad – lost God’s favour
David		1010-970 bc		40 years		Good – apart from Bathsheba incident
Solomon		970 – 930 bc		40 years		Good but went bad due to his foreign wives
Israel	Years	Reign	Verdict	Judah	Years	Reign	Verdict
Jeroboam	930-909	22 years	Bad	Rehoboam	930-913	17 years	Bad
Nadab	909-908	2 years	Bad	Abijah	931-910	3 years	Bad
Baasha	908-886	24 years	Bad	Asa	910-869	41 years	Good
Elah	886-885	2 years	Bad	Jehoshaphat	872-848	25 years	Good
Zimri	885	7 days	Bad	Jehoram	848-841	7 years	Bad
Tibni	885-880	5 years	Bad	Ahaziah	841	1 year	Bad
Omri	885-874	11 years	Bad	Athaliah (queen)	841-835	7 years	Bad
Ahab	874-853	21 years	Very bad	Joash	835-796	40 years	Ok
Ahaziah	853-852	1 year	Bad	Amaziah	796-767	29 years	Ok
Joram	852-841	11 years	Bad	Azariah	792-740	52 years	Ok
Jehu	841-814	28 years	Bad	Jotham	750-735	16 years	Ok
Jehoahaz	814-798	17 years	Bad	Ahaz	735-715	20 years	Bad
Jehoash	798-782	16 years	Bad	Hezekiah	715-686	29 years	Good
Jeroboam2	793-753	41 years	Bad	Manassah	697-642	55 years	Bad
Zechariah	753	6 months	Bad	Amon	640-640	2 years	Bad
Shallum	753	1 month	Bad	Josiah	640-609	31 years	Very good
Mehanem	752-742	10 years	Bad	Jehoahaz	609	3 months	Bad
Pekahiah	742-740	2 years	Bad	Jehoiakim	609-598	11 years	Bad
Pekah	752-732	20 years	Bad	Jehoiachin	598-597	3 months	Bad
Hoshea	732-772	9 years	Bad	Zedekiah	597-856	11 years	Bad
Israel is exiled				Judah is exiled

I think this brings us to the end of Chronicles - next up the return to the homeland but not national independance.