Nehemiah 13, Psalm 126: Thinking Ahead

Well, the temple was finished and the wall was complete.

What now?

God had instilled in Nehemiah a crazy passion for His people. If he had just wanted a wall to be built around Jerusalem, well-- he'd done that. But maybe it wasn't really the ruined wall that had brought Nehemiah to tears in the first chapters. No-- it was that his people were scattered. His people, who had returned from exile to the land given to them by God, would not unify because there was no wall to protect them.

And now there was a wall. And there was a temple.

But as soon as Nehemiah left to give a report to King Artexerxes, the order of everything flops. When Nehemiah returns, the Jews have disobeyed many of the laws God had set in place for their protection. They were marrying those of other faiths, letting non-Jews into the Temple grounds, etc. Nehemiah burns with anger at those in leadership-- and the scene played out here sounds similar to Jesus clearing out the temple. Wasn't it just a few pages ago that the Jews were wailing and SO UPSET at the sins of their ancestors? Now they are back to their old ways-- giving in a little here. A little there.

But Nehemiah knew that a little disobedience to the law of God would lead to bigger and bigger disobedience. A little crack could become a fissure through the core of their faith, and God used Nehemiah to stop their carelessness in its tracks. He fought for their unity as a nation, when there was hardly a nation left to fight for. The Jewish remnant themselves didn't even want to fight for it anymore-- they just wanted to give in to what was easiest. But God fought for His people through Nehemiah. He fought for them in order to restore Jerusalem to the city that was central to their faith-- so that one day, at precisely the right time, there would be a place to send His Son. There had to be a Temple so a veil could be torn. There had to be a wall so there would be people inside it to hear His message.