Day 342: Nehemiah 1-3 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) - Hey, Emily, welcome to day 342. We are in a brand new book of the Bible. We are in Nehemiah. Now, let me kind of add a little caveat to being in a brand new book of the Bible. This was not originally a separate book than Ezra. And so really, we are in Ezra part two, aka Nehemiah. But we get to celebrate that it's another book of the Bible, another milestone as we inch closer and closer and closer towards the end of the year. Guys, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today's day 342, we're about to be at day 365 soon. And I'm super, super, super excited, super proud of you. Today we got Nehemiah chapters one, two, and three. We are gonna be in the book of Nehemiah, aka Ezra part two, for four days. And we are gonna now see the third wave of exiles return to Jerusalem under the leadership of man Nehemiah. All right? If you haven't done the reading, how about you stop this video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. And when you got the reading done, come on back. Nehemiah is a fast-paced action-packed book.

So the reading honestly should not be difficult. And let's go ahead and put some things in context. All right, we're gonna dive into the first part of the episode, which, like we do every day, I'm gonna give you context clues that will hopefully make the reading make way more sense, and then we'll dive into our nerdy nuggets. I'll try to give you as many nerdy nuggets as possible for today. And then I've got a double header time of truth for you. So first thing I wanna do with our context today is just to go over the timeline, okay? We have looked at a lot of things, especially in the last couple of books of the Bible. I kinda wanna just give everyone a timeline. Now, I know dates may throw you off guard. For some people, dates are insanely orienting. For other people, dates can be disorienting. So sorry if dates are disorienting. They orient me big time. At least they help me understand what came first, what came second, what came third, what came before or after another thing, okay? So we're gonna start this timeline with the return that Zorobo leads, okay? This whole chain of events is kicked off in 538, okay? 538 BC. 538, 537 BC is the first wave of return from exile led by Zorobo-able, okay? Zorobo-able, whose name means planted in Babylon.

Zorobo-planted, babel, babel, babel-on, okay? Planted in babel-on. Two years later in 536, we're gonna get the foundation stone is laid for the second temple. So Jesus lived in second temple Judaism, okay? It's, that's called the second temple period. So Zorobo-able's temple is the second temple, Solomon's temple is the first, okay? The foundation stone is laid for the second temple, but local opposition stops the work. That's 536 BC. The work is stopped for 16 years. That gets us to 520 BC. 520 BC, we get the ministry of Haggai Zechariah who encourages, who encourage Zorobo-able and the people to resume the temple work, okay? 516, four years later, the second temple is finished in 516 BC. Then from 479 to pretty much 478, the events of the book of Esther take place. And then right after that, you're gonna get Ezra is gonna come up on the scene in 458, 457, give or take. We're gonna get the second return of exiled Israelites that are gonna come back from Persia, back to Jerusalem led by none other than my man, Ezra, all right? So that's a timeline. Now Nehemiah chapter one is gonna essentially orient us with some dates. It says this, "In the month of Kislev in the 20th year

while I was in the citadel of Susa, Hennani or Han and I, one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men." And I question them about the Jewish remnant that has survived the exile and all, year while I was in the citadel of Sousa. Okay, it's 20th year of what? I love that because the Bible is not going to tell us outright the 20th year of, I don't know, the 20th year of Aretha Franklin's life? I don't know, the 20th year of NASA being established? Like the 20th year of what? Well, it's the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes I, the same king who aided Ezra in his return. In Ezra, we looked at the reigns of the Persian kings and Artaxerxes. The first reign from 464 to 423 BC, which puts the events of Nehemiah beginning in 444 BC. So Ezra had been back in Jerusalem for about 12 years when Nehemiah's story begins. 538, 537, first wave of returnees. Okay, come back with the rubble. 536, the foundation stone is laid for the second temple, but local opposition stops the work. The work stops for 16 years. In 520, the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah kicked start the building, the building project to resume. They got four years from 520 to 516 until the second temple is finished. And then 479 to 478, we've got the events of Esther that are going to take place. And then we get a second labor return of returnees from exile led by Ezra in 458, 457. And now in 444 BC, he's got Nehemiah leading the third wave of returnees back to Jerusalem. All right, talk about a robust timeline. All right, you should, you should feel very oriented. Okay, especially if you wrote those dates down while I was talking, you've honestly got a massive map, or a road map of just a timeline. Now, heads up. Okay, the Jewish people are going to experience 400 years of silence, which means if we're in 444 BC, we're 444 years before Christ. And prior before the birth of Christ, we're going to get 400 years of silence, which means we're like 40 years away from the end of the Old Testament. Like we're, you should hear 444 BC and think to yourself, we're coming down to the wire. Like the next thing that's going to happen is the end of the Old Testament is coming. And then we're going to get 400 years of silence, and the Jesus is going to be born. Okay, the incarnate Christ, the son of the living God. All right, one final piece of context. Okay, so Nehemiah is going to hear that the situation in Jerusalem is not the best, could be better, that there are walls that are burned down, that the people that the temple has been rebuilt, but that their living conditions are pretty bad because they're living unprotected.

