40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Nehemiah 9:27-10:31 (Episode 369)

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

The recounting of the history of the people continues. A prayer is prayed appealing to the steadfast love and righteousness of God. And the people make take a vow not to repeat their history. 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: Join the 1517 Academy Freedom Lessons Street Team 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 you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. And then, of course, if, you know, this podcast or any of the other things that 1517 is doing is helpful to you and has been beneficial and you would like to support the work, you can do that. You can go to 1517.org, go to the donate page, or you can click a link in the show notes that says support this show. And we really appreciate all those of you who do that.

And if you would like to become one of those people, we would appreciate that as well. Chad, we are in Nehemiah chapter 9. We ended last episode in verse 26. We're in a sort of long prayer-slash-recounting of the people's history. We have all the great things that God did, and then we kind of ended with, how do the people respond to these things? Well, the way they responded to those things was by being disobedient, casting the law behind their back, killing the prophets, you know, committing great blasphemies, you know, real great response. Yeah, real great response. Positive, yeah. Yeah, really good response to the mercies and salvation of God. That's exactly how God wants that to go. And that's kind of how we ended.

We spent a lot of time in those verses, because there's a lot going on in those verses, mostly stuff that we'd spent a lot of time talking about before, but you know, we can't help ourselves when we're getting into the history here it's like uh we're reliving the last eight years it is nehemiah 9 it's like a 40 minutes in the old testament recap it is pretty much so we left off historically in verse 25 with uh moses dies and joshua takes over he takes him across to jordan into this promised land they have these cisterns they haven't hewn houses they haven't built vineyards they haven't planted all this good stuff they eat they're well filled they become fat and how do they respond like you said they uh well they become disobedient and then

this takes us historically anyway into the book of judges basically so the first part of nehemiah 9 takes us from creation the uh happenings in the exodus the wilderness wanderings all of this then we if you know if you remember the book of judges if you were with us back then you have this cyclical pattern of rebellion and then god sends them these trials and tribulations which usually take the form of the foreign peoples who are suppressing them and then they cry out to the lord he sends them a uh deliverer a judge savior and what how much you want and then you know they're rescued then the cycle begins all over again so that's what's really uh covered in verse 27 following 27 says therefore you god gave them into the hand of their enemies and made them

suffer and in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard from heaven and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies that basically sums up so much of the book of judges that's uh exactly the way this went down they suffer they cry out god sends saviors delivers them which by the way that's exactly the language—I mean, obviously the most famous of all judges, right, Samson? That's exactly the language that is used when, you know, when Jesus, we'll say, is speaking to Samson's mother and says, hey, you can have a son, and he will begin to save the people, right? So he is, by definition, a savior. Yeah, I wish we'd have named—not we, I wish long, long ago,

So instead of calling the book Judges, we'd have called it Saviors. Deliverers. Deliverers, that's what we should call it. Yeah. It is what it is. But that's what they did. These judges were saviors. And so they would save them from the hand of their enemies.

And keep in mind, in the Old Testament, when you have the word save, it has a much broader meaning than, brother, are you saved? That's the way we use it today. I mean, to be saved in the Old Testament, a lot of the time, in fact, I would argue the vast majority of the time, means that you're, yeah, you're actually saved from an actual enemy. He doesn't kill you, or he doesn't oppress you anymore, or you're saved from a very dangerous situation. Yeah, there's the element, of course, of what we might think of as spiritual salvation. But most of the time, when you're saved in the Old Testament, that means God is delivering you from some bad situation, whatever that might be. so um that's verse 27 verse 28 is almost predictable as to what's going to happen after god saves them but after they had rest they did evil again before you and we begin the cycle

again and you abandon them to the hand of their enemies so that they had dominion over them yet when they turn and cry to you you heard from heaven and many times you deliver them according to your mercies. It's over and over and over. I mean, this is, isn't this, is this not human history? Oh, yeah. Like, right from the beginning. I love the way this is phrased.

