July 10, 2018: Day 87 – Nehemiah 10

Well, this is nice.  We find here the content of the agreement that the people made with God.  The part that we hear about in chapter 10 is the part that says we will not neglect the House of the Lord.  So here we find the promise that the people make to take care of those who work in the house of the Lord, the priests, as well as to take care of the actual house itself, the temple.  The very first verses contain a listing of names and these names are the priests and those from the house of Levi who would have been involved in the work of the temple.  

After listing the names of the people who are going to be affected by this agreement, he then lays out the details of the covenant.  Keep in mind that these details are not new, they are already listed in the writings of the first five books of the Bible which was what God expected us to do.  This is crucial, these are not new commandments, but commandments that have been overlooked.  Nehemiah and Ezra want to be sure that they are carried out and not overlooked again.

Keep in mind that these commandments were followed in the OT and no longer today.  The Sabbath is one that we ought to keep, but we still buy and sell commerce on Sunday.  That is one aspect of the law that is mentioned.  We do not give back to the Lord one third of what we make, we give one tenth, but that is also mentioned.  We do not give our first child, male child to be specific, to the Lord, or our first fruits, but that is what was expected in the law of the Lord.  Notice, Jesus came and fulfilled the law and gave us a law of freedom to live so that all that we do and say would be pleasing to the Lord.  This is not the result of following a set of rules, but rather by free will we obey the Lord.  How are we doing with that?