Author: Nehemiah.

Time: 445 – 432 BC.

Summary: The book begins with Nehemiah returning from Babylon as Governor of Jerusalem. He plans and oversees the rebuilding of the city wall despite discouraging opposition and disunity within the Jewish population. The wall is completed and more exiles are returned and registered as Jewish citizens. Nehemiah’s dedication to God drives him to make several religious reforms including a public reading of the Law and arrangements for worship.

Time of writing: The mention of Darius the Persian (Neh 12:22) probably refers to Darius II, the successor of Artaxerxes I (Longimanus). Darius ruled from 423-404 BC. Therefore Nehemiah must have written the book sometime after that reign began. Since there are no references to Nehemiah’s age in the text, it is hard to estimate how long he may have lived. When the book opens, he was second in command under King Artaxerxes. If he was 40 years old then and 41 when he reached Jerusalem in 444 BC, he would have been 62 years old in 423 BC when Darius replaced Artaxerxes. Consequently he probably wrote the book not long after 423 BC, most likely before 400 BC.

Key verse: “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart” (Neh 4:6).

Outline

Many lessons of a very practical nature might be gleaned from the inspired diary of “the king’s cupbearer” (Neh 1:11). For the present purposes, however, we shall concentrate on the qualities of character that constituted Nehemiah “a wise masterbuilder” (1Co 3:10) and give us guidelines to do likewise.

Having learned from his brother Hanani (Neh 1:2) that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down and the gates burned (v 3), Nehemiah pleaded with Artaxerxes for permission to travel to the land of his fathers to promote a reconstruction program (Neh 2:1-8). After a long and rigorous journey he finally arrived at Jerusalem; within only three days, ever the tireless worker, he was up and about on an inspection tour of the city and its fortifications. Nehemiah found many adversaries ready to hinder the work (v 10), while very few were willing to help in the building.

After viewing the desolations, he called the nobles and the priests together and explained his purpose, and how the king had supported him. They were so impressed that their response was immediate, concerted, and sincere — “Let us rise up and build” (Neh 2:18). The work was well-organized by Nehemiah, and construction began without delay.

But it did not go perfectly; the characters of Nehemiah and his brethren, like ours, must be tempered by adversity and hardship. There was opposition from the neighboring Samaritans and Gentiles, who used both guile and physical threats in an attempt to intimidate Nehemiah and impede his work. Most troublesome yet, there were internal dissensions: the Tekoite nobles would not “put their necks to the work” (Neh 3:5), and the men of Judah were prophets of pessimism (Neh 4:10). But Nehemiah did not despair, or lose hope; he maintained his impressive example and cheerful disposition at all times. It was characteristic of this man (and typical of Christ!) that he prayed for the forgiveness of the sins of the people as though they were his sins too! “We have sinned”, said he, and he was willing to share in the guilt of his nation, his “ecclesia” (Neh 1:6,7). The knowledge of the sins of his brethren did not discourage him, nor impel him to disassociate himself from the work, but only to redouble his efforts to bring the nation to repentance and finish their task. His enthusiasm was infectious, and the great work of repairing the wall was completed in only 52 days (Neh 6:15), “for the people had a mind to work” (Neh 4:6).

” ‘The people had a mind to work.’ When that is condensed into one word, it spells cooperation. The same idea was expressed by the apostles in such terms as ‘one mind’, ‘like-minded’, and ‘with one accord’. This thought should impress us deeply, because it is the only way possible for an ecclesia to succeed.

“If we do not work together, our love will grow cold; bitterness and evil speaking will be generated, and if this is augmented by the continual agitation of some crotchet which has been developed by our desire to have our own way, the foundations of our ecclesia will disintegrate and the whole structure will collapse. We must be on our guard at all times, and examine our purpose and motives….” (GAG, “The People Had a Mind to Work”, Ber 59:354).

Neh 3 enumerates 44 teams who begin work on the wall. Each team is assigned its own portion to build. Did some complain about the quality of their brethren’s work at other stations? Did others grumble because they could not be everywhere and do everything and supervise? Did some sit down and refuse to help?: ‘We just are not sure that we can approve of all the details of this operation.’ In the divine retrospect on the work of Nehemiah, all such petty hindrances and worries are put to one side. “Let us rise up and build” was the mandate; this call to the men of the city did not admit of any paltry quibbles. The work was too great to let personalities and prejudices and pride stand in the way.

