Nehemiah 7

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Nehemiah 7:1

Jehoiachin King of Judah

Jehoiachin becomes king when he is eight years old (2 Chronicles 36:9). He reigns only three months and ten days. He is young and reigns short, but the judgment of him is as negative as that of his predecessor. Also “he did evil in the sight of the LORD”. Nebuchadnezzar puts an end to his reign by bringing him to Babylon “at the turn of the year” (2 Chronicles 36:10). Here the second carrying away into exile takes place.

Together with that carrying away “the valuable articles of the house of the LORD” are taken away (2 Chronicles 36:7). Nebuchadnezzar gradually robs the temple. Thus professing Christianity is in the process of robbing the church of its truths. This is done by giving a different content to biblical expressions. Conversion is then no longer a turning to God with repentance for sins, but, for example, the letting go of a habit that hurts someone himself or others, a change in social behavior.

Nebuchadnezzar makes his power felt by making Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem. Zedekiah is not Jehoiachin’s brother, but his uncle. He is a son of Josiah and the brother of Jehoiachin’s father.

Nehemiah 7:2

Jehoiachin King of Judah

Nehemiah 7:3

Zedekiah King of Judah

Then Zedekiah becomes king of Judah (2 Chronicles 36:11; 2 Kings 24:18-20; Jeremiah 37:1). Zedekiah means ‘the LORD is my righteousness’. Zedekiah does not honor his name, for he tramples on the righteousness of the LORD. As a result he shall experience that righteousness personally. He is the last king of Judah.

Zedekiah is a weak figure and an evil man. He also “did evil in the sight of the LORD his God” (2 Chronicles 36:12). He does not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah. This can be said, because Jeremiah speaks “for the LORD”, literally, “out of the mouth of the LORD” (cf. Jeremiah 1:6-9; Jeremiah 37:2). Zedekiah does let him come, but does not listen to his words.

That he ignores the word of Jeremiah means that he lives in rebellion against God. The result is that he rebels against Nebuchadnezzar, breaking the oath that Nebuchadnezzar made him swear (2 Chronicles 36:13; Ezekiel 17:13-19). As a result, something is said of him that is not said of anyone else. It is said of him that he both stiffened his neck and hardened his heart. Such a combination appears only here in Scripture. He has a stubborn neck and a toughened heart. By deliberately hardening his own heart, he deprives himself of the chance of repentance.

Wickedness is not limited to Zedekiah. It is ‘so king, so people’. All the leaders of the priests and the people were very unfaithful (2 Chronicles 36:14; Ezekiel 8-11). They join in the abominations of the nations and defile the house which the LORD has sanctified for Himself in Jerusalem. They transgress in all things that the LORD has abhorred. They take over the whole form of life of the nations.

We see in this end time of Judah a striking picture of the end time of professing Christianity in which we live. Christians increasingly live in a way that resembles that of people who live without God. The last days are characterized by loving oneself and loving pleasure more than God (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Nehemiah 7:4

Zedekiah King of Judah

Nehemiah 7:5

Zedekiah King of Judah

Nehemiah 7:6

Zedekiah King of Judah

Nehemiah 7:7

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

At a certain moment the measure is full. Before God lets the judgment come, He lets hear again how much effort He has made to spare His people and His dwelling place (2 Chronicles 36:15). Again and again He has called through His messengers the people to return to Him. The expression “again and again” indicates the necessary urgency of the message. God has made haste. He has not been slow or sparse in His attempts to urge them to turn back. None of this has been effective.

It is striking to read about “His people and His dwelling place”. It is about what is His. His judgment of what is His concerns Him Himself. He does not judge aloofly. It touches Him Himself deeply. That is why He has done everything He can to keep it from coming this far.

The rebellion of God’s people and their leaders is evidenced by their reception of His messengers (2 Chronicles 36:16). All the effort of God to bring His people back to Himself has been answered with contempt and scorn (cf. 2 Chronicles 30:10; 2 Peter 3:3). People always mock those who come with a message from heaven that they do not like. Religious people in particular react in this way.

Then God can no longer postpone the judgment and hands over His people and also His dwelling place to the enemy. He brings up the king of the Chaldeans against them (2 Chronicles 36:17). Judgment comes on all age groups who are responsible for their actions (cf. Revelation 19:18; Revelation 20:12). There is no regard for persons with God.

According to the historians, Nebuchadnezzar goes up against Jerusalem on January 15, 588 BC. On July 28, 586 BC the city falls. On August 15, the temple is burned (2 Chronicles 36:19). Before this happens, the treasures are robbed from God’s house and brought to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:18). These will be the treasures left over from the previous two lootings (2 Chronicles 36:7; 10).

