40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Nehemiah 8:13-9:6 (Episode 367)

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

The Feast of Booths is celebrated in a way it has not been in a very long time. The Book of the Law is read for hours resulting in a corporate confession of sin. And God is God alone. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Freedom Lessons Street Team The New Quest for Paul and His Reading of the Old Testament by Timo Laato Finding God in the Darkness: Hopeful Reflections from the Pits of Depression, Despair, and Disappointment by Bradley Gray More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there and while you're over there. Make sure that you go check out everything else that we're doing. We've got new academies coming out. They're being filmed. I think they have been filmed.

They're being edited, and they're going to be up. You can take, you know, maybe some of these new academies. Maybe you can take one on faith and reason. Maybe you're trying to figure out how believing something and something being rational, how those things fit together. Well, you can take that academy. It'll help you out with that. Or the one that I'm going to be taking when it comes out, the Patristics one,

because I like the patristics, and it's been a little while since I dove into them. And, you know, Chad and I were talking beforehand. He was talking about his theological influences, and one of those is a church father. Big theological influence on Chad. Well, I bet you he shows up in those patristics. Yeah, of course. You can't talk about patristics without talking about Irenaeus. Yeah.

So, you know, maybe you want to do that. Bruce Hillman's going to be doing that, and he knows a lot about those patristics. That's his field of study, so those are going to be exciting, so check those out. Last episode, we were talking about Ezra coming out and reading the law, or the Torah. So he's reading this stuff, and they get a bunch of people together. They get everyone, they get them into groups, they get some interpreters or translators or Bible study leaders, or we don't know what, but they got some people positioned in the people to help explain what it is that's being read, and man, this guy reads for a long time.

I mean, this isn't like, you know, going to church, and you're like, man, the pastor's really going long today. I think he's been going for 22 minutes. No, no, this is an all-day kind of event, and Ezra's just letting it rip, reading this thing, and the people, no doubt, they're upset because they're hearing a bunch of stuff that doesn't sound like them. They're not doing those things. This does not describe the way they are. So they start getting real upset. They start weeping. They start crying. And they were told to knock that off, because the reading of the Word is actually a good thing, and that God is actually not angry with them in that moment, but is pleased that all the people have gathered around to hear His Word read, even though it doesn't perfectly

describe them, even though they're not doing all of those things, that God is pleased that they are hearing it, and they're told that this is cause for celebration, that the word of the Lord is being read in the assembly of the people, and so they're going to go eat some fat and drink some wine, and that's where we ended, which is kind of a nice thing, right? That you're not supposed to hear the—not that you're not supposed to be convicted and repent or anything like that, but that knowing that God is pleased when his people get together and listen to what he has to say and man we've been beating that drum for a while that's really i mean that's that's really what god's after isn't it yeah yeah i mean this is it's kind of the same thing we want when people

leave church right i don't we don't want people to walk out the church door just like hang dog look in their face and then all beat up full of loathing because they're such terrible christian terrible sinners we want them to uh to leave because they've uh yeah plenty of repentance confession but they've heard the good news they're forgiven they've uh they've eaten and drunk of the lord's good things and so you leave you walk away knowing you're forgiven and blessed and and go about uh go about your day so yeah it's a good it's a good way to end a good way to uh to uh celebrate the the giving of god's good words and that's all the first day so we're in the seventh month of uh of these people's lives in this year and we're about to find out what

happens on the second day we're gonna we're gonna make some uh some booths today some tabernacles some leafy shelters so starting out here with the nehemiah 813 on the second day so we all that was on the first day on the second day the heads of the father's houses of all the people along with the priest and the levites they all get together with ezra who is described here is not as the priest he is a priest but here he's described as the the scribe uh the bible scholar we'll call him and they got together to have a little bible study they were going to study the words of the the torah kind of interesting there's different words that are translated from the hebrew into english as uh as study one of them is uh derosh which means to uh like to seek out so you're like if

