NEHEMIAH
Lesson 11, Chapter 8 Continued
As we continue in Nehemiah chapter 8, it occurs to me that the focus of this chapter is a
subject that I am confronted with virtually daily both by emails and face to face: how do we
obey the Law of Moses in our current circumstances? And if we can’t obey all the Law to the
letter, should we try to live by any of it?
As pertains to Nehemiah and Ezra’s time, so many of the commandments and ordinances of
God’s Torah had fallen into disuse as a result of the Jewish exile to Babylon. Everything that
required a Temple and a Priesthood was impossible to observe up in Babylon, kosher eating to
the divine standard was not doable, and so in some cases replacement systems were invented
by the more zealous of the Jews. Those systems followed the Jewish exiles that returned back
to Judah, and of course became the norm for the 95% who chose to stay.
The political reality was that the Law was given to the Hebrews almost a millennia earlier under
the conditions of self-rule (having just been freed from Egypt); but now the condition was that
Judah was merely a small province in a vast Persian Empire, and the Jews were Persian
citizens under the authority of a Persian King no matter where they lived. How might divine
laws and regulations that by design were to be not just part of the Hebrew religious sphere, but
rather were to also be the everyday civil laws and moral code that the Jews lived by, translate
to a people who were but an insignificant population under the firm rule of a powerful pagan
government?
As we read in Nehemiah 8, and as we’ll further discuss today, Ezra introduced an important
concept that I have tried to introduce as well to all of you: when we can’t follow the letter of the
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Law because circumstances dictate that we can’t, we should follow the principle that any
particular Law is built upon or than any regulation is demonstrating. And truth be told, if the
Torah and the Law had not been intentionally designed by the Lord to have that sort of cross-
cultural flexibility and adaptability to time and progress, then it was doomed to failure from the
moment the Israelites crossed the Jordan into Canaan and began to encounter life in a pagan
land, fighting against and living among various pagan people.
What we do NOT see is Ezra telling the people that because you can’t do one law as it was
originally intended, then the whole Law is dead and gone. He doesn’t say that because
sometimes the letter of the Law necessarily has to be pushed to the background and the hard
work of finding the principle of any particular law has to be done, that all obligation to the Law
becomes optional. For many centuries the Christian solution to this challenge of making the
Law relevant to changing times and circumstances has been to declare it abolished and thus to
simply wipe away the challenge. According to our traditional institutional Church authorities
going back as far as the 4
th
century A.D., it is they who shall dictate religious observance,
morality and behavior. It is they who shall declare holy days. Manmade Christian customs and
doctrines shall replace God’s laws and even evolve as political correctness evolves.
Let’s re-read part of Nehemiah chapter 8.
RE-READ NEHEMIAH 8:9 – end
Nehemiah is called the Tirshita, usually translated as governor. Tirshita is not Hebrew; it is a
Persian word. And it helps to realign us to the reality that Nehemiah may have had a Jewish
racial heritage, but to the world of his day he was a Persian official (the king’s own cupbearer)
governing via Persian law over Persian citizens in a Persian province called Judah.
And verse 9 shows with certainty that Nehemiah and Ezra were contemporaries; they co-
operated to convene this gathering on the 1
st
day of the 7
th
month, Tishri, and each played his
role. Nehemiah is to be commended as his role is obviously one of organizing, and it is Ezra
who is made front and center; Nehemiah doesn’t insist on the spotlight.
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It is said that the reading of the Law by Ezra caused the people to weep. However Ezra and
the Levites admonished them that they should cease their tears and instead celebrate with joy.
Why were the people mourning? Because God’s purpose for the Law was served: it first made
the people aware of their sins, and then convicted them of those sins, and then showed them
what their predicament was, and finally what the consequence of sins was. Paul’s comments
on this subject in the Book of Romans could just as easily have come from Ezra’s mouth as he
stood on that wooden platform before the people of Judah.
Romans 7:7-13 CJB
7
Therefore, what are we to say? That the Torah is sinful? Heaven forbid! Rather, the
function of the Torah was that without it, I would not have known what sin is. For
example, I would not have become conscious of what greed is if the Torah had not said,
"Thou shalt not covet."

8
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, worked in me all kinds
of evil desires- for apart from Torah, sin is dead.

9
I was once alive outside the framework of Torah. But when the commandment really
encountered me, sin sprang to life,

10
and I died. The commandment that was intended to bring me life was found to be
bringing me death!

11
For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me; and
through the commandment, sin killed me.

12
So the Torah is holy; that is, the commandment is holy, just and good.

13
Then did something good become for me the source of death? Heaven forbid! Rather,
it was sin working death in me through something good, so that sin might be clearly
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exposed as sin, so that sin through the commandment might come to be experienced as
sinful beyond measure.
Many Jews had apparently not heard the Law in a long time; some no doubt had never heard
it. And as the hours of instruction passed it became clear that the traditions and customs that
had been developed over the past 175 years in exile (the traditions and customs that dictated
everyday life) didn’t necessarily match with God’s laws; it was a sobering wake-up call. Think
upon what is happening here: just as Paul said 500 years later, the knowledge of their sin had
been dead to these people standing before Ezra because they didn’t know the Torah. Paul
said in Romans 7:8, “…..apart from Torah, sin is dead”. So was Paul suggesting that staying
apart from the Torah was supposed to be a good thing? That the right thing (the smart thing?)
is to intentionally make ourselves separated from God’s laws, and thus we won’t sin. Paul
says in verses 12 and 13 that not only is the Torah and the commandment holy, just and good,
but that any thought that the Torah has become a source of death must be dismissed.
“Heaven forbid” he says to that notion. But modern Christianity says the opposite. Here’s the
rather standard (admittedly not universal) Christian formula: just be ignorant of what sin is
according to the Bible by avoiding the Torah, and therefore since you won’t know what sin is in
God’s eyes, you can’t commit sins! Instead, sin is now customized for each person. Sin has
no standard. Whatever God tells you is sin “in your spirit” is sin, but that same sin may not be
sin for me (and vice versa).
Thankfully the people standing in front of Ezra took the Laws of Moses to heart and began
mourning when they realized their sorry state. It is my hope, it is my purpose in life, it is the
reason for the existence of Seed of Abraham and Torah Class, that someday all Believers will
open the Torah and weep, finally realizing the truth and relevance of it. And yet, we have Ezra
and the other leaders telling the people to stop their mourning and instead to celebrate with
joy! What are we to make of this?
I think the best single word to explain the reaction of both the people and the leaders is
bittersweet. Think about the meaning of that word bittersweet: bitter and sweet are opposites,
so how can something be both at the same time? The definition of such a thing is called irony.
And yet, this irony was true. It was bitter for the people to learn that they had been displeasing
God, had somewhat intentionally ignored God’s Word, and what the terrible consequences for
this were. They had been living in exile as a consequence. They had returned to Judah, living
in a heap of ruins as a consequence. They were subjects of a pagan king as a consequence.
Yet, ironically, it was sweet that here they were finally learning what pleased God and now they
knew it with certainty. They were no longer relying on flimsy traditions of men to try and be in
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harmony with God. They found out that while disobedience indeed brought curses and death,
obedience brought blessings and life! And the day that they were hearing all this was itself a
God-ordained holy day, the Feast of Trumpets…..Yom Teruah. And this holy day was meant
to be a joyful day, a day of abundance, and not a day of sadness.
This is exactly how it ought to be for modern Believers. Don’t consider it a defeat that the Lord
suddenly reveals to you that the Torah is alive and well after you had denied it for all your
Christian life. Don’t consider it a day to be sad and mournful when finally the scales fall off
your eyes and you realize that you have a duty and obligation before the Lord to obey His
commandments. Think of the bittersweet tears you cried the day you first believed; that
moment that you stopped running from God; that you knew Christ was real, that He died for
you, and that you had been rescued from eternal death because of your sinful ways. How
awful for your past, how guilty for rebelling against the Lord, and how wonderful and thankful
for your future that you felt all at the same time. That is essentially what is happening here in
Nehemiah chapter 8.
In verse 10 Ezra continues to explain why the mourning of the people should turn to
celebration. It is because, “the Joy of Adonai is your strength”. The word translated in the CJB
as strength, is ma’uz. More literally ma’uz means a refuge, a place of safety, the protection of
a stronghold. So the joy of the Lord is our place of protection. Have joy in the Lord by getting
into harmony with Him, says Ezra, and do this by means of knowing and obeying His Torah,
and this will put you in a place of safety. The Rabbis regularly speak of the Torah
metaphorically as a fence, and if we stay within the fence of the Torah, we are protected by the
Lord Himself.
In verse 12 we learn that the people got the message and they left to go home and feast, and
to drink (wine), but also to “send portions”. In other words, what better way to celebrate than to
have food! Having a special meal on a festival occasion was common in the Old Testament. In
fact, a special kind of sacrifice called the Zevah Shelamim had been established in God’s
Law for these festive occasions. With this kind of sacrifice a small portion was burned up on
the altar, but the majority was given back to the worshipper to eat. However the term “sending
portions”, shalach manah, is a Hebrew expression that means to give gifts of food to those
who are in need. The idea is that all Israel is to celebrate, and that those who have plenty are
to be sure to include those who have insufficient means to join in; no one should be left out.
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Upon verse 13, we have now turned the page to a new day, the 2
nd
day of Tishri, and the
assembly is continuing. Thus since on the day before the people had been dismissed to go
home, to celebrate, and to “send portions”, only part of the crowd remained and so those
affected by what happens next is described only as “the heads of the father’s clans”. And
what happens is essentially that a Torah class breaks out. And as they’re studying the Torah
(they were no doubt in Leviticus) they learn that part of God’s instructions concerning the
Sukkot celebration that is only a couple of weeks away is to build and live in Sukkahs, huts.
Leviticus 23:39-43 CJB
39
"'But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered the produce
of the land, you are to observe the festival of ADONAI seven days; the first day is to be a
complete rest and the eighth day is to be a complete rest.

40
On the first day you are to take choice fruit, palm fronds, thick branches and river-
willows, and celebrate in the presence of ADONAI your God for seven days.

41
You are to observe it as a feast to ADONAI seven days in the year; it is a permanent
regulation, generation after generation; keep it in the seventh month.

42
You are to live in sukkot for seven days; every citizen of Isra'el is to live in a sukkah,

43
so that generation after generation of you will know that I made the people of Isra'el
live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am ADONAI your God.'"
Now before we address their observance of Sukkot, let’s discuss an obvious omission: the
Feast of Yom Kippur: the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is supposed to happen on the 10
th
day of the 7
th
month. It is a very special time when the day itself is a full-blown Shabbat in
which no work is to be done. It is a day of fasting, not feasting.
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Leviticus 23:27-32 CJB

27
"The tenth day of this seventh month is Yom-Kippur; you are to have a holy
convocation, you are to deny yourselves, and you are to bring an offering made by fire
to ADONAI.

28
You are not to do any kind of work on that day, because it is Yom-Kippur, to make
atonement for you before ADONAI your God.

29
Anyone who does not deny himself on that day is to be cut off from his people;

30
and anyone who does any kind of work on that day, I will destroy from among his
people.

31
You are not to do any kind of work; it is a permanent regulation through all your
generations, no matter where you live.

32
It will be for you a Shabbat of complete rest, and you are to deny yourselves; you are
to rest on your Shabbat from evening the ninth day of the month until the following
evening."
Bible scholars have weighed in on the missing Day of Atonement in this passage of Nehemiah
since time immemorial. Modern critical scholars say that the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
were written BEFORE the Torah was written, and so only later was the Day of Atonement
added. There’s no evidence for that, but it is a quite common claim today among Bible
academics who find the Bible to be nothing more than Jewish Literature and myth, having no
actual spiritual influence because they don’t believe there is such a thing as the spiritual world.
Some speculate that there was a strain in relationship between the Priesthood and Ezra or
perhaps between Ezra and the acting High Priest, so Ezra cancelled the Yom Kippur
observance that centered on the High Priest going into the Holy of Holies. Again, this is just
fanciful thinking as there is not a hint of such a thing in the Bible or even outside of the Bible.
But for me the bottom line is that we’re not told. My one and only thought on this is that
everything we see happening so far has nothing to do with the Temple. Everything in this
chapter is happening away from the Temple, by the Watergate. The rituals of Yom Kippur,
however, are entirely within the Temple, and only involve the High Priest. So I guess what I’m
suggesting as a real possibility is that Yom Kippur did happen, but it bears no relationship to
Ezra’s reading of the Torah, the celebrating, and the teaching of the people by the Levites,
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etc. so it is beyond the scope of this chapter since this is all about the Law and its relationship
with the common folks.
Yom Kippur, from a Biblical standpoint, was a 100% priestly affair. The people are simply
supposed to rest. They are to observe a Shabbat (not a 7
th
day Shabbat but a special feast day
Shabbat). Judaism later added to the Biblical instruction and created a number of traditions for
the laypeople to do. For instance, on the 9
th
day of Tishri, before the sun sets (thus becoming
the 10
th
day and Yom Kippur), people are to gather and observe Kol Nidrei at a Synagogue.
Kol Nidrei is actually a prayer that declares the person is annulling any vows they made over
the past year. During the day of the 9
th
there is supposed to be 2 festive meals, one in the
morning and the other just before the onset of Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur there are 5 prayer
services at the Synagogue. And depending on the strictness of the observance, people are not
to wear shoes made of any kind of leather, and they are not to wash or bathe.
Now let’s talk a bit about the command in Lev. 23:27 to have a holy convocation for Yom
Kippur. This concept of certain holy days calling for a holy convocation is greatly
misunderstood and I’d like to address it because it expands outward into some very touchy
areas of Scriptural commands and instruction and religious observances. And it has caused
anger and accusations and deep divisions within Judeo-Christianity.
First, the phrase “holy convocation” is in Hebrew kodesh miqra. Gentiles and English
speakers commonly take the term to mean a holy assembly. So the thought is that a holy
convocation, a kodesh miqra, is a call for God’s people to assemble together for some kind of
worship. That is not so. Rather from a Biblical perspective miqra more means a reading or a
proclamation. It can mean a summons in the sense that people are being summoned to do
something in common, like pray. But that in no way means that people are to travel to a
common place to have that prayer. Thus by no means is the day of rest, the festival Sabbath of
Yom Kippur a call for people to travel to the Temple for an assembly. Rather the Biblical sense
of a pilgrimage, a journey, to a designated place to hold a common worship event is called a
chag in Hebrew, not a miqra. And there are only 3 Biblical Feasts that are chag, collective
assemblies: Matza, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
Follow me because this is where it gets really dicey. Today for many folks within Messianic
Judaism especially, is the belief that Saturday, Shabbat, is the God authorized day of worship;
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in fact it is to be the chief, if not sole, day of worship. And they get this from Leviticus 23:3
where we read this:
CJB
Leviticus 23:3 "'Work is to be done on six days; but the seventh day is a Shabbat of
complete rest, a holy convocation; you are not to do any kind of work; it is a Shabbat for
ADONAI, even in your homes.
They see the term “holy convocation”, kodesh miqra, and say, see, we’re supposed to
assemble on Shabbat. Wrong. It simply means a holy reading or a holy proclamation. In fact
traveling for assembly on Shabbat is greatly restricted. Plus, the Torah is clear that the ONLY
place of a holy journey to assemble (a kodesh chag) is to be the Temple in Jerusalem. If the
Hebrews had been instructed in Leviticus 23:3 that they were to travel to the Temple for an
assembly on every Shabbat (meaning every 7
th
day), it would have been a practical
impossibility immediately upon them crossing the Jordan River and then scattering to occupy
the territories of the districts assigned to the 12 tribes by Moses and Joshua.
In fact, Orthodox Judaism does NOT claim that Shabbat is the Jewish day of worship. No
Orthodox Rabbi would tell you that Shabbat is the Jewish Day of Worship. As concerns
worship, Shabbat is just another day to have worship. Admittedly Tradition has made the
worship on Shabbat somewhat different as to the rituals and prayers from other days, but
nevertheless this in no way separates, or designates, Shabbat as the Jewish Day of Worship.
Daniel shows us that he prayed 3 times per day every single day of the week, and prayed
towards Jerusalem. In fact Daniel is the model that Judaism uses for prayer and worship.
It is a myth in our time, sometimes held by Messianics (Jews as well as the many gentiles who
attend Messianic synagogues), that Shabbat is the Biblically ordained day of worship. Often it
is thought that by declaring Saturday as the day of worship, we are doing what our Jewish
friends (more specifically the Orthodox in Israel) are doing. That’s not the case. And then this
is held up against Sunday, which indeed is the declared Christian day of worship, Saturday is
deemed as superior and Sunday (or any other day) as an inferior or even a pagan day of
worship. And therefore a Jew should worship communally only on Shabbat and shun 1
st
day of
the week worship. Well, the Orthodox worship daily at the synagogue including Sundays and
don’t agree at all with this concept of Shabbat as the official day of worship. The Orthodox
Rabbis fully understand and declare that Shabbat is the day of rest, and not the day of
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worship.
So I want to be very clear; if you are Messianic or Hebrew Roots and harbor the notion that
Shabbat is in any way the official or set apart or better or even highest Jewish day of worship,
as practiced by Judaism, you have been misinformed. If you think that Orthodox Jews avoid
Sunday worship, you are misinformed. If you think that there is even such a thing as a
designated day of worship within the Scriptures or within Orthodox Judaism, you are
misinformed. So to hang on to that notion is to act on wrong assumptions and bad information.
Now as for Christians: those of us who might think that Sunday is the proper and only
authorized day of worship are also incorrect. As with the Old Testament, the New Testament
does not ordain an official day of worship. So where did this idea come from? Around 100
A.D., the gentile church father Ignatius advocated the replacement of Sabbath with a new day
called the Lord’s Day, which would be the 1
st
day of the week. He was roundly criticized by
other gentile Christian Bishops for this. Further Ignatius urged that followers of Christ avoid any
worship meeting on Sabbath and instead designate Sunday NOT as a day of rest, but as a day
of worship for Christians. A couple of centuries later Sunday as the Lord’s Day was officially
created by Constantine in the 4
th
century A.D. And as Emperor of the Roman Empire he
declared it to be the official day of worship across his entire Empire. But what isn’t usually
explained is that it was the official day of common worship for ALL religions in the Roman
Empire, not just Christianity. And Sunday was chosen for two reasons: first, because
Christians had been meeting for worship on Saturdays (among other days), which the Jews
also did, and Constantine’s stated goal was not to do anything the Jews did. And second,
because the Sun worshipper religion of the Empire known as Sol Invictus, which at that time
appears to have been the most prevalent religion practiced in the Empire, met on Sundays. So
by declaring Sunday as a national day of worship for all religions, including Christianity,
Constantine avoided a messy political and religious problem.
Let me end this discussion about the term “holy convocation”, kodesh miqra, by saying that
what I have read in their writings leads me to suspect that the gentile church fathers, early
Bishops, and Constantine who were blatantly anti-Jewish were confused about the Sabbath
and about the need for a day of worship, and like so many Christians and Messianics today,
thought that at least in the minds of the Jews the two were essentially the same thing. They are
not. God’s ordained Sabbath is strictly the day of rest; it is not the day of worship. There is no
God ordained day of worship. Any designated days of worship are manmade traditions and
customs. And interestingly the Jews didn’t make any traditions about any particular day being
THE designated day of worship; 4
th
century Christians did that. Once more: that is not the
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same issue as to which day is Sabbath. That is well established by the Holy Scriptures, and it
is Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. It is not optional, and it is not changeable. But most
important, please cease judging one another about which day or days you go to a communal
worship meeting. Worship any day you like, and know that God finds it perfectly acceptable;
it’s humans that get all bent out of shape about it.
Getting back to Nehemiah 8:15, we find that the leaders sent out word that everyone was to
construct a Sukkah; they were all to go and collect various kinds of tree branches and large
plant foliage to use in the construction. So the people obeyed and all over Jerusalem and
Judah people built Sukkahs and placed them on their roofs, in their courtyards, by the
Watergate where they were gathering, by another place called the Ephraim Gate, and even in
the Temple courtyards. Everyone lived in a Sukkah for the entire 7 day cycle of the Feast of
Sukkot. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this passage is that the writer says that
building and living in Sukkahs had not happened since the days of Joshua (9 centuries earlier).
That is, apparently after Joshua’s death the Israelites either stopped observing Sukkot in
general, and/or stopped building and living in Sukkahs as part of the celebration. We do get
mention in a few places in the OT prior to Ezra and Nehemiah of celebrating feasts but no
specific mention of celebrating Sukkot. In Ezra chapter 3 we see that some years earlier Ezra
had led a Sukkot celebration. So it seems that at the least the use of huts, Sukkahs, had been
dropped hundreds of years earlier, and that only occasionally was the Feast of Sukkot
celebrated at all. A very sad commentary on Israel’s history, and just one more reason that
God eventually ejected all 12 tribes from their land.
The good news is that the people were so glad to be doing this; they didn’t see living in
Sukkahs for a week as a burden but rather as a newly re-discovered joy. And verse 17 also
gives us a clue as to why this building of Sukkahs was embraced with such zealousness by the
people. An emphasis is made in this passage that it was the returned Babylonian exiles who
celebrated using Sukkahs. I think it is reasonable to postulate that they felt a kindred spirit with
those Egyptian refugees led by Moses who were returning from their exile. And so this is how
Israel is supposed to feel every time they celebrate Sukkot; they are to remember that they
were slaves in Egypt, God redeemed them, and that their ancestors lived in huts in the
wilderness. This feast re-connects present Israel with past Israel and makes them as one
common people with one common identity. And this is why I am so adamant that gentile
Believers need to celebrate this and the other Biblical Feasts, because it connects with Israel
as one people under one set of covenants given to us by the One God. But sadly it is also the
reason that Christianity in general refuses to celebrate the Biblical Feasts: they want to be
separate from Israel, and separate from Israel’s covenants.
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It is hard to know what to make of these words that they read from the 1
st
day to the last day
(no doubt meaning the 7 days of Sukkot) from the Torah. There is no Scriptural instruction to
do this. So perhaps this is not the begining of a new tradition, but rather a one time event
brought about by the completion of the wall around Jerusalem and then a determination of the
people to return to the Torah. And the only way to do that is to study it, remember it, and do it.
We’ll move on to chapter 9 next week.
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