Author: Ash Clarkson

The prayer of Nehemiah 9 comes at the end of the first celebration of the Feast of Booths in many years. After finding joy in God’s strength and remembering God’s faithfulness to their ancestors in the wilderness, God’s People gathered again in Jerusalem.

As they read through the Scriptures, “they found it written in the Law that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month” (v.14). While an initial feast had occurred when Ezra and the first exiles returned, this festival had fallen by…

For the believer, our joy and strength is found in the Lord. God’s unchanging goodness and mercy to us, expressed through his Word, demonstrated in Christ’s life and sacrifice, and applied to us by the Holy Spirit, are the true source of our strength. Finding joy in the ups and downs of life, and the…

Passages like Nehemiah 8:1-8 demonstrate this principle of expository teaching. Ezra the Scribe, who led an earlier return of Jews from exile, is called upon by the people to read God’s Law to them. Ezra and his Levite assistants then explain the Scriptures that have been read, so that they can understand them and apply…

No wonder they would be called upon to repopulate Jerusalem. It was not just time for the town planners to rejoice, but for all God’s People. Because God was still at work among them, preserving them and their witness to the nations until the Messiah could be born from among them. They were called not…

The right character was important because what was most needed was not walls (though they were needed and important) but right hearts which sought God. Nehemiah understood that God’s People played a unique role in proclaiming God to the world. They needed to stand out, not through military might but through holiness.

The conspiracy against Nehemiah’s character was designed to demonise him in the face of the authorities. Sadly, Satan and enemies of God’s Church try the same playbook today. Just as Christ’s character was wrongly assassinated, so too is that of his Church. But our response should mirror that of Christ’s, and of Nehemiah’s. Trusting in…

Twelve years later, many of those under Nehemiah’s governance still faced the same hard scrabble to live. While Nehemiah could have enjoyed the benefits and privileges that he was entitled to as the Persian King’s representative in Judea, he did not do so. Instead, he demonstrated generous sacrifice by laying aside his privileges, and sharing…

For the Jewish population of Nehemiah’s day, money misery was very real. Most lived close to starvation, one bad event away from disaster. Many of their fellow Jews took advantage of this situation. The external stresses that came with rebuilding the wall brought many to the brink of despair, and the devil used this opportunity…

Nehemiah’s citizens were faced with attack by the devil, and were forced to defend themselves from what was a spiritual attack (with physical consequences). But the work continued. So they laboured on, with sword strapped to waist and a trowel in their hand. They battled on against the enemy, even as they laboured for God.…