you're seeking for understanding you study something and this one that's used here is sakal and it it can be translated like consider or give heed to or uh ponder so i mean it all kind of it's the same thing but you're you're going to take the words of the torah and you're going to ponder them. You're going to give some heed to them. You're going to study them. So that's what they're doing. A little Bible study going on. And as they're doing this, verse 14 says that they found something that was written there, written in the Torah. It says that the Lord had commanded Moses, or by Moses, that the people of Israel should dwell in booths. Now, I don't really like that translation we talked about the festival of booths but i mean i don't dan when you when i

hear booth i think of you know you're at some event and there's a little booth set up there and they're selling honey they're selling vegetables and we have a little we have a little uh uh you know like farmer's market downtown in ronfels and everybody has a little booth set up so that's what i think about when i hear today when i hear the word booth so if that's what you're thinking don't don't think that these are uh i don't know tents uh like handmade uh leafy tents is is is one way you know i was watching uh some turner classic movie some you know some old black and white movie from uh before my time uh just the other day uh because i was you know i was on vacation and i was watching the baby and the family was down doing something so i was

I watched the baby, and I just had this black-and-white movie on. I don't try to like watching black-and-white movies. I'll watch old movies even if I don't know what they are. And so I just had that on and was feeding the baby, and I don't even know what the movie was, but they were at like a county fair or something like that, and they had the old kissing booth set up. Oh, a kissing booth.

Yeah, and I thought to myself, man, this is not something that exists anymore. What a weird thing. So when you said booth, I was like, oh, yeah, I saw a booth recently. like that's probably not like that kind of booth either yeah there's yeah there's there's no kissing booth down at the uh the farmer's market here what a what a weird thing what a yeah a very weird thing what a what a throwback uh yeah so don't don't think in terms of a farmer's market booth or or kissing booth uh these are yeah it's like a little tent it's like a little temporary shelter so they're hearing about these sukkah or sukkot is the hebrew uh so sometimes you'll hear

this referred to as the as sukkot or the the feast of sukkot it's one that takes place in the seventh month which is what this goes on to say thus they hear that god commanded by moses that the israelite should dwell in these sukkot during the feast of the seventh month and verse 15 that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in jerusalem quote go out to the hills and bring branches of olive wild olive myrtle palm and other leafy trees to make sukkot as it is written so this is i mean this of course talked about back in the torah especially in the uh in the book of leviticus you can check out leviticus chapter 23 for the the legislation about about this there's a little bit of a difference there i mean there's no command uh in leviticus to go

proclaim it and publish it in all their towns in jerusalem that's not in leviticus because well when leviticus was written jerusalem was not the not the capital of israel but this is kind of a what you might we have a lot of this actually in in nehemiah and ezra too this is like taking this is taking the words of the torah and it is uh applying them to their current situation and sometimes when you do when when this happens there is an expansion or maybe a a particularizing of of the of the torah or we might even say a um a contempt making it contemporary with their setting you know so when you see things like this just bear in mind that sometimes they're taking the words of the torah and they are adapting them to their own situation so this is

this is the case so they're saying all right we read we're god commanded by moses so we're supposed to make these sukkot and so we're going to uh not only take that but we're also going to expand it out in the sense of making everybody know this is supposed to happen so go out in all the towns and and jerusalem and tell all the folks to head out of town go to the hills with their uh with their chainsaws or their axes or whatever they have and start getting some branches olive wild olive myrtle palm all these leafy trees and then haul it back and we're going to make some sukkot so verse 16 says that's what they did they went out and they brought them and they made these temporary shelters they made these sukkot for themselves where all over the place sounds like

some folks decide they're going to haul the branches up on top of their house keep in mind that these aren't pitched roofs, of course, in Israel. These are all flat roofs. So some of them put them on their roofs, and other people made them in their courts, like right outside their house, or even in church, basically, in the courts of the house of God. So, of course, you've got the big courtyard in front of the temple. So some people are going to camp there at the temple, and also in the square of the water gate, in the square at the gate of Ephraim. In other words, these things are all over the place. The point is, wherever you have a space, if you've got a house big enough with a flat roof where you can set it up there, or you can put it out in your