Okay, it will be very, very, very unsafe to live in an ancient city with no walls. It genuinely just means anyone can attack you at any time. So Nehemiah's heart is broken. It says this in verse four, chapter one verse four, when I heard these things, I sat down and wept for some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Okay, so Nehemiah is really moved by the fact that, you know, his ethnic people, like the Jewish people are, there's a remnant of people living in Jerusalem. Remember, you know, there's upwards of hundreds of thousands, if not a million Jews living in the Persian Empire, there's only 50,000 that went back to Jerusalem. So it's a remnant. And he's mourning over the fact that there's a remnant of people who live in Jerusalem under dilapidated conditions. And he's broken by it. He fast, he prays. Okay, now he wants to go rebuild these walls. And if you don't have context in the book of Ezra, you'd maybe like, why, why, why does it take a lot of courage to go ask, you know, the king if we can go rebuild these walls? Well, if you remember, okay, this exact same king, Artaxerxes had already said, no, on rebuilding walls, you can rebuild the temple. You can go as a zerobable, you go rebuild the temple. Hey, Ezra, you go make sure that there's religious reform, make sure that people are obeying the Torah. But then Nehemiah is going to go rebuild the walls. But the king had already said that rebuilding the walls is a no-go. Okay, so we know from Ezra chapter four, art exerts these had forbidden new work on rebuilding Jerusalem. So although he had aided Ezra in his return, which had a primarily religious focus, he wasn't necessarily as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily, okay? Walls met that we could defend ourselves against the Persians if there was some kind of revolt, okay? So that's why Temple, not that threatening. Walls, it's a whole not the story. I said that not as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily.

This policy of art exerts these will however change because of the faith, because of the integrity and because of the prayer of his cut bare Nehemiah. So let's dive into Nehemiah as a person. That's all of the context that I think we need, okay? Now let's actually focus in on who is this guy Nehemiah. First of all, he has a heart. His heart breaks after the things that break God's heart. He is broken not because of his own situation in life, but because of the lives of other people. So immediately we're at compassion, empathy, okay? That he has broken to his core, not because of anything that really affects his day to day life, but because of people who he's never met, but people who he doesn't know, he wants the quality of their life to be awesome. That's a great starting point when we begin to cry out to God. If God were to answer all your prayers, would you be the only person blessed? That's a challenging question, right? Like if God were to answer your prayers, who would actually benefit from God answering your prayers? Because Nehemiah is not a direct beneficiary on the prayers that he's praying, but you can hear it right here. You can start to see his character and a little bit of the worldview that both Ezra and Nehemiah share. And verse seven says,