It is the same with us as we strive to fortify God’s “city” today. There may be fears without, fightings within; but each brother, each individual ecclesia has pressing responsibilities near to home. Each of us has his portion of the “wall” to build, and no matter what we think of our neighbor’s building, or that “shoddy bit of work” way across on the other side, when the True Masterbuilder comes to inspect the work, each of us will be judged on his own portion!

“Every unit of the body must do its part by — ‘…. speaking the Truth in love,… growing up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto edifying of itself in love’ (Eph 4:15,16).

This is the only formula of a true ecclesia. What we do for our brethren and sisters, is what we do to God. If what we do is dominated by love, all will be well, but if we are not truly motivated by love and kindness in all we say and do, there will be no edification, and no bodily growth, and we will be brought into condemnation, and will never enter the kingdom of God. For, said Jesus, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Mat 25:40).

Passages using “ktisis” (“creation”): Col 1:16,17; Gal 6:15; 2Co 5:17; Jam 1:18; Eph 2:10,14,15; 4:24.

Other similar passages: 2Co 4:4-6; Isa 51:6,16; 45:7,11,12,13; 42:5,6; Psa 102:18,25-28.

Isaac Newton was born about 350 years ago, in 1643. Though he possessed probably the greatest scientific mind of all time, Newton believed that his expositions in the spiritual realm far outweighed in importance his scientific discoveries of the physical world. Yet his religious writings have been permitted to languish in obscurity and neglect. Today, the greatest part of his historical-theological manuscripts are hidden away in the Jewish National Library and University Library in Jerusalem. Newton believed firmly in the literal Second Coming of Christ and the return of the Jews to their Land. He refuted the “orthodox” opinion that the Judgment is to be accompanied by the literal burning up of the earth. His determination to reconstruct the ancient teaching of the first century church caused him to reject many commonly received church teachings: for example, he saw the “devil” as a term expressing the lusts of the flesh as manifested in various forms.

On the Importance and Significance of Prophecy

Giving ear to the prophets is a fundamental character of the true Church. The authority of councils, synods, bishops, and presbyters is human. The authority of the prophets is divine and comprehends the sum of religion, reckoning Moses and the Apostles amongst the prophets. And if an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel than what they have delivered, let him be accursed.

Daniel was in greatest credit among the Jews, and to reject his prophecies is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his prophecy concerning the Messiah.

For Daniel’s prophecies reach unto the end of the world; and there is scarce a prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ which doth not in something or other relate to his second coming.

God gave the Apocalypse [Revelation] and the prophecies of the Old Testament not to gratify men’s curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and His own providence, and not the interpreters’, be then manifested to the world.

Search the Scriptures thyself. By frequent reading, constant meditation, and earnest prayer, enlighten thine understanding if thou desirest to find the Truth — to which, if thou shalt at length attain, thou wilt value above all other treasures in the world by reason of the assurance and vigour it will add to thy faith, and steady satisfaction to thy mind which he only can know who shall experience it.

On the Return of the Jews to their Land

It may perhaps come about not from the Jews themselves but from some other kingdom friendly to them.

The return from captivity and coming of the Messiah and his Kingdom are described in Dan 7; Rev 19; Act 1; Mat 24; Joel 3; Eze 36; 37; Isa 60,62,63,65, 66, and many other places of Scripture. The manner of the return I know not. [This was written 300 years ago!] Let time be the interpreter.

On the Millennium as the Fulfillment of the Promises to Abraham

The Kingdom of God on earth involves the coexistence, during that period of one thousand years, of mortals and immortals, the latter in glory as the children of the resurrection. Seeing then this Kingdom outlasts the Millennium in so vast a disproportion of time and its end after that is nowhere predicted, we may well conclude with Jeremiah that it shall last as long as the ordinances of the sun and moon and stars; with Daniel, John and the other prophets that it shall stand for ever and ever, and with Luke that it shall have no end.

This was God’s covenant with Abraham when He promised that his seed should inherit the land of Canaan for ever; and on this covenant was founded the Jewish religion as well as the Christian; and therefore this point is of so great moment that it ought to be considered and understood by all men who pretend to [ie, profess] the name of Christians.

