God's Covenant with the Returned Exiles - Nehemiah 9-10

In this unit, we have studied the grace of God’s covenant with his people of the ancient Near East from several angles. We’ve traced God’s covenant from Abraham to Moses to David. We’ve considered what the covenant meant for the newly chosen and for those who conquered the land. In this final lesson, we consider the meaning of the covenant to postexilic Israelites. The writer of Nehemiah voiced a prayer that reflects the tradition and the travail of the covenant people.

Todays’s study comes from a Scripture text taken from the time near the conclusion of Old Testament history. God’s people in the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. To the south, the kingdom of Judah fell in Babylon in 586 B.C. But the time of captivity in Babylon that followed was not a period, as though it marked the end for God’s people.

It was comma, a pause during which God disciplined his wayward people with intent to bring them back home. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the king of Persia when he learned the distressing news tha tthe walls around Jerusalem still lay in ruins. That was nearly 100 years after the first return to Judah! He felt compelled to rectify this situation personally so the city could properly defend itself from attack.

Nehemiah, working with Exra, understood that while protecting the city physically was vital, maintaining the spiritual defenses of the people was even more critical. records a time of concentrated teaching from God’s law. Our printed text is taken from te conclusion of this prayer.

Pleading with God - -37

Nehemiah 9:32–35 NRSV

“Now therefore, our God—the great and mighty and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love—do not treat lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria until today. You have been just in all that has come upon us, for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly; our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors have not kept your law or heeded the commandments and the warnings that you gave them. Even in their own kingdom, and in the great goodness you bestowed on them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you and did not turn from their wicked works.

The prayer is a model of the preparation for entering into a binding covenant. The mind and the heart must be made right. Any good prayer must have the harmony of attitude, emotion, and word. Classically, this was done with the focus on praise of God.

Ancient writers typically used the kind of eloquent literary form at the beginning of every address. They praised the audience of their remarks in honorific terms in order to soften receptivity and bring decorum to the occasion for the verbal exchange.

By focusing on the magnificence of the Lord God, the supplicant raised himself emotionally above their natural demeanor. He acknowledged the irrefutable distance that will always exist between God and people. God is stable and certain in majesty and might. No matter what comes, God’s people can rely on God to keep covenant with them.

The portion of the prayer from Nehemiah that is our focus in introduced by the historical account of God’s relationship with his people. From Creation to the covenant with Abraham, from the deliverance from Egypt to the conquest of Canaan, God’s commitment was binding despite the faltering disobedience of the people.

The spokesman for the people in this prayer based his praise of the greatness of God precisely upon this discrepancy between the faithfulness of the Lord and the resistance of the people.

How can a person forming a prayer of praise reach beyond lip service to sincerity? How can we deepen our understanding of the greatness of God?

Supplication -

The prayer moves from praise to supplication within the first verse. The supplicant begged for consideration. He implored the Just One to take the full measure of the difficulties that the exiles had experienced through the years. His plea was inclusive in its range from royalty to religious leaders to the people.

The prayer was bid for understanding and perhaps an attempt to explain or account for the culpability of the people. The words of the prayer carry the emotion of the moment as an overlay to the deeper attitude informing the prayer. In this prayer, the emotion carries the plea for understanding while the telltale attitude lurking beneath reveals a sense of victimization that is inherent in war-related exile.

The supplication in this prayer places emphasis on time or duration. The plea for depth of thought or reflection. Everyone has been affected by the Lord’s discipline. No one has been immune or exempt. Those praying are also quick to note that all they have experienced in the form of the Lord’s discipline is completely deserved. God is righteous he has acted faithfully in all his dealings. His people have no one to blame but themselves, as confessed throughout the prayer.

What place should affirmation of God’s justice have in prayers of new-covenant believers?

In verse 35 again we witness the Lord’s great goodness and abundant provisions are contrasted with people’e abundant instances of rebellion. The spacious and fertile land implies great size and also signifies prosperity or blessing. The promised land was God’s gift to the people, but that gift had to be received according to the giver’s terms. That did not happen.

How would you describe the relationship between a person’s gratefulness index and his or her dedication to God?

Pledging to God - ;

Nehemiah 9:28 NRSV

But after they had rest, they again did evil before you, and you abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you rescued them according to your mercies.

Nehemiah 10:28–29 NRSV

The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to adhere to the law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, join with their kin, their nobles, and enter 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 our Lord and his ordinances and his statutes.

Normally we think of God as the one who initiates covenants. But here those who have prayed so earnestly demonstrate their desire to take action. The express their intent to obligate themselves to God. The rest of the people follow the example set by the leaders cited in . The additional priests and Levites are perhaps those who have not taken part in leading the time of reading and teaching God’s law and of repentance. But they desire to be part of this pivotal moment of renewal commitment to the Lord.

Verse 28 highlights that part of the preparing for this service and dedication involved the people who are of “Israelite descent” separating themselves “from all foreigners”. This separation could describe a number of actions that must be taken: putting away foreign gods, divorcing pagan spouses, etc.

What techniques can we use to separate ourselves from the world while still engaging it with the gospel?

Verse 29 reveals how serious the people were taking the rededication. The people indicate their agreement by placing themselves under a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God in its entirety. When we read the steps that are promised in the rest of , we how seriously the people are taking this covenant. This is not lip service. A general promise to live a holier life is one thing; to list specific actions of genuine repentance is another.

In what ways can we model submissiveness to God without appearing sanctimonious? In terms of speech patterns, behavior

Conclusion

One of the most noteworthy characteristics of Nehemiah is the priority of prayer. Most of the prayers mentioned in the book are quite brief. By far the longest prayer is found in the passage from which today’s lesson text is drawn. Today’s lesson highlights God’s part in making covenants with various individuals and groups in the Old Testament. The importance of prayer as part of the covenant renewal ceremony in today’s study must not be bypassed.

Prayer

Faithful God, we confess that we have embraced the secularity of our times. Our lives are governed by our desire for self-satisfaction and material gain. Teach us to see beyond ourselves. Lead us to lives committed to serving you by serving others. Amen.

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