we have acted very wickedly towards you. We have not obeyed the commands, the crease and laws. You gave your servant Moses. Is it really we or is it they, right? For a lot of us, we would have been praying to God since we would have said they, but Nehemiah understands this is not an individualistic culture that he's living in. So for Nehemiah, it's if they have done something, that does mean we have done something to break God's heart. And now my heart's broken because God's people are living in a land with no walls to protect them, all right? We, we, we, we, we, we, not me. I've tried to teach our team that at the church. Hey, like everything is we, we, we, we, we, we, we. We gotta, we gotta move out of an individualistic, hyper-individualized mindset and adopt a we, a group mindset. One of the big nerdy nuggets that I really wanna focus on, probably the major nerdy nugget that I wanna focus on is that Nehemiah is gonna get depicted as a new Joshua. Now, there's a lot of nerdy nuggets that honestly, I don't say, 'cause in my head, I'm like, oh, you guys are smart, you could see that. I try to reserve nerdy nuggets for the things that you may not be able to see on your own. So Nehemiah is set up as a new Joshua, which makes sense. Why? Because Ezra was set up as a new Moses. And Joshua is Moses's aide. He's his younger counterpart. And Nehemiah is gonna be seeing that same way

as it relates to Ezra, okay? So if Ezra's a new Moses, every Moses needs a Joshua. So Nehemiah is going to come alongside an older Ezra to begin to push for a lot of the same things, okay? So Ezra, Nehemiah, different assignment, but same agenda, okay? One is pushing for religious reform, Torah, like observance. And one is pushing for the physical walls to be built back up. Different assignment, but the same agenda. And I could get into autonomous truth right there. Sometimes we assume that just because someone had a different assignment than us, then they're on a different agenda, but that's not true at all. There can be churches or Christians with a different assignment. And so often we're so quick to jump to conclusions about whether or not what that church is doing or whether or not what that Christian is doing is kingdom focused or pushing the kingdom of God forward. And honestly, you may want to suspend judgment because that person just may not have the same assignment as you, that church may not have the same assignment as your church. And churches have assignments, but we all have the same agenda. And churches go about fulfilling the Great Commission church doesn't need to look the same. And sometimes there can be a lot of rhetoric online. That's like, well, if your

church isn't doing this, that they're not really a church. They're not that church. It's like calm down, man. There are some churches that are really called to pioneer in terms of missions. That doesn't mean that's the assignment on every church. There are some churches, they have an assignment to record albums and to release music that that moves the body of Christ forward. That doesn't mean that that's every church's assignment. And the church that spends money on albums isn't evil, just because they're not spending money on overseas missions. These two organizations may have a different assignment from God, but the same agenda. Missionaries and albums are both moving the kingdom of God forward. And so sometimes we can be, we can have a little bit of a due to spirit. You know, there's a woman pouring an alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. We'd be like, we could have used that to feed up whore. It's like, yeah, but that wasn't that woman's assignment. The Holy Spirit told her to pour that alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. Had the Holy Spirit told that woman to go sell that jar and give the proceeds to the poor, then that's what she should have done. And a lot of times, we love to judge other people basically assignment that God gave us. There are certain churches. Hey, God may have an assignment on there that church to be politically engaged. That's fantastic. Nothing wrong with that. But those churches can't then judge other churches who don't do that. Every church have a different assignment, but we all have the same agenda. And that agenda is to move the kingdom of God forward to edify and build up God's church. And so Ezra, Nehemiah, different assignments, same agenda. They're building up the people of God, whether that's a wall or a temple or through Torah observance. They're building

up the people of God. They're building people. They're not really just building a temple or building walls. They're building people. And the quicker we can all see, hey, different assignments, same agenda. The more we can all just like work together to move the ball down the field. All right, when you begin to compare Nehemiah and Joshua, you begin to see that there's tons and tons and tons of similarities. Okay, there's going to be seven opposition reports in Nehemiah. I'm going to give you the verses and you can look them up on your own Nehemiah chapter two, verse 10, Nehemiah chapter two, verse 19, Nehemiah chapter four, verse one, Nehemiah chapter four, verses seven and eight, Nehemiah chapter four, verses 15, Nehemiah chapter six, verse one, Nehemiah chapter six, verse 16, Nehemiah is going to get reports from opposition. Okay, and they're modeled after the opposition reports that the Canaanite kings have against Joshua. You can go read Joshua chapter five, verse one, Joshua nine, verse one, Joshua 10, verse one, and Joshua 11 word, verse one. Why do the opposition reports mirror each other? Because Nehemiah is a new Joshua. This is really for tomorrow, but it's fine. We can get into it right now. And Nehemiah chapter four, verse 12 to 14, Nehemiah sends the city walls with horns ready to blast and announce our God will fight for us. Guess what Joshua is going to surround Jericho's walls with priests and soldiers carrying horns ready to blast and Joshua chapter six, verse five. And in saying the words, our God fought for us. Okay, you can see Joshua chapter 10, verse 14, Joshua chapter 10, verse 42, Joshua chapter 23, verse three, and Joshua chapter 23, verse 10. One of the things that God is going to say to both Nehemiah and Joshua is do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for