It's like, alright, so you saved them from their enemies. Then they rested up and did some evil. Like, they're getting prepared. I mean, I gotta take this weekend off so I can be ready for evil again on Monday. That's right, dude. It sounds like

it's like they it was real bad they were delivered by the enemies but they were they were being you know persecuted uh they were being uh they were suffering greatly at the hand of their enemies and that was probably exhausting i would imagine and so uh you saved them and after they got a little you know little little sleep uh you know a little little food in the belly they rose up and right back to the evil you know i wish i wish that we were not like this i wish that like we were really in tune with god and our need of him and praying and all that kind of stuff uh when life was going great it sure would make things easier but it usually doesn't work that way i mean that this is uh this is the way that the sinners are you know the the better things are in our life

the more rest we have then typically the more prone we are to look around and be like i wonder what evil I can begin to engage in now. Well, this reminds me of the—I'm going to get this quote not exactly right, but the theologian Gerhard Ferdi said something to the effect of, I don't think I'm getting—as I get older, I don't think I'm getting more sanctified, I'm just tired. Yeah, yeah, I've read that. Yeah, the main reason I don't engage in some of the activities in which I engage when I was a younger man is precisely because I like to go to bed early.

Yeah, you don't have the energy. i'm 53 years old you know when uh the young people are going out at night i'm being like i think it's about bedtime yeah nothing like being like you know what i'm 53 years old i've really become safe if i've given up clubbing until two o'clock in the morning i've given that up yeah yeah my righteousness is reaching to the sky yeah so yeah these yeah i'm sure these people are very exhausted they did like man i can't worship god or idols right now i just gotta sleep so take gotta take it easy yeah i mean this is this kind of uh anthropology and theology is is behind what paul talks about uh a lot in second corinthians you know when we're weak

then we're then we're strong and this is why uh this is why life uh often consists of deprivations and sufferings and uh the various pains that we endure because the stronger we are in ourselves ourselves then the also the more we are prone to believe the lie that hey we got this yeah this is how this works this is just a little aside but while we're talking about this kind of job my memory to i was at a camp doing some uh talking and somebody asked me about uh prayer how we can get better at prayer and stuff and i was like well i think uh we have to become uh extremely dependent on God to become better at prayer. And I speak this as myself, as a self-described bad prayer. So I'm not this guy with this ferocious prayer life. No one would confuse

me with a, quote, prayer warrior. That's not me. And the reason for that is I'm too self-sufficient. I'm too self-reliant. The idea here is that if you were stronger, that you would be more prayerful, but this is actually not the case the more quite the opposite when you are reduced to nothing man you're gonna see that prayer life get real strong yeah i mean i think back on my own life yes absolutely it's uh well it's just we just uh i think much of it it simply involves forgetting you know kind of the act of hebrew kind of forgetting so if i'm healthy if everything's all right with the job or things are all right with the family uh i'm just you know trucking right along then yeah i easily slip into the illusion that oh man i gotta get this life thing

down i'm doing i'm doing good like i'm self-sufficient but you know when uh when the health isn't there where the family is having troubles or the marriage is having troubles or something happens with your kids or you lose your job or whatever it might be it's not like all of sudden uh you become dependent it's rather that your eyes are open to the fact that you were dependent all along yeah you had just actively chosen to forget that well your uh your prayer the prayer life suffers when you uh buy into the illusion of control oh and that when that illusion is shattered uh suddenly uh prayer is much easier and you and the whole reason i'm bringing this up is that you see this—and prayer is obviously part of worship—

and you see this right here in this text, that when you're suffering under the hand of the oppressor, what do you do? You cry out to God, of course. You cry out to God. Of course. All of a sudden, the prayer life is pretty strong in these people, but then they rest up, things are okay, out committing evil, and then you see in the very next text, what are they going to do?