courtyard in front of your house, in your backyard, your front yard, in a public space like the temple or at these various gates. So in other words, these would have been all over Jerusalem. And the idea is you're not going to stay in your house during this time. You're going to move out of your house and you're going to stay in these temporary shelters and this is the purpose is not just kind of you know to rough it uh to everybody's going to be camping under these shelters for a week the idea is that this is done in order that it might be in what you might call an acted out remembrance and the remembrance is when their forefathers and their foremothers all the people of israel that left egypt they lived in these temporary shelters in these tents for the 40

years of wandering before they entered into the promised land and were able then to build build their homes so this is a way by doing this by building these by living in them that the israelites have this connection in the here and now with what happened to their to their ancestors during those 40 years of wandering so the feast of sukkot it has plenty of agricultural elements to it it's in the fall so it's kind of the the harvest of fruit uh festival but it has this historical element to where they are remembering the time when they came out of came out of the land of egypt that's the whole purpose of this and then verse 17 says and all the assembly of those who had returned from captivity made these temporary shelters and they lived in them for and

this is kind of a i'm not sure what to make of this but here's what it says it says four from the days of yeshua i'll talk about that in just a minute it's talking about joshua but it's using an updated um updated way of spelling his name so from the days of yeshua or joshua the son of none to that day the people of israel had not done so and there was great there was great rejoicing so that's all verse 17 um the first part of that i think it is important it's kind of a as a as a wink and a nod to us where it says all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity did this and i think what it's winking and nodding at is that they had come out of exile themselves and now they're doing this and they're doing it to remember when their ancestors had also

come out of exile in egypt and so that's the reason that is explained in that sort of way now um the uh the name yes yeshua uh like i said that's in that's a kind of an updated pronunciation and updated updated spelling of of joshua's joshua's name uh it's influenced by by aramaic and this is this would have been the way this would have been the the pronunciation of of jesus name during during his lifetime and that's why you know sometimes you'll hear people refer to, they won't call him Jesus. They refer to him as Yeshua or Yeshua, pronounced

different ways. I will add this, and I think it's important to say, I will come across people online sometimes, and you've probably encountered this too, Dan, who insist, not prefer, I'm talking about insist, that you do not say his name

as Jesus, but instead you pronounce it as Yeshua or Yeshua. Well, that just... it's just kind of legalistic nonsense. I don't know any way to describe this. So even in the Bible itself, you have about four, three to four different ways of spelling the name. So earlier in the biblical narrative, Joshua is pronounced as, is written in Hebrew and pronounced in Hebrew as Yehoshua. And even then there's a couple of different spellings. It basically comes

out to sound the same. There's a couple of different ways you can spell it in Hebrew. So joshua yehoshua later due to the influence of aramaic it's yeshua and then when you get to the new testimony in greek it's yesus or yesus and then through latin and then eventually as english develops and you have the introduction of the j it becomes it becomes jesus but jesus doesn't care how you pronounce his name he's he's not going to like give particular heed to you if you say it uh yeshua or if you say yahoshua uh he answers to whatever name that we use whether we call him jesus whether they call him yeshua or whether they call him yahoshua so don't fall into that legalistic trap of claiming that jesus name has to be said in this certain kind of way

and as i always like to point out listen if it was that important then the new testament writers would not have written it in greek right they would have you know transiterated it from the Aramaic or from the Hebrew. Or they would have told you it was important to say it this way. This comes into like some... I mean, Chad, you're like a big Hebrew guy. I mean, you wrote like a whole year-long devotional on like Hebrew words and stuff.

But like they're not magic. I mean, like it's not as though like if you say the right word that like now god hears you that's not how god works like i got god is not like saying man i would have listened but you just you said it wrong well that's yeah yeah you messed up messed up on hey yeah like it's not a magic language it's not like the language that god like only hears that like we all gotta learn hebrew and pray in hebrew and then god will hear it uh it's the same same with his name same with anything like god god hears the prayers of people in languages all over the all over the world uh praying in different languages pronouncing the

