Exposition of Nehemiah 8

"1 all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. 2 Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. 3 He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law...5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6 Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground...8 So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. 9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 10 Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’"

Themes/Outline of Message

Let's begin with how the four Scripture passages for the week interrelate. Their central theme is that the Word of God, combined with God's Spirit, produce a harmonious Body of Christ. Our first reading, Neh. 8, describes the joy and longing of the people on hearing the Word of God (the Torah) read to them for the first time in years. Ps. 19 describes the manifestation of God in the world, culminating in the Torah of God. When we turn to Luke 4, however, we are in the world of Spirit. The Spirit of God descended on Jesus in a bodily form in Luke 3, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, he returned in the power of the Spirit and his first words to the gathered congregation were "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." Word and Spirit then culminate in Paul's description of the proper use of spiritual gifts in the Body of Christ in I Cor 12:12-31. They are not only to be used for the common good (v.7) but they complement each other, like the various organs of the body.

As we move to a brief exposition of the Neh. 8 text, three points emerge: (1) the duration of the people's hearing of the Word; (2) the depth of the people's understanding of the Word; and (3) the desire of the people for the Word of God. Let me begin with an introductory word about the context of Nehemiah 8.

Introduction

Nehemiah is one of the least-read books of the Bible. It describes a period during the people's exile from the Holy Land, a time, however, when the Persians rather than the Babylonians are the central power in the East. Ezra returned to Israel in 458 BCE--fourteen years earlier than Nehemiah--and came back to teach the Torah of God to the people. But life was so severe (the Book of Ezra describes this), that Ezra was unable to complete his mission. When Nehemiah was given permission to return to the land by Artaxerxes in 444 BCE, he directed the building of the city walls. Though historians debate how the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are related, the Book of Nehemiah teaches that only when the walls were rebuilt was the Torah brought back to the people. The theological point is powerful--that preparations to hear the Torah need to be made, even though Ezra, the scribe/priest, whose job it was to read and interpret that law, had been on the scene for more than a decade. Let's move now to the text.

I. The Duration of the Hearing

When Ezra read the Torah to the people, he began at dawn and didn't finish until mid-day (v. 3). Reflect on that for a moment. What things to people listen to or watch for long durations in our culture? Well, students may listen to a professor for ONE hour. A movie lasts around TWO hours. Football games may last THREE hours. A good rock concert, with warm up bands, may even go FOUR hours. But can you imagine the situation where people would stand (v.5) and patiently listen to something for SIX hours, as here? Something so important and so riveting is here that it just went on and on and on. What is the key to our being able to last three or four or six hours at something like this? It is only when we perceive that our very identity is caught up in the activity that we can be so fully engaged. Have you ever been so caught up for six hours in listening to something that you just wouldn't budge for that time? Unless we understand what it means to listen eagerly, we won't have a clue as to why the Psalmist can say about the laws of God, "More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold" (Ps. 19:10). The hearing of the Torah was "gold to the ears" of the people.

II. The Depth of Understanding

The six-hour "Torah concert" didn't just consist of Ezra's reading words nonstop. As the text says, "they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They (the Levites) gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading" (8:8). As the Apostle Paul will say a few hundred years later, "How can they to hear without a preacher?" (Rom 10:14). That is, the Word of God alone is not enough. People need interpretation. Can't you imagine as Ezra was reading that he would stop, and then the Levitical assistants would explain the meaning? Maybe they would interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac for the people; maybe they would try to clarify what it meant to love the Lord their God. As we will see on the day of Pentecost, the great miracle is not simply the speaking in tongues, but people's hearing the Word of God in their own language. The miracle of the Gospel is when people hear the Gospel in words they can understand. This passage shows that when the Torah returned to the people of God, it didn't do so without interpreters galore. "The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of the preachers" (from Handel's Messiah). So true. You are that interpreter, that sometimes lonely hermeneut in the pulpit today. Ask for wisdom to preach words that interpret clearly the Word of God.

III. The Desire of the People

We already saw a little of the people's desire by their willingness to listen for six hours to the preacher. But the final words of our passage emphasize that anew. When the people hear the Torah, they begin to weep and mourn (8:9). It is reminiscent of the response to the Apostolic preaching in Acts 2 where the people, cut to the heart, say "What should we do?" (Acts 2:37). There is nothing more powerful than the word of God slicing right to the hearts of the hearers (see Heb. 4:12). It had touched a deep chord in the people, and their desire to make that Word their own was palpable. However, he people were told to put off their mourning and put on a celebration, for the "joy of teh Lord is your strength" (v.10). Desire finds its fulfillment in celebration. There will certainly be much more to do as the demands of discipleship sink deeply into the hearers, but for today the Good News is that the Word of God can be celebrated. It has come (back) to the people of God, with clear interpretation. Thanks be to God!

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