Reading: Nehemiah 10-11, Psalm 51
A few years ago I had the opportunity to put one of those online genealogy services to use. I was surprised to learn that once I imputed a few names I knew from the latest generations of my family, there was a great deal of information available from the research others had done on their own family lines. The web of relations got more complete as I went further back, at least to a point. Eventually there were missing links, blank spots, and names with asterisks informing me that these were little better than a guess. By this time I was several hundred years into the past and had jumped from North America to Europe. That I was able to find so much information about my ancestry is astonishing, and almost entirely due to the work of a small subset of society that is quite obsessed with the past and our links to it.
Lists of names are one of those constants in ancient literature that frustrate casual readers while simultaneously engrossing those of scholarly bent. One way of understanding how a society from long ago worked is by knowing who they thought worth remembering. In the case of the tenth chapter of Nehemiah, we get both who and what they thought worth remembering, which is real gold mine. It is not exactly exciting to read a list of the names of people who signed a covenant document, but that is what this is.
What does it tell us about the exiles? Remember, these were good writers- the author of Ezra-Nehemiah did not include this list of names because they were bureaucratic pedants, but because they wanted their future readers to remember something. Nehemiah, the supreme authority in the region as governor, has his name at the top. Then come the priests, who have the job of making the temple run. Then the levites, who are responsible to teach the people. Finally, the leaders of the people are signatories. The whole of the returned exile society is represented, and bound to this oath.
What oath? We are told that too. First, to keep away from foreign marriages. Again, recall that in this time and place marriage was economic, political, and religious alliance. To marry into the local population was to adopt their customs, which was what got the Israelites into so much trouble before. Second, to keep the Sabbath. The ancient Persian society had no “holy day” as such, and certainly no established day of rest. The returned exiles would stand out in the extreme by their practice of the Sabbath day and year, just as they were intended to do from the beginning when God gave them the covenant sign way back in Exodus. Third, to keep the temple in good condition. Though this was clearly not the restoration Temple of Ezekiel, it was still the house of God and to neglect it would be unacceptable. Finally, there is a kind of public service requirement. The people would tithe for the priests and the levites, provide the necessities for them to survive as they were given no land and had additional duties in the temple and as teachers. Those who were selected to live in Jerusalem were also given support from those who lived in their own towns.
What does the author of this book what us to know? That the returned exiles were not a rabble of displaced persons, but an ordered society, organized, capable, and with intent. They really wanted to keep the laws of their God. They really wanted to become the kingdom of priests that God says he intends to make them into. They understood that they had made huge errors, and were intent on not repeating them. They had capable leadership and committed followers.
Unfortunately, that is not the end of the book. The authors of this book have shown us two stall outs already, and now have spent extensive time building up to a final test. Nehemiah, the capable leader, is about to leave and make report to the king in Persia. The test is what he will find when he comes back.