Neh. 1-6 - From a certain point of view

The readings - Days 144 & 145 - Nehemiah 1-6

This is pretty cool. I knew the basic story/history surrounding Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, but I don't know that I've spent much time actually reading it, as is the case with large swaths of the rest of the OT. I like it.

For starters, despite the fact that the nation of Israel and the People of God could, at this point, as near as makes no difference not possibly get any worse off (they've been divided, then conquered, then exiled, and everything they held most dear - Jerusalem and the Temple of God - have been absolutely laid waste by the invading Babylonian and then Persian hordes), the book strikes a decidedly hopeful, optimistic and - I hesitate to use a word like this when talking about anything other that fruits/veggies - fresh tone.



Part of this comes from the fact that all that garbage with Cyrus issuing his decree and then Artaxerxes taking it back and then Darius issuing it again is set aside, and we zoom back in to the actual storyline, as it's happening. Moreover, we zoom so closely in that for the first time in the Bible (with only a very few exceptions so far) we get a first-person narrative. Maybe it's just me, but that makes a staggering difference to the easy-to-read factor involved in getting through this little project.

The story contains very little of the droning lists, genealogies and inventories that have come to characterize much of the last huge chunk of the Bible, and instead just gives a first-hand account of what it was like to actually be leading Israel at a time when they were at their very lowest, but rising steadily.

It's good stuff.

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There's something to be said for being the subject of ridicule in the Bible... We had Noah with his "crazy ark scheme.

Obligatory...

And then there's the Jews building this crazy wall...

Although, to be fair, in Noah's case, the last laugh came when it suddenly became conspicuously overcast, whereas here in Nehemiah, the uppance of the mocking neighbours came when they crept over to kill people and were faced with an army of angry workers holding swords, shields and spears...

It's a kind of microcosm (that, right there, is the wrong word...) for the apparent progression of God's involvement with the actual narrative of the Old Testament. In early Genesis, He's there, calling the shots (literally) and doling out miracles and plagues. By the time of the exile and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, He's there, but He gets distinctly less "screen time," as it were.