Appendix:

“The temporal distance of Newton’s conception of the Jewish Restoration from his own time is startling. While Finch thought the conversion of the Jews would begin in 1650, Mede at a date no later than 1715, William Lloyd by 1736, and his own erstwhile protégé Whiston by 1766, Newton saw it as centuries away. There can be no doubt that his vision of the return of the Jews was strong. Few intellectuals of Newton’s day could match the vigour of his faith in this prophetic event. Nevertheless, there is no sense of apocalyptic urgency. While the otherwise similarly-minded Whiston preached the nearness of the end, the imminence of the Jewish Restoration and toured the English resort towns with a model of the Millennial Temple, Newton stayed at his desk, communed with his books and worked and reworked prophetic treatises that few in his own lifetime would read. However, while he did not think apocalyptically about his present, he did see an intensely apocalyptic period focused at the end of time. Implicit in this eschatological profile one can also see Newton’s inherent religious radicalism. By contending that the true Gospel would not be widely preached until the end, he marginalizes the Reformation and distances himself from the mainstream Protestantism of his day. This belief even leads Newton to read Rom 11 differently: the time when “all Israel shall be saved” was not the time when the converted Jews would be added to already believing Gentiles. Rather, for Newton this referred to the moment at the end when all Israel — Jew and Gentile alike — would convert together to true Christianity. Unlike many other Christians, Newton refused to place Jewish faithlessness over Gentile Christian unbelief. Moreover, Newton’s prophetic world was a very private one. Unlike so many others of his age, there is no direct political context for his belief in the return of the Jews, no discussion of mercantile interests and no evidence of involvement in efforts to convert the Jews in his time.

“It is difficult to estimate the impact of Newton’s published writing on the return of the Jews. While it would be wrong to argue that his influence was great, conservative Protestants nevertheless saw him as an important prophetic authority and recent scholarship has demonstrated that his published Observations — which includes a detailed section on the return of the Jews — was a chief source for fundamentalist exegetes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And, while it is not overly lengthy, the section on the return of the Jews in the Observations is one of the fullest and most detailed articulations of his views on this subject. Nor must we overlook the secondary albeit likely more important influence he exerted through theological disciples such as Whiston, who published several works that deal with the Jewish Restoration. In both cases Newton’s exegesis merged with a prophetic tradition that helped create during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the religious and political climates that paved the way for the resettlement of Jews in Palestine — the longed-for vision of the Restoration. Newton would have approved.” (Stephen Snobelen, “Isaac Newton on the Return of the Jews”)

“About the time of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist on their literal interpretation in the midst of much clamor and opposition” (Sir Isaac Newton, 1643-1727).

(From Caribbean Pioneer)

Years pass and men die, but the purpose of God goes on. We look back on the year that has passed. Most of those who began the year with us are with us still, but some have fallen asleep. More and more as the troubles of the world thicken, times grow more difficult, and the clouds of coming danger become more threatening, do we realize the truth of the saying that “the righteous are taken away from the evil to come.”

Yet there is a thrill in the thought that we are living in the last days, and that the salvation of the world is nearer than when we first believed. We have been warned against these days, and against being overmuch cast down, and told rather to lift up our heads before the prospect of coming troubles, because they are heralds of better things. Perils have been passed in the year that is gone, and others are rising in the distance now, yet though the mountains be removed and cast into the depths of the sea, we need not be hopelessly afraid. “Well roar the storm to those who hear a deeper voice across the storm.”

Storms are occasional and passing things; calm is the normal condition of creation. To God, who has contemplated the world of men since the beginning, this reign of sin is but an episode. It will pass like a watch in the night.

We pass our years as a tale that is told, and are actors in but a short chapter of the long story. But it has its happy conclusion. The order of the history of mankind, and God’s dealing with them from the beginning to the establishment of His purpose in the Kingdom of His Son, is Peace — War — Peace. There was peace in the Garden of Eden; there will be peace when the earth is again “the Garden of the Lord”, but between these Gardens of Peace stretches the Wilderness of Sin, with its wanderings and its wickedness, its serpents, its idolatry, its murmurings and its thirst, its fighting and its fears; a wilderness march of thousands of years.

Yet there are other things in the desert: springs and palm trees, and quails and manna, healing and providential care, love and companionship; and for those who will take it, the ever-refreshing service of God — a service the rewards of which are not all future. There is even now the peace of God passing merely human understanding that compasses the hearts of men in the midst of battle.

