Bible In One Year Day 275 (Nehemiah 6-7, Esther 3, 13, Proverbs 21: 1-4)

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Day 275: Esther Becomes Queen 

Agape Bible Study 
Nehemiah 6 - 7 

Nehemiah 6:1-14 ~ The Intrigues of Nehemiah's Enemies

Nehemiah's enemies employ three successive plans to eliminate him:

1. They tried to lure him to a remote site far from Jerusalem where they could assassinate him (verse 2).
2. They made a second attempt to convince him to meet with them outside Jerusalem by threatening to inform the Persian king that Nehemiah intends to make himself King of Judah, an act of treason (verses 5-7).
3. When they saw that Nehemiah couldn't be coaxed to leave Jerusalem, they hired a false prophet to warn him that his life was in danger and to come with him into the Temple's Holy Place in violation of the Law for a layperson (verses 10-14).

Scripture mentions eleven prophetesses in the Old and New Testaments: nine are true, and two are false:

Prophetess	Scripture Reference
Old Testament Prophetesses
Miriam, sister of Moses	Exodus 15:20
Deborah Judge and Prophetess	Judges 4:4
Hulda	2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 34:22
Isaiah's wife	Isaiah 8:3
Noadiah, the false prophetess	Nehemiah 6:14
New Testament Prophetesses
Anna	Luke 2:36
Philip's four daughters	Acts 21:9
"Jezebel" the false prophetess	Revelation 2:20

Nehemiah 6:15-19 ~ Completion of the Wall but Opposition Continues

The last date Nehemiah gave us was six months earlier (as we count). It was early in the month of Nisan (March) in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes in 2:1 when he presented his petition to King Artaxerxes. His trip to Jerusalem probably took not more than three months since he traveled with a small group by horseback, which would mean he arrived in Jerusalem after the change of the Persian year in the twenty-first year of King Artaxerxes I (still 445 BC by our modern calendar). The Persian new year began on the spring equinox in March 20^th/21st. The month of Elul is the sixth month in the liturgical calendar with the end of the month equating to our September. Therefore, it was in the early fall of the twenty-first year of King Artaxerxes's reign when Nehemiah's workers completed the wall.

It may seem unreasonable that Nehemiah's work teams could have completed the walls within fifty-two days; however:

1. The foundation of the old walls was still in place.
2. He limited the circumference of the walls to the time of King Solomon.
3. Ezra started some restoration of the walls thirteen years earlier.

The foundations were already there, and Nehemiah only rebuilt the walls from the time of King Solomon's tenth century BC city that was much smaller than the area covered by Jerusalem when the Babylonians destroyed the city in 587/6 BC. Also, Ezra had started some of the restoration thirteen years earlier until Sangallat was able to bring pressure on him to end the work (Ezra 4:6-23).

Nehemiah Part One Continued:
Reorganization of Jerusalem (7:1-3)
Registration of citizens of Jerusalem (7:4-73)

Nehemiah 7:1-3 ~ The Reorganization of Jerusalem and the Temple

Now that the city is secure with its protective walls and gates, Nehemiah turns his attention to the administration of Jerusalem and makes a series of appointments:

1. gatekeepers
2. Levites to assist the chief priests in the Temple's liturgy of worship and other Temple duties
3. Temple singers
4. A city administrator and commander of the guard

He appoints Hanani as Jerusalem's chief administrator and a man named Hananiah as the commander of the citadel or fortress of the guard. The guard commander had the duty to oversee the city's security measures like organizing the night patrols, assigning men as watchkeepers in the city's towers, and commanding the defensive forces if they came under attack. 

Hanani is Nehemiah's brother who brought him the news concerning Jerusalem's plight without walls to protect the city in Nehemiah 1:2. Some Biblical scholars think Nehemiah's brother Hanani is the same person as Hananiah since the name Hanani is the shortened form of Hananiah. However, it is just as likely that these are two different men with the same name appointed to two different positions of authority and Nehemiah uses the shortened form for his brother to distinguish between the two.

PART TWO OF THE BOOK OF NEHEMIAH

1. The end of Chapter 7 concludes Part One of the Book of Nehemiah
2. Nehemiah Part Two (7:6-13:31)
1. Historical Review and Obedience to the Covenant Through Restoration of the Law (7:6-9:37)
   1. A review of the list of the first exiles to return with Sheshbazzar (7:6-72)
   2. Ezra's reading and interpretation of the Law (8:1-18)
2. Nehemiah's Reaffirmation of the Covenant (9:1-10:39)
3. Obedience to the Covenant (11:1-13:31)
1. Resettlement of the Citizens (11:1-36)
2. Register of the Priests and Levites (12:1-26)
3. Dedication of Jerusalem's Wall (12:27-47)
4. Spiritual Restoration of the Covenant People (13:1-31)
3. 
   
