Lesson 11 – Nehemiah – Chapter 8 Cont.

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NEHEMIAH

Lesson 11, Chapter 8 Continued As we continue in Nehemiah chapter 8, it occurs to me that the focus of this chapter is a subject that I am confronted with virtually daily both by emails and face to face: how do we obey the Law of Moses in our current circumstances? And if we can’t obey all the Law to the letter, should we try to live by any of it? As pertains to Nehemiah and Ezra’s time, so many of the commandments and ordinances of God’s Torah had fallen into disuse as a result of the Jewish exile to Babylon. Everything that required a Temple and a Priesthood was impossible to observe up in Babylon, kosher eating to the divine standard was not doable, and so in some cases replacement systems were invented by the more zealous of the Jews. Those systems followed the Jewish exiles that returned back to Judah, and of course became the norm for the 95% who chose to stay. The political reality was that the Law was given to the Hebrews almost a millennia earlier under the conditions of self-rule (having just been freed from Egypt); but now the condition was that Judah was merely a small province in a vast Persian Empire, and the Jews were Persian citizens under the authority of a Persian King no matter where they lived. How might divine laws and regulations that by design were to be not just part of the Hebrew religious sphere, but rather were to also be the everyday civil laws and moral code that the Jews lived by, translate to a people who were but an insignificant population under the firm rule of a powerful pagan government? As we read in Nehemiah 8, and as we’ll further discuss today, Ezra introduced an important concept that I have tried to introduce as well to all of you: when we can’t follow the letter of the Law because circumstances dictate that we can’t, we should follow the principle that any particular Law is built upon or than any regulation is demonstrating. And truth be told, if the Torah and the Law had not been intentionally designed by the Lord to have that sort of cross- cultural flexibility and adaptability to time and progress, then it was doomed to failure from the moment the Israelites crossed the Jordan into Canaan and began to encounter life in a pagan land, fighting against and living among various pagan people. What we do NOT see is Ezra telling the people that because you can’t do one law as it was originally intended, then the whole Law is dead and gone. He doesn’t say that because sometimes the letter of the Law necessarily has to be pushed to the background and the hard work of finding the principle of any particular law has to be done, that all obligation to the Law becomes optional. For many centuries the Christian solution to this challenge of making the Law relevant to changing times and circumstances has been to declare it abolished and thus to simply wipe away the challenge. According to our traditional institutional Church authorities going back as far as the 4 ^th century A.D., it is they who shall dictate religious observance, morality and behavior. It is they who shall declare holy days. Manmade Christian customs and doctrines shall replace God’s laws and even evolve as political correctness evolves. Let’s re-read part of Nehemiah chapter 8. RE-READ NEHEMIAH 8:9 – end Nehemiah is called the Tirshita , usually translated as governor. Tirshita is not Hebrew; it is a Persian word. And it helps to realign us to the reality that Nehemiah may have had a Jewish racial heritage, but to the world of his day he was a Persian official (the king’s own cupbearer) governing via Persian law over Persian citizens in a Persian province called Judah. And verse 9 shows with certainty that Nehemiah and Ezra were contemporaries; they co- operated to convene this gathering on the 1 st day of the 7 th month, Tishri, and each played his role. Nehemiah is to be commended as his role is obviously one of organizing, and it is Ezra who is made front and center; Nehemiah doesn’t insist on the spotlight. It is said that the reading of the Law by Ezra caused the people to weep. However Ezra and the Levites admonished them that they should cease their tears and instead celebrate with joy. Why were the people mourning? Because God’s purpose for the Law was served: it first made the people aware of their sins, and then convicted them of those sins, and then showed them what their predicament was, and finally what the consequence of sins was. Paul’s comments on this subject in the Book of Romans could just as easily have come from Ezra’s mouth as he stood on that wooden platform before the people of Judah. Romans 7:7-13 CJB 7 Therefore, what are we to say? That the Torah is sinful? Heaven forbid! Rather, the function of the Torah was that without it, I would not have known what sin is. For example, I would not have become conscious of what greed is if the Torah had not said, “Thou shalt not covet.”

⁸ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, worked in me all kinds of evil desires- for apart from Torah, sin is dead.

⁹ I was once alive outside the framework of Torah. But when the commandment really encountered me, sin sprang to life,

¹⁰ and I died. The commandment that was intended to bring me life was found to be bringing me death!

¹¹ For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me; and through the commandment, sin killed me.

¹² So the Torah is holy; that is, the commandment is holy, just and good.