Well, that illusion of control is shattered once again, they're going to cry out, And this is the wonderful thing about God is that time and time again, it will say, in his mercy, which is something he has a lot of, he is going to hear you and deliver you. Yeah, just blows me away. The patience of God and the fact that he does continue to hear, to have mercy. I mean, after about two times, I'd be done. Yeah, I tell you what. Listen, people, I gave you two chances. I'm done with you.

For people, you know, you recount Israel, but then you just think of your own life, and you know this mirrors this entirely. But, man, it's a real good thing that God's mercies are new every morning. In other words, you've got like a fresh batch of mercies. That wakes up, yeah. Mercy's full again. Yeah. Ready to go.

I'm sure, yeah, well, the way that he dealt with his people in the Old Testament is the exact same way that Jesus dealt with his disciples. and you know you that is definitely one of the things that instructions read through the gospels you're like god these guys do not get it no it's like over and over jesus has to explain you can even hear a little bit of exasperation at times he's like oh do you not get this but he goes on you know he has mercy he explains just like he he continues to do with us you see this uh illustrated i mean like they'll do crazy things like peter will say hey i've been hanging out with you for about three years now and uh just was wondering uh how many times should i forgive

someone and you're like dude what like why would you ask him this question like this is he thinks seven is pretty generous i'm gonna go for a stretch here seven probably right yeah well he's like well these uh these rabbis and these teachers that you had that you seem to you know not get along with they say three is like the amount of time so i'm gonna like more than double it And Jesus is like, you're not even close. Nice try, Peter. Just don't get it. Can you imagine?

I mean, I love the disciples because they're encouraging to you. And because of the mistakes they make, I don't ever ask God, like, how many times am I supposed to forgive someone? Because I already know that the answer to that is not going to be an answer that I want. No, you're right. It's never the answer you want. so uh verse 29 i think is where we're at you warned them in order to turn them back to your yet they acted presumptuously did not listen or obey listen to obey your commandments but sinned against your rules which if a person does them he shall live by them and they turned a

stubborn shoulder now i i came across that this morning and i was like a stubborn what A stubborn shoulder? Does that ever happen in the Bible again? So, turns out it does, but only in one place. I mean, we're used to hearing about a stiff neck, right? Yeah, we've talked about the stiff neck. No, there's actually a stubborn shoulder. The Hebrew phrase is only used here and in Zechariah 7-11, which says they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder

and stopped their ears that they might not hear. Seems that both of these things, stubborn shoulder, stiff neck, uh you ever if you've ever you know when you get our age shad uh sometimes you can just sleep wrong you know and you get the stiff neck or sleep wrong and you got the the stubborn shoulder going on you know the shoulder don't want to move it seems that both of these things are required and you know this if you've ever hurt your shoulder tear your rotator cuff or i don't know whatever uh lift something you shouldn't have lifted and the next day uh it's gonna be hard for you to turn in certain directions for several years i was bringing a pallet off the truck one day

i had not backed up square to the dock there was a gap between the end of the truck and the dock and my leg went through it i go over backwards and i catch my entire body weight on my right my right arm and as soon as i did i felt something on my shoulder and i felt that in my shoulder for a very, very long time. Yes. So I know this pain. So the stubborn shoulder, yeah, definitely rings true. Yeah, it seems like the stiff neck and the stubborn shoulder

are a way of saying they are heading in a direction and will not turn around. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, pretty common. And again, that kind of language is picked up by Jesus, too, in the Gospels when he speaks to those of a later generation who turns out are just like their fathers so stubborn shoulders stiff neck wouldn't obey many years many years he says you you bore with them uh that hebrew verb for bore has a

choose a lot of different ways but kind of has the idea sometimes a light being carried along it's the idea that you're you're you're bearing them you're carrying them along uh and i love this next phrase i don't know if this is i don't know how unique this is i didn't i didn't do a search on this but you warn them by your spirit through your prophets it's kind of a it's kind of a nice joining of phrases so by your spirit through your prophets i mean this gets to the whole uh you know the scriptures and what preaching is so he's working through his prophets but who are the prophets really the mouthpiece of the spirit yeah it's pretty pretty nice uh i mean we're used to that new testament kind of language but here it is right here in the

and the Old Testament as well. The Spirit didn't wait till Pentecost to show up. It's always been there. And in particular, he is speaking through the prophets. Yeah, so I mean, here you have a nice verse to go to that is very explicit that to not listen to the prophets is to not listen to God. Yeah, he who hears you hears me.

