Nehemiah 9 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Nehemiah 9:4-8

4 Standing on the stairs of the Levites were Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Kenani. They cried out with loud voices to the Lord their God. 5 And the Levites – Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah – said: ‘Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who is from everlasting to everlasting.’

‘Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. 6 You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.

7 ‘You are the Lord God, who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and named him Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful to you, and you made a covenant with him to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and Girgashites. You have kept your promise because you are righteous.

A. Find Out:

1. What two things did the Levites do? v.4,5
2. How do they start their declaration? v.5c,6a
3. How do they first acclaim the Lord? v.6b,c
4. On whom do they then focus in acclaiming the Lord? v.7
5. What had the Lord done with him? v.8a,b
6. What had the Lord done because of what? v.8c

B. Think:

1. What is the purpose of what is now happening?
2. How do they start doing that in a general way?
3. How does it then become specific?

C. Comment:

  We are about to see a most remarkable record of Israel ‘s awareness of the Lord and of their failures as a nation, as the Levites proclaim the truth in the verses that are coming. It seems like it is a team effort (v.4,5) calling the people to praise the Lord. Confession within praise is what is coming here.

  They start by acclaiming the Lord in very general terms, seeking to exalt and praise His name (v.5c). But praise has to have content for it to be meaningful and so they declare the Lord’s uniqueness (v.6a) and the fact that the Lord is the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth, the bringer of all life (v.6b,c)

  Starting from His greatness they then move on to His history with mankind which will be their history and it starts with Abram (v.7) who the Lord took from Ur , spoke to over many years and blessed and whose name He changed.

In the course of that the Lord had promised Abraham that He would give his descendants the land of Canaan and made a covenant with him (v.8). As they now look back on their history, they see that the Lord fulfilled that promise perfectly and they recognise the Lord’s righteousness, which simply means that everything the Lord says and does is right and He never does wrong. He fulfils His promises.

D. Application:

1. We are what we are because of God’s activity in our lives.
2. Think on what He has done and praise Him.

Passage: Nehemiah 9:9-27

9 ‘You saw the suffering of our ancestors in Egypt; you heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 You sent signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his officials and all the people of his land, for you knew how arrogantly the Egyptians treated them. You made a name for yourself, which remains to this day. 11 You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground, but you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters. 12 By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.

13 ‘You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. 14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them.

16 ‘But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, “This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,” or when they committed awful blasphemies.

19 ‘Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. 20 You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen.

22 ‘You gave them kingdoms and nations, allotting to them even the remotest frontiers. They took over the country of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan. 23 You made their children as numerous as the stars in the sky, and you brought them into the land that you told their parents to enter and possess. 24 Their children went in and took possession of the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites, who lived in the land; you gave the Canaanites into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with them as they pleased. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they revelled in your great goodness.

26 ‘But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they turned their backs on your law. They killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you; they committed awful blasphemies. 27 So you delivered them into the hands of their enemies, who oppressed them. But when they were oppressed they cried out to you. From heaven you heard them, and in your great compassion you gave them deliverers, who rescued them from the hand of their enemies.

A. Find Out:

1. What did the Lord do? List the 8 things. v.9-12
2. What had the Lord done? List the 7 ‘you’ things v.13-15
3. But how had Israel responded? List their sins. v.16-18
4. But how had the Lord responded? v.17b,19-21
5. What had the Lord then enabled them to do? v.22-25
6. Yet how that they responded? v.26-27

B. Think:

1. How would you summarise this passage?
2. How had Israel failed the Lord?
3. Yet how had the Lord blessed them?

C. Comment:

  This is one of those accounts of the history of Israel found in the Bible which is always very honest and which shows the Lord’s goodness and Israel ‘s foolishness.

  Moving on from the call of Abram and God’s promise to give his descendants a land of their own (v.7,8) the account moves on the speak of how that happened. The Lord came to Israel in Egypt and delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh through miraculous means (v.9-12). He had then met with them at Sinai and gave them His Law and along the way had provided all they needed (v.13-15) But then came the shameful incident of the Golden Calf showing their folly (v.16-18). Their grumblings along the way to Sinai are forgotten; they are only held accountable once the covenant has been established and after they have encountered the Lord at Sinai.

  Yet despite this folly the Lord did not abandon them and although He consigned them to forty years wandering, He provided for them all that time until the next generation were ready to enter the Land (v.19-21). Mercy and grace prevailed! Then He gave them the Promised Land (v.22-25) but even their in their folly again and again in different ways they ignored or rejected the Lord and throughout Judges we see the Lord saving them, and them turning away and then the Lord saving them. It is an ongoing picture of God’s Grace and Israel ‘s stupidity.

D. Application:

1. Israel had no excuses. We have no excuses for our sin.
2. History is the story of God’s mercy and grace.

Passage: Nehemiah  9:28-35

28 ‘But as soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time.

29 ‘You warned them in order to turn them back to your law, but they became arrogant and disobeyed your commands. They sinned against your ordinances, of which you said, “The person who obeys them will live by them.” Stubbornly they turned their backs on you, became stiff-necked and refused to listen. 30 For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you warned them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands of the neighbouring peoples. 31 But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

32 ‘Now therefore, our God, the great God, mighty and awesome, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes – the hardship that has come on us, on our kings and leaders, on our priests and prophets, on our ancestors and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. 33 In all that has happened to us, you have remained righteous; you have acted faithfully, while we acted wickedly. 34 Our kings, our leaders, our priests and our ancestors did not follow your law; they did not pay attention to your commands or the statutes you warned them to keep. 35 Even while they were in their kingdom, enjoying your great goodness to them in the spacious and fertile land you gave them, they did not serve you or turn from their evil ways.

A. Find Out:    

1. What had Israel done time after time? v.28
2. What had they done over the years? v.29
3. How had God responded? v.30,31
4. How do they look back on their years? v.32
5. Yet how do they view the Lord? v.33
6. What do they recognise about themselves? v.34,35

B. Think:

1. What are Israel very much aware of about themselves?
2. Of what are they aware about the Lord?
3. How is this a very healthy awareness, do you think?

C. Comment:

  The history of Israel is a history of stubbornness and rebellion, a history of turning away from God and suffering the consequences. Israel are very much aware of the folly revealed in their history. Already they had acknowledged that from the outset, from their conception at Sinai, they had failed (v.18), and even after they had received the Land they still turned away from Him (v.26).

  And so now they continue to remember those times of failure, those times when they did wrong (v.28) and disobeyed and rejected the Law (v.29) and even their kings and leaders had turned away and disobeyed the Law (v.34). In all this they honestly face their sins over the centuries.

  But this isn’t just about them; it is about the Lord for in His responses to them throughout those centuries He revealed much about Himself. They had already recognised Him as a forgiving, gracious and compassionate God (v.17) who had not given up on them when they sinned (v.17,19). Now they recognise that the Lord had chastised them by handing them over to their enemies (v.27,28) yet never giving up on them. Instead He sent His prophets but they rejected them as well (v.26,30). Time and time again this had happened and even their kings or leaders had been as bad (v.34). It was a terrible story!

D. Application:

1. Salvation starts with recognising and accepting our failure.
2. Salvation recognises and calls on the grace and mercy of God.