name in which they are to pray differently yes right yeah i think it does kind of boil down to this idea of almost a magical association with his name which is is actually not a caricature because there are ideas out there that god's name uh maybe it's not yeshua maybe it's uh the divine name but there's like a magical properties to it no there are no magical properties attached to that name it's his name and so we uh whatever language we if you speak hebrew if you speak greek if you speak uh german french english whatever you just pronounce it the way that it's pronounced i need you to say it without vowels is what i need you to do could you just spell out the consonants please so anyway uh that's a bit of a uh of a of a

parentheses there but i think it needs it needs to be said and that was a great occasion to to point it out so anyway back to uh the part here that i'm not sure quite what to do with it says that they did this because from the days of yeshua the son of nun to that day the people of israel had not done so um it's kind of hard just if you take it at face value to reconcile with earlier texts that talk about this feast being celebrated so it wasn't like you know all from back in moses and joshua's day that this feast had never had never been celebrated and they discovered it when they were studying the torah and today they decide they're actually going to do something that had not happened for all of these centuries i i could be wrong there's a

couple different ways this has been interpreted by the commentaries that i've read i i think it's just hyperbole simply saying you know what it had not been done this well since the days of joshua nobody had celebrated this feast like we did uh on this this seventh month yeah i always took this as um not that the feast you know the feast of booze or whatever hadn't been celebrated that's sort of obviously not true it is so but uh perhaps it's true that the uh the universal participation in the building of booze and living in them perhaps that is not been maybe that hasn't happen so like it's sort of one of those things where you could celebrate a day uh in various ways so maybe like you acknowledge there's this the acknowledging of a day uh maybe there's like

getting together and there's certain feasts or whatever there's different ways you can do it and they seem to have done they're doing the whole thing here like and they got a lot of they got everyone's involved like so there's that maybe that maybe it's been a very long time since not since they acknowledged this day uh or this feast but maybe it's been a real long time maybe and maybe since the days of joshua that everyone was out of their house in a little temporary shelter and maybe that sort of universal participation had not been done since then that's kind of how i've read it yeah yeah i think i think that's basically what's being what's being communicated so don't don't take this like just at face value and and literally because it's just that doesn't

That doesn't reconcile with what we know from other passages. So anyway, there was great rejoicing, a lot of happy people. And this was actually, this feast was known as like the capital T Feast in a lot of Jewish literature. It was so popular, more popular than Passover, more popular than Pentecost. For whatever reason, it was just the feast. Everybody loved the Feast of Abuz or the Feast of Sukkot. So great rejoicing, a lot of happiness. and verse 18 says this is the last verse of this chapter and day by day from the first day to the

last day he read from the book of the torah of god and they kept the feast seven days and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to according to the rule so this reading of uh of the torah kept on every day in fact there's a there is a section in um in the Torah from, uh, get my reference here from Deuteronomy chapter 31, which talks about how on not every year, but on the seventh year at the end of every seven years. So this is from Deuteronomy 31 verse 10 at the end of every seven years at the set time in the year of release at the feast of booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord or God at the place that he will choose you shall read this torah before all israel in their hearing so every seventh year

on the the feast of sukkot then the torah was to be was to be read or at least deuteronomy was to was to be read that seemed to be kind of what's going on here every day they're going to get together wherever this happens at the temple or in one of the the main gathering spaces in jerusalem and they're going to hear from the torah there's going to be a regular regular reading reading of that and that we don't know for sure if this is kind of the when this began this this kind of continuous reading of the torah but by the time you get to the uh first century it's it's well established where you have in uh depending on where you live there is either either every year or over the span of three years the entire torah is is read and in jewish synagogues today that is

that's the way it works so over the course of every three years the entire torah is read from genesis to the end of in deuteronomy and then it kind of starts starts all over so basically a lectionary but the same idea is already here in nemi we're going to have this reading of the reading of the torah day after day you know this this bible reading plan is much easier if you're if you're just doing the Torah. It's just a lot shorter. It's a lot more manageable. Yeah.