He who refuses to hear you also refuses to hear me as well as the Spirit. also just a um a nice connection to just in the in the uh in the hebrew the word for spirit is most people know the the hebrew hebrew word rock can mean capital s spirit small s spirit or like breath or wind too so when you think about someone speaking preaching of course they're using their breath air is coming out and just kind of picture that as the spirit spirit is the one who is using these words using this this vocal breath as it were coming out of the prophets in order to to to preach to warn to do all those things that happens in preaching but yet they would not give

ear so more the more the stubbornness more the stopping up of the ear as zechariah puts it so again same thing therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands nevertheless this is like a dance back and forth they do this god does this they do this god does this nevertheless in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them why tells us the very end you are a gracious and a merciful i could also be translated compassionate merciful gracious and merciful god it had nothing to do in other words with god looking down and like seeing some you know spark of righteousness within them and acting on that for that very reason you know deep like we all like people will say well you know deep down

deep down he's a he's a good person you know i know on the outside he's a real jerk but deep down like everybody has it like at their core this this really this innate goodness yeah you know how people are they never put like their best version of themselves forward it's always the deeper you go, the better it gets. Just the opposite. The deeper you dig, the worse it becomes.

But anyway, it's not like God looked deep into the heart of the Israelites and thought, you know, outwardly, they have a stubborn shoulder and a stiff neck, and they're sopping up their ears, and they're engaging in evil, but deep down, they're really righteous and good people, and therefore, on the basis of what I see in

them, I'm not going to make an end of them or forsake them. No, it has nothing to do with anything in the people. It all has to do with what's in God, not in the heart of people, but what's in the heart of God is what prompts him to continue to be gracious and merciful and long-suffering.

Now, this whole thing we've been covering, we're at verse 31 now, this whole thing that we've been covering, this rehearsal of history, which is itself a kind of prayer, a confession, whatever, however you want to phrase it, there has not really been

a single petition in this yeah not once have they like asked god for something they're just kind of going through here's what our people did here's what you did in response god and now verse 32 actually going to get to the only petition in the entire thing there's a there's a weird part here though too like this is instructive uh if you are wondering how to pray and you're like i don't know how to pray. I don't know, we'll just talk to God about all the things that He's done and the things that you've done. I mean, all in the Scriptures, do people pray this way? They're telling God something He doesn't know, but He obviously does know. You can recount your history and His actions in it, and this is a fine way to pray. It is, yeah. I think that's something that people often

do miss out on. Yeah. I mean, miss in the sense that they don't really think of this as prayer. I mean, we're used to a prayer being, thank you, God, for this, or forgive me for that, or give me this, all those sorts of things. That's fine. That's certainly prayer. But a lot of the Psalms, for instance, they're prayers, but what they're doing is saying, this is who you are, God, and this is what you've done. And you did this, and you did that, and this is a form of praise. It's a form of confession. It's a form of prayer.

And you can do that in your own life. You know, you can think back over your entire life, what you've done, what God has given to you, the people he's brought into your life, the friends that he's given to you, all the wonderful things. And you can tell God about that. And when you are, that's actually prayer, giving thanks to him for this. So he goes on to verse 32. Now, therefore, our God, the great, the mighty and the awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love. So this heaping up of adjectives, descriptions of who God is and what he does. Now, therefore, on the basis of all of who you are, what you've done, here is our petition.

