Creation.  Fall.  Flood.  Nations.  Tower of Babel.  Abraham.  Isaac.  Jacob.  Twelve sons of Israel.  Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers.  Four hundred years of bondage in Egypt.  Moses.  The Exodus.  One year of camping near Mt. Sinai.  The giving of the Law.  The building of the tabernacle.  Establishment of proper worship of the Lord.  Offerings of shed blood sacrifices.  Wandering in the wilderness for forty years.  Joshua.  The land of promise is liberated, divided and conquered.  Twelve Tribes of Israel established in the land.

Four hundred years of Judges.  Four hundred years of kings.  God sends major and minor prophets to reveal national sinfulness and call the people back to Himself.  First a united kingdom under Saul, David and Solomon.  The temporary wilderness tabernacle is replaced by the “permanent” temple in Jerusalem.  Then the nation of God’s people divides into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  Assyria conquers Israel in 722BC.  Babylon conquers Judah in 586BC.  Temple is destroyed.  Seventy years of captivity in Babylon.  Persia conquers Babylon.  In 539BC, King Cyrus of Persia allows the people of God to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of Solomon. 

One group returns with Zerubbabel and begins to rebuild the temple.  Finally, in 515 BC, the second temple is completed and dedicated.  In 458BC, Ezra who is a priest and a scribe returns to Jerusalem with the second group of returnees from Babylon.  In 444BC, Nehemiah leaves his post as cupbearer to the king of Persia to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall of fortification around the rebuilt city and its new temple.

Nehemiah means “the consolation and comfort of God.”  I choose to call him Knee-High-Miah.  He was a man dedicated to God and committed to prayer.  There are twelve prayers recorded in this 13-chapter book.  We find the story of Ezra’s return in the heart of the book of Nehemiah. 

The city of Jerusalem needed a temple again.  Enter Zerubbabel…check!  The city also needed a wall around it to provide a defense against the surrounding enemies.  Enter Nehemiah…check!  Most of all, the city needed a revival of allegiance to God in worship and praise and repentance.  The solution was to return to the Lord of the Word and the Word of the Lord.  Enter Ezra…check! 

In Ezra 7:10, we find these words of character reference: “…for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to practice it and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.”  To that I say, may the tribe of Ezra increase in the land. 

In the fall of the year, there are three Jewish feasts that are to be celebrated:  the festival of trumpets signaling the new year, festival of booths remembering the wilderness wanderings and Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement.  Ezra and Nehemiah saw that these were celebrated.  They began the month (our September) by gathering the people at the Water Gate and bringing out the Book of the Law of Moses.  From early morning to midday, Ezra read from the scripture scrolls.  The people listened with intention of obeying the Word.  They bowed low and worshipped the Lord, confessing sins.  The Levites (priestly descendants of Moses from the tribe of Levi) explained the message to the people.  What a glorious time this was for all the people.  Return from exile.  Rebuild their Jerusalem.  Restore the temple.  Raise the wall.  Repent and re-commit.

Our lesson unit encourages us to build our lives on the Word of God.  This is the only true foundation for the people of God in every age.  The people in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah heard the Word.  We hear the Word, and we remember the Author of the Word.  We then order our lives according to the teachings of the Word.  This leads to the blessings promised to us in the Word. 

As of this writing, we have reached the middle chapter of the Gospel of Luke as we read the Bible through together from October 2022 to October 2023.  There were four hundred years of silence waiting in the wings for the people in Nehemiah’s day.  The expectation of the coming of the Messiah was building.  God was getting His people ready to receive the GIFT promised all through the Old Testament.  Jesus would be born in the nearby town of Bethlehem.  God had done all He could to prepare them for His arrival.  The WORD of God would be made flesh and dwell among His people for a few short years.  God kept His Word by sharing HIM with the waiting world.