The peace of Eden was broken by the intrusion of human willfulness and sin. It was the snake in the green pastures whose evil counsel ruffled the still waters and turned them to a bitterness that nothing but the healing Branch can ever sweeten. The Lord was their Shepherd in the Garden of Eden, but the sheep went astray and ever since have wandered on the dark mountains.

Light and peace have not left the earth, and will not be lacking while the true Israel have light in their dwellings, and keep in their hearts the peace that Christ left behind him. The light must be tended and the peace must be sought. The children of Israel had this lesson taught them in the lighting of the Holy Place; and the Feast of Tabernacles was instituted for the cultivation of this inward peace that comes to those who keep God’s law, and who are beyond the reach of petty offence; nothing shall them offend.

In quiet communion with God and His Word there is fulfillment of the Psalmist’s saying, “Great peace have they that love thy law.” But in the world outside there is no peace. The broken peace of Eden remains broken, and the sound of war grows more and more insistent as the years pass. The sound of drums and trumpets of war is never wholly absent. The prophetic word is being fulfilled and intensified. “Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let the weak say, I am strong. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears.”

We are witnesses of, and unwilling actors in, these days of the breaking of God’s peace, but let it not break our peace. We have the assurance that at last the earth shall be delivered from “unreasonable and wicked men”. Unreason and wickedness are in power in the politics of the world, ever counteracting and defeating the efforts of those who are working for peace. There are those in power who will have their own willful way, or they will have war. In war they boast and delight, but the fate of those who delight in war has long been written. “Scatter thou the people who delight in war” (Psa 68:30).

If we grow sick at heart in the contemplation of these things and weary of the defeat that so often waits upon our best effort, there is the quiet voice that says, “Be not weary in well doing.” If there are those who weary not in ill doing, shall we be the less strong and enduring in the cause of righteousness?

Paul invoked the blessing of inward peace upon the brethren: “Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace, always and by all means. The Lord be with you all.” And Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Each one must have his own peace center; just as in a storm a barrel of oil dribbled into the water over the bows of the boat makes a tiny calm in which the waves do not break, so should be the peace of the followers of Christ — however fierce the outward storm may be.

The peace in the heart of the believer should spring from the same source that supplied the peace that filled Christ’s life, and gave him peace in the tempest: the peace of knowledge and perfect trust. We must not have peace because our ears are deaf and our eyes blind, but rather because we hear and see the purpose of God being worked out in storm and tempest. These have their temporary place, and help forward God’s purpose.

There may be a stagnant peace and unwholesome peace. There is peace in the standing pool, and also weeds, corruption, and slimy life. God’s peace flows like a river, never ceasing, always flowing away in blessing, but always fed from the fountain as the river is fed again by the clouds that dissolve upon the mountains where it has its source.

We ourselves may be disturbers of our inward peace by looking too much on the warring elements around us, and forgetting the springs of inward strength. “Let not your heart be troubled,” says Jesus. When the heart is filled with peace, the outward storm adds to the sense of security.

A realization of strength of our position is a great element of peace. If we fear to examine the foundations of our faith, there can never be perfect peace. It is a constant misery to mark how much peace is broken and lost in the disputing for truth; and so much of it brought about by a mistaken sense of what is basic and what is not; and more still because of misunderstanding of terms, and personal temperamental lack of sympathy.

The New Year has begun. It will end whether we are here in life or not. But that thought need have no disturbing effect upon the peace of those to whom the this body of mortality is but a tabernacle, which, as Paul says, may be destroyed, but also may be made an abiding place of God, indestructible for ever, a house from heaven.

The old year has passed. The new has begun. It holds prospects of trouble, but that need not daunt the believer who does not go forth in his own strength. “The joy of the Lord is thy strength,” and our joy is in the strength of the Lord. Before such an association, what can the future hold to daunt those who are endeavoring to work with God?

We are told to seek peace, and pursue it, but we may also find it and possess it, and hold and guard it proof against all that would ruffle it. We must maintain this inward peace. One who is not at peace with God, cannot be at peace with himself in any but a false and delusive peace. Let us keep the peace unbroken, helped by that example that is before us in our remembrance of Christ whose blood was poured out and his body broken, but not his trust in God that gave him peace in the storm of suffering that swept over him. Let us know now, and cleave to the things that belong unto our peace.

CAL