Let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us, upon our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people. I love the pronoun there. in all your people since the time of the kings of assyria until this day that's it's the only petition that's here let not all the hardship seem little to you that has come upon us it seemed like there'd be more right just it's basically to me it's like god um as we've we've recounted to you all these things and you of course know this already now as you look upon all the things that we've gone through, then basically have mercy. Don't let this hardship, all of the problems that we've had, even though we've deserved them, don't let all this

seem little to you. In other words, look upon us as those who have suffered. We're not saying we don't deserve it, but just look upon us as those who have gone through this and don't, as it were, just glance at it make it don't don't let it seem insignificant to you uh but look and be concerned about us and care about us and continue to be to be loved this is informative uh of how you can also pray where you can literally tell god that uh that you are suffering and it's your fault but but you're still suffering yeah yeah i mean we suffer for lots of different reasons right what we stupid decisions we make just random things i mean if if uh it's this morning oh my gosh this morning i'm in i'm in bed it's four o'clock in the morning i mean i don't get up that

early four o'clock not anymore not anymore no thanks be to god thanks to 1517 uh but uh yeah it's four in the morning smoke alarm goes off yes and everyone i'm sure has experienced that it's the worst thing ever in the middle of the night you know a house is like feels like it's shaking my heart rate you know immediately just jumps up uh you know trying to get out of bed and uh find the light and well it was just you know it's house was not on fire uh you know it was typical battery or whatever the issue was but what made me think of that you know what if it were houses on fire house burns down well that just things like that happen um tornadoes can hit things like that happen so it's not our fault it's just things that happen you know so sometimes

we suffer because of what we do sometimes we suffer just because things happen sometimes we have because what other people do to us but it doesn't matter what the reason is it's usually a combination honestly we can always say don't let this suffering seem little to you that's come upon us yeah that's great yeah so anyway um kind of goes back to the time of the kings of assyria so this course is well past the the time of the assyrians who like destroyed the northern kingdom in the 8th century and they were replaced by the babylonians who have now in the time of nemi have been replaced by the persians but this is this is a long period of hardship that's fallen upon the israelites verse 33 yet you have been righteous in all that has come upon us for not notice the

contrast here for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly just kind of putting it out here all right you've been faithful we have we have not i think this is i think this is interesting because sometimes i think we're tempted to be like okay so you have you acted wickedly, and then you're going to suffer under the hand of whatever, you know, the Syrians, whatever it is. And you're just like, that's how it goes, because that's what's just. I mean, that's how justice works. Like, you did this, and you got this, and this is how the law works. But what he does here is he says, hey, you've been righteous, and you've dealt faithfully, and we've acted wickedly, he attaches the faithfulness of God to them despite their sin

and says that God is righteous in that, right? And so that righteousness is not synonymous with just or something like that, because you could think that God has some kind of duality in him or something like that. But what this seems to be saying is that actually when God acts mercifully because He has promised to do so, this actually flows from not some other thing

that is separate from His righteousness, just like, oh, well, it's just a compassionate side to God, and sometimes that takes over. But that's actually part of His righteousness, too. He's not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities, as the psalm puts it, because

He is righteous. yeah it's it's interesting that he reveals his his righteousness to us yeah now now you have to think that like the only way for this to sort of be true is for it to be true in christ yeah that's how the way how can god deal with you in this way yeah yeah that's the only way he can deal you with you in this way because uh ultimately it was there was one sinner at one point, and all sins were on Him. That's precisely the way that God can deal with us in this way. And because of that, He deals with us faithfully, righteously, compassionately, and these are not like separate categories. This is all part of who God is.