Yeah, because if you follow most plans, you're looking at three to four chapters a day. Yeah. Is the way that works out. So anyway, that's the end of Nehemiah chapter eight. A lot of reading of the Torah, a lot of eating and drinking, a lot of rejoicing,

a lot of booth building, tent building, and they were thus celebrating this feast. Now, we're going to get into chapter 9 into a change of tone. So there's a lot of happy rejoicing in chapter 8. In chapter 9, there's going to be a lot of confessing and praying. In fact, when I was, I think it was two weeks ago when I was first looking at this chapter in detail, What an impressive chapter. I like Nehemiah 9, especially because it basically is going to rehearse all the biblical history. In fact, you can think of Nehemiah 9 as the summary of the last seven or eight years of our podcast. I mean, in reality, because it's going to begin, not the opening verse, but verse six is going to begin with creation.

Genesis 1 and then it's going to go through Abraham and it's going to go through the exodus and the exile and the conquest of the land and all that kind of stuff that we of course have been talking about for years years now so it's kind of like some of the psalms psalm 78 psalm 105 psalm 106 psalm 136 several of the psalms will do this too they'll they'll take biblical history and they will uh rehearse it they'll maybe begin at at creation but then if they don't and they begin with the Exodus, and they just kind of go through and they tell the story. And it's told in different ways. I mean, it's the same story, but like one psalm will basically focus on the positive things that God did.

Another psalm will tell that same history, but focus primarily upon the rebellion of the Israelites. And this one in Nehemiah 9 is going to do both. It's really going to accent what God did. his mercy his grace his long-suffering approach to the israelites but it's also going to the same time document the various ways in which they had rebelled uh whether the golden calf or you know all these other times as well so if you're looking for like a biblical chapter that takes the history from uh genesis through really the end of second kings then this is the chapter that does that okay so on the 24th day of of this month we're told

the people of israel all got together not for feasting and drinking but in fasting with fasting and in sackcloth and everybody's favorite with earth on their heads it's kind of a odd sign of yeah odd sign of mourning it's this isn't the first time we've heard about this so if uh if you think back to when the ark of god was was captured by the philistines in first samuel chapter 4 a messenger showed up and he had his clothes torn and he had dirt in his head or when um when saul died in battle along with his sons a messenger came and he had his clothes torn he had dirt dirt on his head so the tearing of garments and the wearing of sackcloth and whatever this looked like you know whether this is putting a little bit or a lot of dirt on your

head that was a sign of that was a sign of mourning kind of glad we don't do these things these days well you know this is i mean it this seems like the acknowledgement that uh you know that you're created creature man you came from from the dirt right and you place this on top of yourself so it feels a little bit yeah if you're this is in conjunction with repentance and confessing and stuff that the acknowledgement that uh that you are finite uh and that uh yeah i mean at some point there will be dirt on your head yeah yeah i mean the closest uh we get to this today and it is actually pretty close is uh churches on ash wednesday they do the imposition of ashes so they will uh it's not dirt it's ashes but usually the pastor or the priest when he puts the ashes

in the sign of a cross on the forehead of people so on their heads will say remember that you are dust into dust you you shall return and of course ash wednesday is a day of repentance so it has biblical precedent in this idea of putting earth on your heads. Maybe you should have a little thing of ashes and a little thing of dirt, and then he asks you, you plan to be buried or cremated, and then I will pick the appropriate

substance to place on your head. All those who wish ashes, please line up on the pulpit side. All those who want dirt, please line up on the electric side. Just want to know how you plan to go out. Are you going to cremate or are you going to get buried? Yeah, your choice.

So, everybody Everybody's dressed for repentance. They got sackcloth on. Their stomachs are empty. They're fasting and they got dirt in their heads. And then verse two says the Israelites, literally the seed of Israel. It's a phrase that we also heard back in Ezra. The seed of Israel had done what? Well, they had separated themselves from all foreigners. This is hearkening back to some of the material that we covered back in in ezra where you have this separation of the holy seed the seed of israel from all of these nations which are around them who of course as we've heard in ezra in emi we're giving them problems and uh so there's a there's this idea that we're the holy people

we're not going to have anything to do with the foreigners so they've separated themselves and then they they stood now that's opposite most of the time when people confess today they kneel but they're standing and they confess their sins and now this is surprising this is something that we usually don't think about they confess their sins and the iniquities of their fathers well that's kind of an interesting way to confess i mean i i have never at least uh in in my own life not thinking back in my own life never when i was confessing my sins to god also confess the sins of my dad and my granddad and my great granddad and his dad and anybody else. When I confess my sins, I confess my sins. Yeah. But there is. So the only time I've done