This time also the treasures of the king (2 Kings 20:15-17) and his princes are robbed and taken. All the palaces of the princes in which they have lived their lazy lives, with everything in them, go up in flames.

God makes everything happen because there is nothing more desirable in the temple for Him. He gives His temple to the nations (Psalms 79:1; Lamentations 2:1; 7; Lamentations 4:1; Jeremiah 51:51). We see the same when the church reveals her “Laodicea spirit” (Revelation 3:14-22). There is also nothing in it that pleases Him. Therefore, He will give up professing Christianity, which culminates in the great Babylon, to judgment (Revelation 17:15-18; Revelation 18:1-2; 19).

All who have not been killed are taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon to serve him and his sons as servants (2 Chronicles 36:20). The judgment is total, the humiliation complete. Yet the rejection is not final, but temporary. There is an “until”, i.e. “the rule of the kingdom of Persia”. Persia is the kingdom through which God judges Babylon and to which He then gives world dominion (Daniel 5:28).

What happens as soon as the Persians have world domination and therefore authority over Judah and Israel, we will see in 2 Chronicles 36:22-23. First it is said how long the exile will last and that is, after “the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah”, seventy years (2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 29:10; Jeremiah 25:11; Daniel 9:2; 24-27). This period of seventy years is counted from the first carrying away to Babylon.

The fact that the exile lasts seventy years is not coincidental. The people are driven out of the land for seventy years to let the land enjoy its sabbaths. God has set a perfect time for the land to come to rest after all the idolatry the people have committed there (Leviticus 26:34-35; 43a).

When those years are fulfilled, the LORD fulfills His word and brings the people back to His land and to His city and to His house. We see the fulfillment in the books of Ezra and of Nehemiah. The next two verses, the last two of this Bible book, prepare us for this.

Nehemiah 7:8

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:9

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:10

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:11

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:12

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:13

Nebuchadnezzar Destroys Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:14

Return to Jerusalem

At the end of this book in these verses a ray of hope lights up of the return of a remnant. In the Hebrew Bible, the book of the Chronicles is the last book of the Old Testament. The Hebrew Old Testament concludes with this word of hope, the expectation of restoration. If these verses were missing, the reader could be overwhelmed by a feeling of despair at the end of the book.

These two verses show that the last word is not the judgment of God, but that after the judgment there is a new beginning. They describe the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise in 2 Chronicles 36:21. A revival or restoration is always the work of God. That is why we read that He stirs up the spirit of Cyrus. He does this right at the beginning of his reign, “in the first year”. As soon as the period of seventy years is over, the LORD immediately goes to work to fulfill His promise, which He has made through Jeremiah.

The name of Cyrus has been mentioned by the LORD a hundred and sixty years before (Isaiah 44:28). God brings through him, who is called “His anointed” (Isaiah 45:1), the judgment on Babylon (in October 539 BC). Cyrus acknowledges that he is God’s servant and that he owes his dominion over all kingdoms to “the LORD, the God of heaven” (2 Chronicles 36:23). He also acknowledges that God has commanded him “to build Him a house in Jerusalem”. The house is to be built for Him and not for the Jews.

God’s house today, the church, is also not a house where people determine the service, but God Himself. The church should not strive to be interesting and useful to the world outside. The church should not make itself attractive to the world, but to its Bridegroom, Christ. In the local church today, the question sounds more and more: How do people get the most out of the church? The only question that matters, however, is: How does God get to His right?

Cyrus does two things. First, he gives everyone who belongs to God’s people, whoever they may be, the freedom to go to Jerusalem and build God’s house. In the second place he wishes everyone who goes, the company of “the LORD his God” on his way. The first is a call in a way that exercises the conscience of everyone who confesses to belong to God’s people. No one is forced to go. The second means that everyone who goes up cannot or does not have to do so in his own strength, but that the LORD goes with him.

Spiritually this word is now being fulfilled for us. Anyone who confesses to belong to the church of God, may return to the principles that God’s Word tells us about the church. In practice this will only happen by those who have been exercised in their consciences, while at the same time realizing that there is no power in them, but that the Lord is with them.