Yeah, because you can't say, like, you have not dealt with us according to our trespasses because you are righteous, and you're like, wait, what? How does this work? Well, this is this only works within the view of in view of christ and this is how god god is like always operating in view of christ even before christ you know we i think we brought this up it's been a long time ago but i know we brought up before too just as a human example when uh when joseph found out that his betrothed was was pregnant he resolved to put her away to divorce her quietly because he was a righteous man yeah so righteousness there in a mirror image of god is expressed in compassion and actually care for for someone which in this case of course

is someone that joseph assumed had sinned against him she had not but that was his assumption so righteousness yeah it often looks just like what god looks like when he's righteous shows compassion yeah shows mercy to sinners now this is interesting uh we had a list above it says he said don't let all the hardship seem little to you that's come upon us because our our kings princes priests prophets our fathers okay now verse 34 begins with a similar list but there's something missing he says our kings our princes our priests and our fathers have not kept your law or paid attention to your commandments and your warnings that you gave them what he leaves out are the prophets yeah so earlier he said yeah i mean a lot of hardship has fallen upon

kings princes priests prophets our fathers but when it comes to pointing out who has not kept the law paid attention to the commandments he leaves out the prophets anyway those problems why not because they're perfect because they're the ones pointing out everybody not breaking not keeping the law those prophets really got the raw end of this deal didn't they yeah yeah they weren't disregarding your you know what your voice but they did suffer okay uh when the wolf attacks the sheep often the shepherd gets gets uh bit on the uh the same occasion yes yeah the preachers suffer alongside those whom they preach i mean i think of uh poor jeremiah talk about a a sad ministry you know the dude spends his entire ministry warning

them of what's coming nobody listens to him he gets abused and then finally when it does come he he doesn't even get to like live his last years in peace he gets hauled down to egypt by the very people who continue to rebel against god that's why that's why when people like ministry dude when people quote i know the plans i have for you i'm like i don't know if you've read this book this book uh because like this is not uh like this is not a plan you want not the not the plans that befell uh jeremiah and israel yeah i mean god tells him this right you tell like hey in this babylonian captivity huh well don't worry i know the plans and you read the rest of the book you're like man you must be talking about like like the new heavens

new earth plans man because like these play like this plan is brutal it's pretty yeah pretty pretty rough so um verse 35 says even in their own kingdom and amid your great goodness that you gave them and in the large and rich land that you set before them they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works verse 36 behold we are slaves this day in the land that you gave to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts behold we are slaves its rich yield goes to the kings talking about the persian kings goes to the kings the persian kings whom you have set over us because of our sins they rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please and we are in great distress now i like to point this out uh there's a similar phrase that also occurs

in uh in ezra i think it's ezra chapter chapter nine so nehemiah nine ezra nine uh because both of these texts talk about how there is a sense in which even though they come back from exile even though they left babylon you know you have the decree of cyber saying if you want to go home go home so they they come back to the land they are still not really not really free they are they're home but they're not really home they are exiled on their own native land and the reason i like to point that out is because if you follow the history of israel after this so this course is the persian period we're going to have the greek period coming after this then you have a short period where the the maccabean rulers are bringing you know about a century there of semi

semi-independence and then the romans come along and then jesus is born and you have the whole first century well in the first century too israel was still slaves i mean they were not free on their on their native soil they were they were home but they were exiled and in that way this fits and the reason i do point point this out is because this fits so well with the prophetic promise of the messiah coming and bringing people from exile home to god yeah so the people to whom jesus preached i mean they were they were living in israel but they were really in exile because they were not really free they were under the thumb of the romans just like they earlier had been under the thumb of the greeks or the persians or the babylonians before them so here nehemiah

is basically acknowledging that uh yeah it's great that we're back here but things are not really that great because we have people ruling over our bodies we're slaves to them we are basically a vassal state of the Persian Empire. There's this callback to thinking about what once was, right? Like, you gave this land. I mean, no doubt you're thinking back to the times of when you had taken this land and you were free in this land. It seems to me it's like, we're back here, but it's not the same as it was,

which it, of course, is not. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're back, but it's not like the days of Solomon or the days of David or the days of Josiah or Hezekiah or whatever it might be. In fact, it never would be. I mean, there was no recovery in Israel's history that put them back on the same level as where they were before the Babylonian exile.

