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Thursday 22 September 2011

Day 267: Rebuilding the walls


No messing. Nehemiah gets everyone hard at work. You wouldn’t say no to Nehemiah.
Nehemiah’s encouragement to rebuild
Nehemiah 2:17-18
The contempt of Sanballat and others
Nehemiah 2:19-20
List of builders
Nehemiah 3:1-16
The Levites
Nehemiah 3:17-21
The priests
Nehemiah 3:22-26
Other builders
Nehemiah 3:27-32
Nehemiah overcomes ridicule
Nehemiah 4:1-6
The conspiracy
Nehemiah 4:7-15
Nehemiah’s precautions
Nehemiah 4:16-23
The people’s complaint
Nehemiah 5:1-5
Nehemiah’s rebuke
Nehemiah 5:6-11
The restitution
Nehemiah 5:12-13


Goldsmiths, perfume makers, Levites, priests ... Nehemiah gets some unlikely brickies and carpenters organised to do the work of rebuilding the wall. Clearly he is an effective leader, he organises ans inspires people to work, even in the face of ridicule and opposition.
One thing I love about Nehemiah - while he is working, he is continually offering up prayers to God. Even his writing is the same: in chapter 4, verses 1-3 describe the insults of Israel’s enemies, and 4-6 are Nehemiah’s muttered prayers against them.
The opposition only makes Nehemiah more determined. He organises the men defensively: half are building, half are guarding the work. They even work with one hand, and carry their weapon in the other. And Nehemiah isn’t afraid to bang heads together - he sorts out their financial crisis whereby in the midst of famine they couldn’t pay taxes. He’s a formidable man - when he confronts people who are doing wrong, they can’t say a word against him.

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