this is when I've actually taken a psalm and I've prayed it. And when I pray it, of course, I'm also at the same time confessing what my spiritual ancestors, the Israelites did. So there is a sense in which that that happens then. But what seems to be happening in this case is that you got everybody together and they realize what the people of Israel have experienced and why they went into exile. They know the story. And so they're gathering together on this day of confession and repentance and earth on their heads and empty stomachs and wearing sackcloth, basically to say, hey, we know who we are and we know where we have come from. So we are going to confess our sins, but at the same time, as we're going to hear in verse 6 and following, we're going to retell the story of our own people, our fathers. and in so doing we're going to also acknowledge when they rebelled against god so that's the idea

i think here of confessing the iniquities of of their fathers yeah i mean i think it's as you're recounting your history it's uh letting god know that you understand where the errors were right that you're you're acknowledging that okay here's the history and here's idolatry here's idolatry here's where we worship other gods all whatever it is all these these are the major we know that these are the major things and uh as opposed to just get up there and say confessing whatever sins you you have it's a little bit different because this is a group repentance right so this isn't like your individual like you did something you're repenting for it uh maybe then you don't bring up like all the sins of your ancestors and and this is different than that this is a people

who are coming back into a land, coming back into a religious practice of their worship of God. And so, yeah, as they recount their history, they're going to say, and here are all the ways in which our people have strayed from you. And you're doing this corporate,

this is a corporate confession. Not that there's no individual confession there, but it is different than if it's just you. I mean, when you do this as sort of a corporate confession of sins on Sunday morning in churches like we go to, I suppose if your church had done something terrible together in the past, you might say, hey, we're not going to do this thing anymore. Maybe you weren't individually involved or whatever it is, but I'm sure there were lots of corporate repentance. You think back when the Civil Rights Movement happened or something and churches were segregated, I'm sure churches repented of that sin. Even if you didn't do that, you're like, hey, we're going to change this about ourselves. And that's a healthy thing to do, especially in our hyper-individualized society.

The idea of corporate solidarity is a good thing for us to acknowledge that we're not just individuals. were part of this larger this larger body and so the we of confession is a healthy thing so anyway they do this they stood they confess their sins and the iniquities of their fathers and verse three says they stood up in their place and they once more had a bible reading they read from the book of the torah of the lord their god now we have a time here for a quarter of the day quite a few hours there six hours reading yeah i guess i don't know if they're this is like if they're thinking of the 24 hours, they're talking about daylight hours.

We're not told anyway. Quarter of the day, long time, several hours. So there's a quarter of the day Bible reading, Torah reading. And then another quarter, they made confession and worship the Lord their God. So Bible reading, confession, and worship. All right.

So how did this actually look? Well, you got the Levites that are on the stairs. And we're not told where these stairs are. This is probably not that temporary platform that we heard about in another chapter. This may be like steps leading from one courtyard to another, something like that. Anyway, where it's at, the Levites are on the stairs. And we have their names, Yeshua and Bonnie and Kadmiel and others. There's a list of their names there.

So what did they do? Well, this first group, we're told, cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. I don't know what that looked like. I don't know what that sounded like. I don't know if this was some sort of public, almost like wailing, or if this is some sort of psalm of confession or lamentation that they did. We're not told. Anyway, whatever it consisted of, they cried with a loud voice to the Lord, their God, this group. now there was another group of levites and their names are listed there and we're told that they said stand up and bless the lord your god from everlasting to everlasting blessed be your glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and and praise so stand and bless when you when you bless the lord your god it just basically means you praise him so when he blesses us it's

different but when we bless god that just simply means we are praising him so uh that's that's all is the first five verses that's all leading up to verse six and following which is where we're going to begin with this long basic recitation of old testament history and interspersed with it is some kind of theologizing that goes on because we're going to hear about who god is we hear about what the people did what they received the motivation for god doing what he did and attributes of god and then also then his attitude toward his people when they rebelled so how did god react when they did not keep the torah or when they made the golden calf or when they acted in a stiff-necked fashion how did god react to that and what does it mean for god to be

