1/19 Reading (Nehemiah 13; Philippians 4)

Nehemiah 13: These seems to be a break in the time between the end of chapter 12 and the beginning of this chapter. Nehemiah was in Babylon and when he returned he had to set things back in order because people let things happen that shouldn’t have happened with respect to the temple. He then admonished people for working on the Sabbath. Finally, he had to remind the people not to marry foreign women. Seems like everything almost fell apart while he was gone. Didn’t take long.

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1/18 Reading (Nehemiah 10-12; Philippians 3)

Nehemiah 10: The signing of the pledge they made at the end of the previous chapter. Four groups sign it: Governor Nehemiah, priests, the levites, and the leaders of the people. The rest of the chapter focuses on what this covenant means and the things that they agreed to. Many of these come from the Torah.

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1/17 Reading (Nehemiah 7-9; Philippians 2)

Nehemiah 7: First few verses focus on Nehemiah’s instructions related to protecting the city now that the wall is finished. The overwhelming majority of this chapter focuses Nehemiah registering the families. And it was a lot of people (42,360).

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1/16 Reading (Nehemiah 4-6; Philippians 1)

Nehemiah 4: Opposition to the construction of the wall grew considerably as the people became more organized. Enough to the point that Nehemiah set up guards to protect the workers and prayed to God for his help. The opposition pulled back because they realized it would no longer be easy to destroy them.

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1/15 Reading (Nehemiah 1-3; Philemon)

Introduction to Nehemiah: Nice little tidbit from the introduction in the NRSV study bible: “The Nehemiah section of Ezra-Nehemiah depicts the final stage of Jewish reconstruction after exile, featuring Nehemiah as the Jewish governor under Persian rule, who rebuilds Jerusalem’s walls (1.1–7.5) and oversees many reforms” (p. 685). Good to know.

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