Some people just love a good list. Names, numbers, populations, places, positions. The excitement is almost scary. While I like a good bit of organisation and order, I have to confess to finding these passages of Scripture hard going. It seems even my interest in a list has only so far it can reasonably stretch.
Yet the existence of a list means something important for God’s plans. As tempting as it is to skip over these mere details and get to the next exciting bit of story, we do need to understand the reason why God placed these verses in Scripture, other than to build our patience. Seen in broader context, this list is part of Nehemiah reordering society so that God’s People are prepared to receive their Messiah, by ensuring the central place of their worship of God was inhabited by God’s People. While Town Planners might rejoice at Nehemiah’s actions, they should be joined by us in praising a God of order.
With the walls rebuilt and the gates rehung, Jerusalem was physically secure. The Temple had a barrier of protection around it. But the walls themselves still needed defending, and that meant people. Jerusalem had precious few of those.
The population had temporarily increased while the walls were rebuilt, but many of the builders belonged to surrounding towns and villages. Once the work was done, they returned.
The reality of the population gap was pretty clear. “The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt” (v.4). There were not many people, and there was no rebuilding of houses. The city felt empty. The appeal of the city did not extend beyond the immediate task.
Nehemiah knew this had to change. Jerusalem needed to be inhabited by God’s People. It was the lead city, the one where God chose for his temple to dwell. “Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy” (v.5). Nehemiah recognised God’s leading in making this happen. The first step would be a bit of town planning. He needed a list of God’s People.
“I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first, and I found written in it…” (v.5) names! Lots of names! Nehemiah uncovered Ezra’s list of returnees, recorded in the book of Ezra.
The list is very similar, though there are some differences. We do not exactly know why. It could be that the list recorded in Ezra was later amended to include Jews who returned from exile in Babylon at a later date.
In this list, the various returnees are listed by family group the place they came from (vv.6-73). They are listed in general, then with the help of the Holy Spirit those that were Levites or temple assistants, who were important in the proper functioning of the Temple and its grounds. Finally, it included a list of those who claimed Jewish descent, but their passports could not be found (vv.61-65).
For the task to hand, having a list of the returnees from exile was a helpful reminder. They were God’s covenant people, and so the promises of God extended through them from their ancestors to their children. They were not simply residents of the towns and villages where they had settled, but part of a line of God’s saving work.
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 just to survive but to rejoice in God.
We too are called to praise God. We do not have a physical city with physical walls, but we inhabit the eternal City of God by the Holy Spirit. Like the list that Nehemiah found, our names are also written into a list, the Lamb’s Book of Life. We should praise God because he knows us by name.
Secondly, we should praise God because he has numbered us as part of his people. We are part of the same line of covenant people that God is dealing with throughout history. God’s promises extend through us, from believers who have gone before us, to our children and to those who are far off (Acts 2:39).
God is still at work through us, his people, preserving us and witnessing to the nations until the Messiah, Jesus, returns from heaven to eternally dwell among us.
Since we are God’s special people, the same call to holiness which the Jews felt in Nehemiah’s day applies to us too. We should leave aside our pursuit of worldly satisfaction for the sake of pleasing God. We should listen for the call God places on our hearts for how we can serve him.
Not just town planners, but all God’s People, are called to rejoice.