Nehemiah 7:15

Return to Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:18

Introduction

The book of Ezra is the continuation of the second book of Chronicles, although there are seventy years in between. This is shown by the fact that the first three verses of Ezra are almost identical to the last verses of 2 Chronicles (Ezra 1:1-3; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23). However, the intervening period of seventy years is skipped because Israel is in exile outside the promised land at that time. With the transportation into exile “the times of the Gentiles” have begun (Luke 21:24). For Israel, since that time, the people are “Lo-Ammi”, which means “not My people” (Hosea 1:9). Since that time, God has handed over the throne of the earth to the nations (Daniel 2:37).

In the history of God with His people and the earth we see a new point of view in Ezra. There we see the intervention of grace for a remnant that God brings back from captivity to the land. The return from Babylon is not accompanied by signs and miracles, as was the case with the exodus from Egypt. We see no staff to perform miracles, no cloud guide, no mediator, no provisions from the storehouses of heaven from which the manna is raining.

In the book of Ezra, God does not act visibly, but in providence, behind the scenes. He acknowledges the new state of affairs and uses heathen rulers to carry out His plans. The remnant does not go to work in view of God’s dominion over the earth. That is still the future. What is there is the power of faith. What they do, they do in faith, in trust in God, whatever the circumstances.

That is why this book is full of instruction for us who live in circumstances that are in many ways similar to those of the remnant then. They use what they have and they do what they can, but they don’t moderate what they don’t have and can’t do. They have the Word and they use it. They have the genealogies and they use them. They do not do what only the use of Urim and Thummim enables them to do (Numbers 27:21), because they do not have them. They don’t refuse to do what they can because they can’t do everything they want. They wait for others who have what they don’t have.

That Ezra is the continuation of the second book of Chronicles is also shown in the main subject of the book. It is about the house of God in this Bible book, just like in 2 Chronicles. God desires to dwell with a redeemed people. This is already evident at the exodus from Egypt, when He gives the tabernacle. This also becomes clear when the people enter the land, when He gives the temple. His desire has not changed now that the people have forfeited everything. When He works a return to His land, it is to dwell in the midst of His people again and that His people come to Him with sacrifices.

This is still true in the time in which we live. The house of God is now “the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). God still works the desire to come to the place where He dwells. He now dwells among believers, even if only two or three come together in the Name of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 18:20).

The book of Ezra consists of two parts: 1. The story of the return of the exiles, the foundation of the altar and the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 1-6). 2. The return of Ezra himself and his service among the people (Ezra 7-10).

Between the two parts there are about sixty years. It is during this period that the events of the book of Esther take place. The first part of Ezra also includes the performance of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1), while we can place the prophet Malachi in the time of Nehemiah.

What happens in this chapter shows a real work of God. It is not a work of man with preparatory meetings and discussions. The hearts of all are controlled by Him.

God’s People May Return to Jerusalem

Seventy years after the Babylonians led the people into exile, God is going to work to fulfill His word through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 29:10; Jeremiah 24:6-7; Jeremiah 25:11-12; Jeremiah 27:22). That word means that after seventy years the exile comes to an end and the people may return to the land of God. The beginning of the return comes from a work of the LORD in the spirit of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1).

God also acts on the basis of the prayers of His servants, which have been introduced into His plans through diligent study of His Word (Daniel 9:2-3). He brings back a remnant so that the temple can be rebuilt in its place and so that the true King, the Lord Jesus, can be introduced to them. This act of God is therefore in accordance with the promises given by the mouth of Jeremiah and the prayer of His servant Daniel.

Whatever the external circumstances, God has in His hand the hearts of all men, also the hearts of kings (Proverbs 21:1). The instrument, Cyrus, was announced two hundred years earlier by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1-5). As soon as he is in power, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled. God does not waste any time. He uses Cyrus, the king of Persia, to give the opportunity to return to Judah. This also means that He does not give Babylon, who led His people into exile, the honor of allowing His people to return.

God is using the world powers here to carry out His plan (Ezra 1:2). Cyrus calls Him “the God of heaven” because God has removed His throne from the earth and handed His people over into the hands of the nations. Cyrus does not command anyone to return to Jerusalem. Names are not mentioned, room is given for everyone (Ezra 1:3). In this way only God-fearing people will answer the call. The hearts of these people go out to the glory of God and to the place of His Name.

This pagan ruler Cyrus announces that the way to Jerusalem is open. Not only does he not prevent the people from going, but he encourages them to go. He instructs all nations to do the same (Ezra 1:4), while he himself gives what Nebuchadnezzar has robbed from the temple.

There is nothing legal in this movement. It must be the result of grace that works in the heart. If it is legal, all freshness and strength will be lost. It is not wise to try to force people to take a position where grace has not brought them. To insist on abandoning human systems and putting that on people’s conscience as a matter of duty is not good. As a result, many people, while outwardly occupying a place of separation, are not really attracted by Christ.

