Starting with Nehemiah

When you read the book of Nehemiah, you have to think about starting over. If you haven’t read Nehemiah for a while, open it up. Here are some things to notice…

This story takes place in Israel’s history after the nation had repeatedly ignored God and worshipped false gods. Finally, God got their attention with a major time-out. He had them exiled to Babylon (modern day Iraq) for 70 years and live under the thumb of the powerful kings of Babylon, and then later, Persia.

Nehemiah was among those taken into exile and he served the king of Persia as a cupbearer. He got news one day from his brother, who reported in to describe the people left behind and the current state in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the capital city of Israel and housed the temple of God. Both the temple and the city itself had been crumbled by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (how’d you like to holler that name out the back door for supper?).

Nehemiah’s brother saw that the first wave of Jews had returned to Jerusalem and had rebuilt the temple. But they hadn’t rebuilt the walls of the city, so the city was an open gate to surrounding renegades. There was no protection for the temple or for any people who might want to settle in Jerusalem. No walls in those days meant no city.

The nation of Israel had no capital city to return to and, after spending 70 years in another king’s courts, maybe had forgotten how to live like Jews.

But here’s my first question for you: when Nehemiah heard the news about Jerusalem from his brother, he wept aloud and mourned for several days. Now, those walls had been down for 70 years so that was no surprise for Nehemiah. Why was he so upset?

Hint: see if you find some clues in Nehemiah 1:3 and we’ll chat more later.