Scripture Thought (What I Learned):
Chapter 9: Jews Fast and Confess Sins
On the twenty-fourth day of this
month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, in sackcloth, and
with dust on their heads.Then those of Israelite lineage separated themselves
from all foreigners; and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities
of their fathers. They stood up in their place and read from the Book of the
Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; and for
another quarter they confessed and worshiped the Lord.
Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah,
Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani stood on the stairs of the
Levites and cried out with a loud voice to the Lord. The Levites, Jeshua,
Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah,
Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said:
“Stand up andbless
the Lord your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious
name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven,
the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and
all things thatare therein, the seas, and all
that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of
heaven worshippeth thee.
Thou art the Lord the
God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out
of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham; And
foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to
give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the
Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I
say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for
thou art righteous: And didst see the affliction of our
fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea; And shewedst
signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people
of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst
thou get thee a name, asit is this day.And thou
didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst
of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps,
as a stone into the mighty waters.
Moreover thou
leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar
of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest down
also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right
judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: And madest
known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes,
and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant: And gavest
them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest
forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst
them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn
to give them.
But they and our fathers dealt
proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to
thy commandments; And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy
wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their
rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage; but
thouart a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow
to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.
Yea, when they had made them
a molten calf, and said, Thisis thy God that brought thee up out
of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations;Yet thou in thy manifold
mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the
cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the
pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should
go.Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and
withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for
their thirst.
Yea, forty years didst thou
sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their
clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not. Moreover thou gavest them
kingdoms and nations, and didst divide them into corners: so they possessed the
land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of
Bashan.
Their children also multipliedst thou
as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land, concerning which
thou hadst promised to their fathers, that they should go in to
possess it. So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou
subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest
them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they
might do with them as they would. And
they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of
all goods, wells digged, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in
abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted
themselves in thy great goodness.” (Nehemiah 9:5-25)
Anytime a nation forsakes the Lord
and his prophets, being disobedient to the Laws of God… Nothing GOOD will ever
come from it!
“Nevertheless they
were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law
behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against
them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Therefore thou
deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and
in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from
heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours,
who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
But after they had rest, they did
evil again before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their
enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and
cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst
thou deliver them according to thy mercies; And testifiedst against them, that
thou mightest bring them again unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and
hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which
if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened
their neck, and would not hear.
Yet many years didst
thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by
thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear:
therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands.
Nevertheless for thy great mercies’ sake thou didst not utterly consume them,
nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.” (Nehemiah
9:26-31)
Even after people have sinned and
gone against the words of the Lord and his prophets, if they turn to the Lord
again, they can always have a chance for redemption. The prayer continues…
“Now therefore, our God, the
great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant
and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon
us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and
on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria
unto this day. Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon
us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly. Neither have our kings,
our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy
commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.
For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that
thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them,
neither turned they from their wicked works.
Behold, we are servants
this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat
the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in
it: And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us
because of our sins: also they have dominion over our bodies, and over our
cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress. And because
of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it;and our
princes, Levites, and priests, seal unto it.” (Nehemiah 9:32-38)
This
chapter is for the most part a prayer to God, where the jews confess their sins
and he Levites bless and praise the Lord.
Chapter 10: Sabbath Day and Tithes
Those who
placed their seal on the document were: Nehemiah the
governor, the son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah, Seraiah, Azariah, Jeremiah,
Pashhur, Amariah, Malchijah, Hattush, Shebaniah, Malluch, Harim, Meremoth,
Obadiah, Daniel, Ginnethon, Baruch, Meshullam, Abijah, Mijamin, Maaziah,
Bilgai, and Shemaiah. These werethe priests.
The
Levites: Jeshua the son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of
Henadad, and Kadmiel. Their brethren: Shebaniah, Hodijah, Kelita,
Pelaiah, Hanan, Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah, Zaccur, Sherebiah, Shebaniah, Hodijah,
Bani, and Beninu.
The
leaders of the people: Parosh, Pahath-Moab, Elam, Zattu, Bani, Bunni, Azgad,
Bebai, Adonijah, Bigvai, Adin, Ater, Hezekiah, Azzur, Hodijah, Hashum, Bezai,
Hariph, Anathoth, Nebai, Magpiash, Meshullam, Hezir, Meshezabel, Zadok, Jaddua,
Pelatiah, Hanan, Anaiah, Hoshea, Hananiah, Hasshub, Hallohesh, Pilha, Shobek,
Rehum, Hashabnah, Maaseiah, Ahijah, Hanan, Anan, Malluch,
Harim, and Baanah.
The rest of the people; the
priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Nethinim, and all those
who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God,
their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and
understanding; these joined with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into
a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law, which was given by Moses the servant
of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord, and His
ordinances and His statutes:
Those statutes, made by the above
named indivduals were as follows;
·
We would not give our daughters as wives to the
peoples of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons;
·
If the peoples of the land brought wares or
any grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we would not buy it from them on the
Sabbath, or on a holy day; and we would forego the seventh
year’s produce and the exacting of every debt. (Nehemiah 10:31)
·
Also we made ordinances for ourselves, to exact
from ourselves yearly one-third of a shekel for the service of the house of our
God: for the showbread, for the regular grain offering, for the regular burnt
offering of the Sabbaths, the New Moons, and the set feasts; for the holy
things, for the sin offerings to make atonement for Israel, and all the work of
the house of our God.
They cast
lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for bringing the
wood offering into the house of our God, according to our fathers’ houses, at
the appointed times year by year, to burn on the altar of the Lord. They
made ordinances to bring the firstfruits of their ground and the
firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, to the house of the Lord;
to bring the firstborn of their sons and their cattle, as it
is written in the Law, and the firstborn of their herds and their flocks,
to the house of God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God; to
bring the firstfruits of theirr dough, their offerings, the fruit from all
kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the
storerooms of the house of our God; and to bring the tithes of their land to
the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all the farming
communities. And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites
when the Levites receive tithes; and the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the
tithes to the house of God, to the rooms of the storehouse. For the children of
Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the grain, of the
new wine and the oil, to the storerooms where the articles of the
sanctuary are, where the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and
the singers are; and we will not neglect the house of our God.
In this chapter we learn a lot about
the importance of tithing and keeping the Sabbath day holy, see Nehemiah 10:31
and 38.
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