For the flesh it is not very attractive to go to Jerusalem. The city is a ruin. Yet Jerusalem is the place of “the Name” for faith. For the believers now, the place of worship is not a geographical place – “neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (John 4:21) – but a spiritual place. It is the place of which the Lord Jesus says: “Where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst” (Matthew 18:20). We find that place wherever He is acknowledged to be the only Head and Lord and where His own are gathered around Him in that awareness. That is what corresponds to the place He chose in the Old Testament to make His Name dwell there: the temple in Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 7:19

Introduction

What happens in this chapter shows a real work of God. It is not a work of man with preparatory meetings and discussions. The hearts of all are controlled by Him.

God’s People May Return to Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:20

Introduction

What happens in this chapter shows a real work of God. It is not a work of man with preparatory meetings and discussions. The hearts of all are controlled by Him.

God’s People May Return to Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:21

Introduction

What happens in this chapter shows a real work of God. It is not a work of man with preparatory meetings and discussions. The hearts of all are controlled by Him.

God’s People May Return to Jerusalem

Nehemiah 7:22

Who Want to Go

“The heads of fathers’ [households]” (Ezra 1:5) represent believers who are willing to take responsibility. In a revival, it is also necessary that there are people who take on the leadership. They take the lead on the path of faith and others may follow on the path they take. In the local church it is they who show the believers the way to realize that the Lord Jesus is in the midst. They teach about it and they show it in their lives. It is good to seek their company and to go along with them.

There are also “the priests and the Levites”. These are the ones who have the service to God in mind. They have not been able to serve in Babylon, because there is no temple there. It stood in Jerusalem and was destroyed and they were deported. Now they are ordered to rebuild the temple. This will make it possible for them to do their service again.

With every revival it is necessary that these two elements are present. Priestly service today is the privilege of every child of God and is not limited, as in Israel, to a special class. The same applies to Levite service. Every believer has a task, a function, in the church.

Every believer is a priest. There is no distinction in this. Every believer is also Levite. In this there is distinction, because every believer has a different task. Herein not one is above the other, but each believer is a complement to the other.

That the heads of fathers’ households and the priests and the Levites go to Jerusalem to build the house of the LORD is not self-determined action. Just as the LORD raised up the spirit of Cyrus to call for a return to Jerusalem for the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 1:1), so the going up of the three groups mentioned above is also the consequence of His work. A revival is the work of God, not the result of deliberations and agreements of men.

Although there have been people from other tribes as well, they are mainly people from the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Christ is presented to them at His first coming on earth, with the result that He is rejected by them. The fact that it mainly concerns the two tribes also shows that this is not a national restoration. The restoration of the ten tribes only happens when Christ appears for the second time (Ezekiel 20:33-44; Jeremiah 31:6-14).

There is no spirit of judgment or enmity or jealousy between those who go and those who stay (Ezra 1:6). Those who stay behind give everything to those who leave. Although the circumstances are very different, what is happening here is reminiscent of the exodus of the people from the Egyptian slave house. Then the Egyptians also give the departing people all kinds of objects (Exodus 12:35-36).

Nehemiah 7:23

Who Want to Go

Nehemiah 7:24

Articles of the House of the LORD

Cyrus treats the articles of the house of the LORD with respect, in contrast with the last king of Babylon, Belshazzar (Daniel 5:1-4). These articles were robbed at the various deportations (Ezra 1:7; 2 Chronicles 36:7; 10; 18; Daniel 1:2). The first deportation takes place at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. The second takes place during Jehoiakim’s reign and the third in the eleventh year of Zedekiah. The seventy-year exile is to be counted from the first deportation.

In the spiritual application the objects for the service represent persons. We may see ourselves as silver and gold vessels, in which we see the value we have for God (2 Timothy 2:19-21). The separation of the articles belonging to the LORD from the articles belonging to the idol temples of Babylon is necessary. What is of God must be cleansed from what is not of Him.

The articles are given to “Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah” (Ezra 1:8). Sheshbazzar is the Babylonian name for Zerubbabel. He descends from David and is his heir. His name is also in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 1:13). He does not boast of his ancestry, but takes the place of someone whose faith can be imitated. The time of the great things is over. That the articles come under the supervision of Sheshbazzar suggests to us that the Lord Jesus has us at His disposal.