13 Then did something good become for me the source of death? Heaven forbid! Rather, it was sin working death in me through something good, so that sin might be clearly exposed as sin, so that sin through the commandment might come to be experienced as sinful beyond measure. Many Jews had apparently not heard the Law in a long time; some no doubt had never heard it. And as the hours of instruction passed it became clear that the traditions and customs that had been developed over the past 175 years in exile (the traditions and customs that dictated everyday life) didn’t necessarily match with God’s laws; it was a sobering wake-up call. Think upon what is happening here: just as Paul said 500 years later, the knowledge of their sin had been dead to these people standing before Ezra because they didn’t know the Torah. Paul said in Romans 7:8, “…..apart from Torah, sin is dead”. So was Paul suggesting that staying apart from the Torah was supposed to be a good thing? That the right thing (the smart thing?) is to intentionally make ourselves separated from God’s laws, and thus we won’t sin. Paul says in verses 12 and 13 that not only is the Torah and the commandment holy, just and good, but that any thought that the Torah has become a source of death must be dismissed. “Heaven forbid” he says to that notion. But modern Christianity says the opposite. Here’s the rather standard (admittedly not universal) Christian formula: just be ignorant of what sin is according to the Bible by avoiding the Torah, and therefore since you won’t know what sin is in God’s eyes, you can’t commit sins! Instead, sin is now customized for each person. Sin has no standard. Whatever God tells you is sin “in your spirit” is sin, but that same sin may not be sin for me (and vice versa). Thankfully the people standing in front of Ezra took the Laws of Moses to heart and began mourning when they realized their sorry state. It is my hope, it is my purpose in life, it is the reason for the existence of Seed of Abraham and Torah Class, that someday all Believers will open the Torah and weep, finally realizing the truth and relevance of it. And yet, we have Ezra and the other leaders telling the people to stop their mourning and instead to celebrate with joy! What are we to make of this? I think the best single word to explain the reaction of both the people and the leaders is bittersweet. Think about the meaning of that word bittersweet: bitter and sweet are opposites, so how can something be both at the same time? The definition of such a thing is called irony. And yet, this irony was true. It was bitter for the people to learn that they had been displeasing God, had somewhat intentionally ignored God’s Word, and what the terrible consequences for this were. They had been living in exile as a consequence. They had returned to Judah, living in a heap of ruins as a consequence. They were subjects of a pagan king as a consequence. Yet, ironically, it was sweet that here they were finally learning what pleased God and now they knew it with certainty. They were no longer relying on flimsy traditions of men to try and be in harmony with God. They found out that while disobedience indeed brought curses and death, obedience brought blessings and life! And the day that they were hearing all this was itself a God-ordained holy day, the Feast of Trumpets….. Yom Teruah . And this holy day was meant to be a joyful day, a day of abundance, and not a day of sadness. This is exactly how it ought to be for modern Believers. Don’t consider it a defeat that the Lord suddenly reveals to you that the Torah is alive and well after you had denied it for all your Christian life. Don’t consider it a day to be sad and mournful when finally the scales fall off your eyes and you realize that you have a duty and obligation before the Lord to obey His commandments. Think of the bittersweet tears you cried the day you first believed; that moment that you stopped running from God; that you knew Christ was real, that He died for you, and that you had been rescued from eternal death because of your sinful ways. How awful for your past, how guilty for rebelling against the Lord, and how wonderful and thankful for your future that you felt all at the same time. That is essentially what is happening here in Nehemiah chapter 8. In verse 10 Ezra continues to explain why the mourning of the people should turn to celebration. It is because, “the Joy of Adonai is your strength”. The word translated in the CJB as strength, is ma’uz . More literally ma’uz means a refuge, a place of safety, the protection of a stronghold. So the joy of the Lord is our place of protection. Have joy in the Lord by getting into harmony with Him, says Ezra, and do this by means of knowing and obeying His Torah, and this will put you in a place of safety. The Rabbis regularly speak of the Torah metaphorically as a fence, and if we stay within the fence of the Torah, we are protected by the Lord Himself. In verse 12 we learn that the people got the message and they left to go home and feast, and to drink (wine), but also to “send portions”. In other words, what better way to celebrate than to have food! Having a special meal on a festival occasion was common in the Old Testament. In fact, a special kind of sacrifice called the Zevah Shelamim had been established in God’s Law for these festive occasions. With this kind of sacrifice a small portion was burned up on the altar, but the majority was given back to the worshipper to eat. However the term “sending portions”, shalach manah , is a Hebrew expression that means to give gifts of food to those who are in need. The idea is that all Israel is to celebrate, and that those who have plenty are to be sure to include those who have insufficient means to join in; no one should be left out. Upon verse 13, we have now turned the page to a new day, the 2 ^nd day of Tishri, and the assembly is continuing. Thus since on the day before the people had been dismissed to go home, to celebrate, and to “send portions”, only part of the crowd remained and so those affected by what happens next is described only as “the heads of the father’s clans”. And what happens is essentially that a Torah class breaks out. And as they’re studying the Torah (they were no doubt in Leviticus) they learn that part of God’s instructions concerning the Sukkot celebration that is only a couple of weeks away is to build and live in Sukkahs, huts. Leviticus 23:39-43 CJB ³⁹ “‘But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered the produce of the land, you are to observe the festival of ADONAI seven days; the first day is to be a complete rest and the eighth day is to be a complete rest.

⁴⁰ On the first day you are to take choice fruit, palm fronds, thick branches and river- willows, and celebrate in the presence of ADONAI your God for seven days.

⁴¹ You are to observe it as a feast to ADONAI seven days in the year; it is a permanent regulation, generation after generation; keep it in the seventh month.

⁴² You are to live in sukkot for seven days; every citizen of Isra’el is to live in a sukkah,