13 On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, gathered around Ezra the teacher to give attention to the words of the Law.14 They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month 15 and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: “Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees, and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make temporary shelters”—as it is written.
16 So the people went out and brought back branches and built themselves temporary shelters on their own roofs, in their courtyards, in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Water Gate and the one by the Gate of Ephraim. 17 The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.
18 Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. They celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day, in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly. (Nehemiah 8:13-18)
Thoughts: The first day people listened to the Bible for about six hours straight then went to get food and talk about it. Apparently the people were celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:36-40). The people were excited to celebrate this festival in the way prescribed in Moses' Law (Torah). When we are excited about our faith and listening and practicing the scriptures there is joy and a true sense of God's presence. Even today, we should seek to go back and do what God has asked us to do. Chapter 9 describes their confession of sin- in response to being close to God. Chapter 10 describes their covenant to try to obey God. This will be the end of my blog on Nehemiah. The wall was built in answer to their prayers, sacrifices, and hard work. Afterwards was a spiritual revival in which the people were really excited about God and sought to obey Him above all else. They were less concerned with comfort or trying to make everyone happy- but more concerned about making God happy.. They were deeply aware that God is the One who blesses and who also rebukes us, and our ultimate welfare is in the hands of the One who made us. They knew that God still works in the world today, and we would do well to remember that as well.
Prayer: Lord, give me listening ears to you. Let me be more concerned about conforming to your standards than conforming to the world's standard.
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