Various articles and their numbers are mentioned (Ezra 1:9-11). Among them are also twenty-nine knives [Darby Translation]. Here we see that God does not consider anything small (Job 36:5; Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7). He who counts the stars and has named them all (Psalms 147:4) also takes note of the knives brought back from exile and knows their number.

They are knives that belong to the temple utensils and were taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 52:17-23). These knives are used by the priests to divide the sacrificial animals into pieces. After being taken into exile, there is no more sacrificial service. After the return, however, it can take place again when the altar is erected. Then the knives are also needed.

We can make an application for those who in a professing Christianity full of confusion have gone in search for ‘the altar’, the Table of the Lord, and have found it. That is where the knives have their place. The knives are used to skin the sacrificial animal and divide it into pieces to lay on the altar, that it may be a soothing aroma to the LORD. We can say that we use these knives when we are concerned with the inner feelings of the Lord Jesus and tell God what we have discovered. Using the knives allows us to penetrate deeper into the feelings of the Lord Jesus. We don’t stop at a superficial contemplation of His Person and work.

A knife also serves to cut in a straight line the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15, Darby Translation). We must do justice to the whole Word of God, i.e. give each part of it its proper meaning and effect.

Nehemiah 7:25

Articles of the House of the LORD

Nehemiah 7:26

Articles of the House of the LORD

Nehemiah 7:27

Articles of the House of the LORD

Nehemiah 7:28

Articles of the House of the LORD

Nehemiah 7:30

The first thing to note is that the returned exiles decide that Israel will be a truly unmixed Israel and that this must be tested. The existence of a list, preserved by God’s care, shows the importance that God attaches to origin. Here the work of the Spirit becomes clear in people whose names are recorded. They are known to God. He makes the names known to encourage all who also want to go His way in faithfulness in times of decay and apostasy (Revelation 3:5).

What also stands out in the counting is that it is a remnant. There can be no full restoration of Israel. This will only happen, also according to the testimony of the prophets, when not only the two, but also the ten tribes return to the land. Anything that happens during “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24), i.e. in the time in which we live, is therefore not a fulfillment of the prophecy.

Everyone returns “to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his city” (Ezra 2:1; Ezra 2:70). Cyrus has called for a return to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2-3). Now we see that the returnees are also going to live in their own cities. Jerusalem is the great center of the people. The people themselves live in their own cities.

We can apply Jerusalem to the church as a whole. We can see the cities as a picture of the local churches where the general principles that apply to the whole church need to be worked out. We are all placed in local churches to maintain with our fellow saints what is in accordance with the thoughts of God.

Every believer should know where his own place of dwelling is. He must test against God’s Word whether the place where he is corresponds to what God says of the church. He should not be there because, for example, his parents are there, or certain people appeal to him. Also, the blessing that is found there should not be a criterion. God also blesses in places that have deviated from God’s Word when it comes to being a church. It is about maintaining what is in God’s mind in the local church (1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 4:17b; 1 Corinthians 7:17).

The return from exile is very different from the departure of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. Out of Egypt the whole people leave. There God acts as the redeeming God. From Babylon He also calls. Yet here we see that not all the people leave Babylon. Only those who are attracted by Jerusalem go back to the land of Israel. This call is related to responsibility.

In this revival we can see the following characteristics: 1. One goes back to God’s original center, here, Jerusalem. 2. There is no presumption to possess something that one no longer has, because one has lost it through previous failures. Here we can think of the pillar of cloud and the ark. 3. A spirit of dedication is revealed (Ezra 2:68). 4. There is obedience to the Word of God (Ezra 3:2; 4). 5. A position of separation from the world is taken, resulting in 6. that there will be resistance from the world.

In Ezra 2:3-20 the exiles are mentioned with the name of their fathers. In Ezra 2:21-35 the exiles are mentioned with the name of the cities where they used to live, to live there again and to populate those cities again.

This list of names is an example of the book of eternity. We also find such a list in other parts of God’s Word. The two enumerations of David’s heroes are of the same character (2 Samuel 23:8-38; 1 Chronicles 11:10-46). Paul also mentions a list of names (Romans 16:1-15; Hebrews 11:1-40). Such lists of names are lists of honor that will be consulted before the judgment seat of Christ. With them God shows how carefully He takes note of every person and every family who lives for Him and every work that is done for Him. We do not have such a list of all those who stayed behind in Babylon.

A particular place name that stands out in the list is Anathoth (Ezra 2:23). This place recalls the purchase of Jeremiah of the field of Anathoth so long ago. The field was bought for the purpose of restoration (Jeremiah 32:6-15), which had been expected for so long and has now come. The sealed scroll now proves its worth.