What gives us hope for the future? (Neh 12:1-43)

As a young Christian reading the gospels, I sometimes wondered about the emphasis in them on healing sick people and raising the dead, when I thought the point was that Jesus came to deal with sin and make forgiveness possible. Of course, forgiveness and sins do come up in various encounters that Jesus had, but not always. Similarly, if we were to write up the story of the exiles’ restoration, I suspect that most of us would quickly move from the wall-building to the spiritual renewal that followed the public reading of the law and culminated in the exiles’ recommitment to the covenant with God. Shouldn’t that be the climax of the story? By contrast, our passage, which is meant to be the capstone of the book, feels perhaps somewhat of a let-down for us, modern readers, with its focus on the dedication of the city wall. What are we to make of this chapter?

The purpose of the genealogy

The passage starts with yet another genealogy that Ezra-Nehemiah seems to be so fond of, this time concentrating on the priests and Levites, an appropriate focus given their involvement in the dedication of the city wall and their larger spiritual ministry through the temple service. However, genealogies in the Old Testament are not simply giving information about ancestry, rather, they convey a message about God’s dealings in the world. Thus, the list of priests and Levites in Nehemiah 12 can be divided into two periods: the time of Zerubbabel and Jeshua and that of Joiakim’s priesthood, which in turn is linked to Nehemiah’s governorship and Ezra’s ministry (Neh 12:1, 12, 26). The story of the exiles’ return, the temple and wall-building and their spiritual status are full of stop-starts and up-and-downs. The genealogy, on the other hand, creates a continuous flow through the linking of the two major stages of the restoration and implicitly communicates that God was working throughout to bring about His purposes for His people, both in the physical and in the spiritual aspects of renewal.

Joyful celebration

The dedication of the Jerusalem wall follows on the recommitment to God because it is recognised that without a people whose heart belong to God, physical restoration is meaningless. But now that the relationship with God has been put right, the outward expressions of God’s restorative work can be genuinely celebrated (Neh 12:27-30, 31-34). Two processions circle parts of the wall while they sing hymns of thanksgiving (probably some of the psalms) to musical accompaniment. Although the starting point is not mentioned, scholars assume that this was the Valley Gate (see map above). The first group would have followed a similar route to Nehemiah’s early night-time inspection (Neh 2:11-16), going south to the Dung Gate, then turning north towards the Water Gate and then proceeding on towards the temple grounds (Neh 12:31, 37). The second group would have gone north from the Valley Gate, following the line of the wall and concluding on the north-eastern corner of the temple (Neh 12:38-39). The two processions would have met up in the temple grounds concluding the event with sacrifices and great rejoicing (Neh 12:43). In fact, the tone of joy is emphatic (mentioned in the Hebrew five times) and clearly, the source of this joy is God Himself (‘God caused them to rejoice with great joy’ in the Hebrew, v.43).

Hope for the future

To return to my initial questions, the exiles’ story demonstrates that God is concerned about the full scope of restoration, both external and internal. While in this life, spiritual renewal does not always go hand-in-hand with material health or well-being, the Lord is concerned not only with our souls but our bodies and the physical world around us, too. That is why in the final renewal, He will make everything new: the heavens, the earth, as well as our physical bodies that are at present prone to illness and death (2 Pet 3:10, 13; 1 Cor 15:42-43). Jesus’ healing of the sick, the blind and the deaf were therefore signs that when sin is ultimately dealt with, when God’s kingdom comes, everything will be restored to wholeness. Physical restoration is meaningless without spiritual renewal, but it is clear from Ezra-Nehemiah’s story that the exiles recognised the importance of both. They have not seen the end of the process, but they looked at the temple and the city wall and the renewal God had done in their hearts as hopeful signs of His work. Like them, we can take comfort that we matter to God, body and soul, internal and external wellbeing and one day He will make all things new (Rev 21:5).

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