It just never happened. With regard to political independence, with regard to the territory that they once had, it just never happened again. now uh we can actually cover uh and uh quite a bit here in the next uh next few minutes because we have a bunch of names in the the uh the last verse of chapter nine really should be the first chapter 10 it goes like this because of all this we make a uh a firm agreement esv has covenant it's not the typical hebrew word for covenant it's more like an agreement so we make a firm

agreement covenant in writing on the seal document are the names of our princes our levites and our priests so they're going to make this covenant and we have the names listed on uh in the beginning part of chapter 10 so it begins with nehemiah and then it goes on to list a bunch of priests a bunch of levites uh the chiefs of the people there's no need for us to go through all of those but that's the first 27 verses of chapter 10 it's basically one more list to the people that are preserved for posterity those who are entering into this this agreement what does the agreement consist of well the agreement consists of we'll get into it uh verse 28 so it says rest the people the priests levites gatekeepers singers temple servants all who had

separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the torah of god their wives sons daughters everybody who had knowledge understanding they joined together into a uh what's called a curse and an oath to walk in god's torah that was given by moses the servant of god and to observe and do all the commandments of the lord our lord and his rules and his statutes which is a long preamble to say hey everybody after this rehearsal of history they're like you know what let's enter into a compact with each other and here's the names everybody here's here's what we're going to do and even though this is kind of a general like a we're going to follow god's word there are some very specific things here and we'll we'll get into those the first is number one verse 30 we're not

going to give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons we talked about this at length when we were in ezra basically taking prior laws in the torah that applied to the various canaanites and now they're contemporizing those and applying them to the peoples who are living around them. So they're going to keep marriage within the people of Israel. This has nothing to do with forced divorces or anything like that.

As we did, this is simply saying we're not going to engage in marriages with outsiders. Yeah, and it says they're trying to stay away from idolatry. This historically was a great way to have idolatry get in. You marry an idolater?

Chances are. Your marriage is going to go that direction. Yeah, so that's the first thing. Secondly, if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. So here, I mean, you can see how this might be a loophole, right? Well, I mean, listen, yes, I'm a Jew, but I'm not working on the Sabbath. I mean, the Gentile traders who are bringing merchandise in here, they're the ones working.

So, I mean, they don't have to keep the Sabbath. I do, but I'm not technically working by buying whatever from them on the Sabbath. But again, they're taking a new situation that was not really envisioned in the original giving of the Torah, and they're applying the Sabbath laws to this new situation. All right, we're not going to do this on the Sabbath. And then a third thing listed here is we will forego the crops of the seventh year, that sabbatical year, and the exaction of every debt. so that starts us out here i mean you're gonna not gonna have the intermarriage not gonna do

that anymore and uh if if it's a sabbath day and you got these gentiles coming into town you know they're selling whatever it is bread uh trinkets whatever we need we're not gonna buy from them if it's a sabbath or any other holy day and uh when the seventh year rolls around then we're going to do exactly what the torah says and let the land rest and we're not going to exact debts And I'm assuming that means that they're going to work in a compassionate way with their fellow Israelites with regard to loaning money and all the various ways in which you support the poor. So probably the reason that these are specified is because these were all issues that the people faced. And so in their ongoing effort not to repeat the mistakes of their forefathers, these are some of the things that they are explicitly saying we are not going to do this or we are going to do this in order to walk in step with the Torah. And there's more. We just ran out of time. We'll get to those in our next episode.

But that's where the people are now. They've recounted their history, and with that history fresh in their mind, they're like, okay, this is what we're going to do henceforth in this oath, this agreement that we are making and signing in order to strive to actually be the people that God has called us to be. Yeah, that's it, man. They recount that history and then say, let's make an agreement not to repeat that. Let's do that.

That sounds like a good plan. All right. Well, we will be back next episode to examine some more of what it is that they are agreeing to do. Chad, I will see you then. See you then.