your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses. That's Nehemiah chapter four, verse 14, which sounds a lot like Joshua chapter 10, verse 25. Okay, so there's a clear link between Joshua and Nehemiah. Okay, so you go ahead and compare all those on your own. Now, one of the things that I wanted to just make you aware of this is a nerdy, nerdy, nerdy nugget. A couple things, Sousa was a winter palace. Okay, so just like Esther, Nehemiah begins in the city of Sousa. Sousa was not the capital of Persia. That was Persepolis, but it was an important administrative center with many state buildings that had been built by the Persian kings. It also was the location of a winter palace that was often used by Persian kings, which is why Xerxes was there in Esther. And our Xerxes is here in the book of Nehemiah. All right, last couple nerdy nuggets as we wrap up for today is that all of the There are three Persian officials who are in opposition of this wall getting built. They're mentioned as key leaders in opposition to the Jews. All three of them are actually recorded in Persian records. So again, like Persian records are corroborating what's happening here in the Bible. Sand ballot the Hornite was the governor of the Samaritan area of the Satrapi beyond the river. Tabaya the Ammonite was the governor of the Ammon region of that same Satrapi. In Gesham, the Arab was the governor of the Northern Arabia as the same Satrapi, okay? The Persian kingdom used Satrapis. You can Google that word if you want to. Sambley, the weight 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 book's a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold in 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 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 gonna 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. But that's just another example of how no archaeological find in history has ever disproven the Bible. The Bible is trustworthy. And I think that is really, really, really, really cool. I'm pretty sure I already said that in Ezra chapter four, verse seven and 23, prior to the events of Nehemiah, art exertsies, had forbidden new work on rebuilding Jerusalem. So although he had aided Ezra in his return,

which had a primarily religious focus, he wasn't necessarily as generous to the Jews if they attempted to secure themselves more financially or militarily. Yeah, I said this. This policy of art exertsies will however change due to his incredible cut bear name. All right. And that's what today's reading is really all about. The fact that one dude named Nehemiah is able to get art exertsies to change his mind and actually be a proponent of the people rebuilding. One last verse that we're gonna use as a timeless truth as we end the episode. This is Nehemiah chapter two, verse four and five. The king said to me, what is it that you want? By the way, the king can tell that Nehemiah is sad. For context, being sad in the king's presence was a no, no. Okay, absolutely not. You are not to be sad in the king's presence. Now that's a whole nother lesson for a whole nother day. But Persian kings did not allow any personal emotion. You had to be professional when you were in the king's presence. And so Nehemiah is risking his own safety and welfare just by being sad. He can't help it. He's literally heartbroken over something that does not really directly involve him, but he makes it his business, which is what great leaders do.

The king then said, what is it you want? Then I prayed to God of heaven and I answered the king. I prayed to God of heaven and I answered the king. One of my big prayers for my son is always that he would grow him as a mestatcher and find favor with God with man. Grow and wisdom, grow and stature, find favor with God with man. I love we can see that exact template with that pattern right here. He prayed to God of heaven and answered the king. He had favor with God, but also favor with man. And I think there's a lot of people who have favor with men, but maybe not favor with God or favor with God, but not favor with men. But really growing in wisdom and stature means that you have favor with God and favor with man. And that's not just true for Nehemiah. That's not just true in 444 BC. That's true for you. That's true for me. That's timelessly true. But that combo will always work that we pray to the God of heaven and then we have an answer for humans that are in front of us. All right, I hope that that's helpful. I'll see you tomorrow right here, same time, same place for day 343 as we continue our trek through Nehemiah, chapters four, five, six and seven.

Super, super excited. We got four chapters of the Bible tomorrow, four, five, six, and seven. I'll see you right here. Love you, proud of you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.