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September 26th
The bible reading today is in Nehemiah chapters 1-5.
1000 years after the time of Moses and some 400 years before the birth of Jesus, the nation of Israel was in a desperate condition. Both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were completely destroyed.
Continuing in review, 70 years after Babylonian captivity, 50,000 Jews out of the 3,000,000 Jews deported, took advantage of King Darius’s offer of allowing God’s kids to return to their promised land to rebuild Jerusalem, especially their temple.
That’s only about 2% of the Israelis that were exiled to Babylon, but they went “anyway. They went “home”. They went home to “devastation”, but they went home “to rebuild” their homes, their cities, and their promised way of life.
There was a second wave and a third wave of Jewish exiles that would leave their homes in the Persian provinces to return to their homeland in Israel. Nehemiah would be a part of that third wave.
Apparently Nehemiah’s brother, Hanani, had returned to Jerusalem for a short period of time. After his visit to Judah, Hanani came back to his home in Susa. There he talked with his brother about the dire circumstances that plagued the people of Israel after their return from exile.
“And Hanani said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”
