Yesterday, we said that the first thing Nehemiah did after the wall was completed was give glory to God.
Second, as Nehemiah reports his achievement, he does not allow success to blind him to his continuing problems. Or, to put it another way, he does not pretend that his success was greater than it was. Many people do this. They are so pleased with their success that they will not admit any failures or imperfections. Nehemiah does admit them. In fact, chapter 6 ends with a record of letters Tobiah sent to intimidate Nehemiah (vv. 17-19).
We are probably not able to understand fully what is going on in this report. But we can tell that it is at least a realistic admission by Nehemiah of his continuing problems. Tobiah had been a source of opposition all along. His opposition was particularly troublesome for three reasons: 1) he was a Jew, like Nehemiah; 2) he had profitable trading agreements with the wealthier classes in Jerusalem (this is what the words “under oath” seem to refer to); and 3) he was linked to the wealthier Jewish families by marriage. When we remember that it was these very families which had been oppressing the poor and which Nehemiah had forced to back down, return what they had extorted, and abandon their policies, we can understand how these people might well have continued to resent Nehemiah despite their public change of heart, and how Tobiah might have had strong allies in them. These people were all no doubt drawing together, planning for the day when they would have the upper hand in Judah once again.
Does this apply to us? It does indeed. We live in a sinful and wicked world and our calling to live and work for the Lord Jesus Christ in that world is never ended. We need to remember that, especially when we have achieved some important objective.
In the seventh chapter of Nehemiah we come to another list of names similar to the list of the builders of the wall in chapter 3. But this list is even sparser in information than the earlier one. In fact, it is really only a census from the archives. We know this because it is almost identical to the list found in Ezra 2.1 Now that the wall has been built, Nehemiah is going to turn his attention to repopulating and revitalizing the city. So his census is a follow up on his first effort as well as a preparation for what is to come.
How do we study this chapter? Since it contains more than just the census, I suggest that these additional elements are the clue to understanding it. The three actions described consolidate the work and prepare for the coming revitalization of Jerusalem.
1Although they contain virtually the same names and groupings, the two lists are nevertheless not identical. The total of individuals is the same: 42,360 (Ezra 2:64; Neh. 7:66). But the individual items add up to different and contradictory totals: 29,818 in Ezra and 31,089 in Nehemiah. The text says nothing about this. For the most part, the opinion among scholars and Bible students is that errors have slipped into the text through copying, due to the special difficulty of understanding and reproducing numerical lists. For a discussion of these problems, see Derek Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), 43; and Howard F. Vos, Bible Study Commentary: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 36, 115.