to be righteous well as we'll see in a second it means he keeps his promises so um verse six introduces us just to creation so this is genesis one two genesis one and two material you are the lord you alone you have made heaven the heaven of heavens with all their host the earth and all that's on it the seas and all that is in them and you preserve all of them and the host of heaven worships worships you so of course you hear plenty of echoes there of genesis one into into genesis chapter two you've got the the uh the well-known kind of tripartite view of the universe where you have heaven and you have earth and then you have the seas kind of all three story universes as it's sometimes referred to so god makes everything

we're not exactly sure what what is meant by with all their host and then the host of heaven worships you, because that can mean a couple of different things. It can refer to celestial bodies like sun, moon, and stars, or it can refer to the angelic host, or it can refer to both. I mean, the language is used to describe both of those entities or groups. But the point is, they're starting with Genesis 1, they're acknowledging that there's only one God, you are the Lord, you alone, and here's what you've done. You've created all things, and not only that but things you've created they worship you and you not only kind of you know in the kind of famous uh uh image of the clock maker like god just makes the universe like a clock maker makes

a clock and then he lets it run that's not the biblical view instead he not only created but he also then preserves all of them so he's the ongoing preserver the ongoing uh giver and sustainer of creation you know chad i was at the just came back from the beach so i was at the at the beach with the family on vacation i was sitting uh on this balcony one evening and was watching the you know the waves roll in and i had this thought when you stare at the ocean it's like just insane right i mean you're just like that's just wild it just goes on forever so it's at night especially you're like man i wouldn't want to be out there but I'm watching

the tides coming in it's just waves crashing the shore and I thought of God as he's creating everything and then he says to the water, that's far enough right there, that's where we're stopping and that's where it stops

and it's pretty weird it really is that's especially the language that God uses at the end of job right he talks about uh setting the boundaries for for the oceans and the seas so thus far you shall come and and and no further yeah yeah there's a lot of water out there there's a yeah every time i go to go to the ocean i have similar thoughts because you look and you're

like as far as the eye can see you're just it's this vast expanse of of water yeah i mean it it it's humbling and that's really uh it's kind of a genesis one kind of moment when you or end of job kind of moment when you look at it you're like yeah this is all set up by god to be exactly exactly as it is and amy add to that the idea that everything that he created doesn't just kind of exist but it worships god yeah the host of heaven worships you whether that's you know sun moon and stars or whether that's rest of creation i mean there is there's an idea that christian itself acknowledges that it is a creature yeah and then we who are you know rational creatures of course we verbalize that we give thanks to god i mean this is the way

if you're in a creed confessing church that's the way the creed starts out i believe in god the father almighty maker of heaven and earth right so you start out by acknowledging this is who he is and this is what he's done and in many ways kind of implicit in that opening verse i want to wrap up here it looks like our time is up but implicit in that opening verse is really what's going to be unpacked in the whole rest of this recitation of history god is the one who initiates it god through his word creates everything and everything that exists does so by the by the love of god that's why he makes all these things yeah the thing that's wild about starting with creation is that you look and you say okay god created everything and there is like a humbling thing

like when you take something like the ocean or the same thing happens if you're looking at mountains or whatever uh and where this goes and we'll have to get here next week though is that you have god created everything and then somehow uh is concerned about you and he's going to call a person out not just because he cares about that person but because he cares about every person in the midst of all this creation he like calls someone out to a purpose and that purpose is to is ultimately, of course, the redemption of all things. But there is a weird thing when you think about all creation. You're like, why would God be mindful of anybody?

Yeah, it's kind of a soulmate moment, right? Who am I? Who is Abraham? Well, that's exactly why God made everything. Yeah. So that he might place you in this world and love you and take care of you and be your good and gracious father.

That's it. All right, man, we'll leave it there. We're going to get into all the history. I'm sure we'll recap a little bit of verse 6 here and then see what else Nehemiah has to say. But we will have to wait until next episode to do that. Chad, I'll see you then. All right, see you then.