   
   
   

1. The three returns of exiles mentioned in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah:
   1. Sheshbazzar's group of exiles set out soon after King Cyrus's Edict of Return in 539 BC, arriving in Jerusalem not later than about 538/7 BC.
   2. Ezra's group left Babylon for Jerusalem the 7^th year of King Artaxerxes in 458 BC.
   3. Nehemiah's group made the journey in the 20^th year of King Artaxerxes in 445 BC.

Everything recorded in Chapters 7-8 pertains to events after the first return of the exiles, ninety-two years before Nehemiah found in Ezra Chapter 2. Nehemiah's personal narrative ends and does not resume until 12:31. The inspired writer offers a historical review, recounting the mission of Ezra thirteen years earlier to show that Ezra and Nehemiah's missions were two halves of God's plan to redeem the covenant people spiritually and physically.

Nehemiah 7:6-68 ~ The List of the First Exiles to Make the Journey with Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel from Babylon in 538/7 BC

Nehemiah will take a census of the people to prepare for the repopulating of the city in 11:4-24, but in the meantime, he discovers a list of the exiles who returned to Judah and Jerusalem with Davidic princes Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel in about 538 BC. It is a list recorded in the Book of Ezra 2:1-67. The old list will be useful for Nehemiah in establishing which families of pure Jewish descent are eligible for residence in Jerusalem.

Question: What could account for the numbers being slightly different for the people and some of the names different? Note: Sheshbazzar's registry listed in Ezra Chapter 2 was before the journey to Jerusalem.
Answer: The differences in numbers may be because of deaths or births on the journey, with Ezra's list naming the families that left on the journey and Nehemiah's list of those who arrived in Jerusalem. Name differences may be because of spelling variations, some heads of families died, and others became leaders of their groups.

Nehemiah's list does not include the mounts of the wealthy: horses and mules. It could be because Nehemiah's focus is always on the ordinary person and not the elites.

Nehemiah 7:69-72 ~ Record of the First Group of Exiles' in Jerusalem

"His Excellency," the Tirshatha, in verse 69 again refers to Sheshbazzar, the first Persian governor of Judah (verse is a repeat from Ezra 2:63).
The governor, clan leaders, and the people made generous gifts toward the fund to rebuild the Temple that was already built 137 years before Nehemiah returned.

69 b His Excellency contributed one thousand gold drachmas, fifty bowls, and thirty priestly robes to the fund = 19 pounds (about 8.5 kilograms) of what should probably read Persian darics. A drachma is a Greek coin.

70 And heads of families gave twenty thousand gold drachmas and two thousand two hundred silver minas to the work fund = 375 pounds (about 170 kilograms) and 1 and 1/3 tons (about 1.2 metric tons) of silver.

71 The gifts made by the rest of the people amounted to twenty thousand gold drachmas, two thousand silver minas, and sixty-seven priestly robes = 1 and ¼ tons (about 1.1 metric tons).

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A Daily Defense 

DAY 275 Between Two Robbers?

CHALLENGE : The Gospels say that Jesus was crucified between two robbers (Matt. 27:38; Mark 15:27), but this is inaccurate. We know that the ancient Romans only crucified people who committed acts of rebellion.”

DEFENSE: Romans did crucify robbers, but these two were likely rebels.

Robbery isn’t the same as theft. Theft is taking someone’s property, but robbery is taking it by force. There’s an inherent element of violence in robbery that differentiates it from theft. When robbery is committed on water, it’s called piracy. Pirates are robbers who travel by water, and we know the Romans sometimes crucified pirates. For example, as a young man and before he was a political leader, Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held for ransom on an island. “But after his ransom had come from Miletus and he had paid it and was set free, he immediately manned vessels and put to sea from the harbour of Miletus against the robbers. He caught them . . . and crucified them all, just as he had often warned them on the island that he would do, when they thought he was joking” (Plutarch, Life of Julius Caesar 2:5–7).

Because of the violence inherent in robbery, it often blended into rebellion. Gangs of robbers would hide in the countryside, taking valuables from both locals and travelers by force, and the political authorities would send men to battle them. Alternately, political revolutionaries would hide out in the countryside, taking what they needed from others by force, and the political authorities would pursue them.

Either way, robbery was associated with battling the political authorities, and thus there was a single Greek word to describe a person who did these things: lēstēs. It can be translated either “robber, highwayman, bandit” or “revolutionary, insurrectionist, guerrilla” (Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, s.v. lēstēs).

This is the word used for the two “robbers” crucified with Jesus. It’s also used to describe Barabbas (John 18:40), “who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city, and for murder” (Luke 23:19; cf. Mark 15:7).

Scholars have suggested that, as a “notorious prisoner” (Matt. 27:16), Barabbas led the insurrection and the two “robbers” were his followers. Originally, Barabbas their leader would have been crucified between them, but Jesus took his place.

Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist