July 7, 2018: Day 84 – Nehemiah 7

We now have an accounting,  a genealogical accounting of the people who are populating Jerusalem.  We have nearly 50 thousand people who are in Jerusalem, but no houses yet, according to vs.4.  Not sure how that works since in vs.3 we read about their houses and in the previous verses we find that each person repaired the wall outside of their house.  Anyway, maybe it means that no new houses had been built.  Maybe  it is just an indication that the houses that they were inhabiting were the old ruins of the houses where they had settled once they came into the city.  

The listing of all the families and the number of people with each family is fascinating.  There is a repetition which we find.  We hear again about those who came into Jerusalem but could not prove that they were priests, so they were excluded from performing priestly duties, but that does not mean that they were banned from Jerusalem.  In fact, they are still around.  We also see that the family with the most people is the family of Seenah which had 3,930 (vs.38).  They never show up again and this is the only time that they are mentioned in the Bible so don’t read into it (except for Ezra 2).

You will find a similarity to this chapter and Ezra chapter 2 as well.  We will find in many of the Old Testament books repeats of what has been mentioned with some of the details just a little off.  For example, in Ezra 2 the number of people that we find in the family of Seenah is 3,630.  It isn’t that big of a deal, if you don’t take the stance that either all of it correct or none of it.  I’m okay with a little bit of dissonance.