Nehemiah 3

Nehemiah 3 is a chapter of names and gates, and its quiet lesson is that a wall rises when every man repairs the portion in front of his own house. The list runs round Jerusalem gate by gate — the sheep gate sanctified first by the high priest, then the fish gate, the old gate, the valley gate, the dung gate, the fountain gate, the water gate, the horse gate, the east gate, the gate Miphkad. Count them, and add the two this chapter passes over but the book names elsewhere — the gate of Ephraim (8:16) and the prison gate (12:39). Twelve gates. Which is the count of Ezekiel’s city, three on each side named for the tribes, and the count John sees at the end: a wall great and high, and had twelve gates (Rev 21:12). The little circuit of rubble that forty-four working parties are patching has the shape of the city whose name is Yahweh is there.

The work is divided so that no one carries it all — each family, each guild, each priest takes a measured length, and the broken circle is closed by many hands working at once.

The recurring phrase is over against his house — man after man builds the stretch of wall nearest his own door. The work nearest home is the work given to each — the goldsmith, the apothecary, the ruler, the woman’s household, all repairing what is in front of them, and between them the whole city is walled. No one is asked to build the whole wall; everyone is asked to build his own length well.

The gates themselves teach. The sheep gate, where the sacrifices entered, is built first and sanctified — the flock and the offering come before all else. The fish gate, the water gate by which Ezra will read the law, the fountain gate by the pool — the named gates trace the life of the city, sacrifice and word and living water, the openings through which the people and their worship pass.

The chapter is more honest than a first reading suggests, and it repays pushing. Eliashib the high priest builds first and sanctifies the sheep gate — and by chapter 13 the same man has cleared out a temple storeroom to give Tobiah the Ammonite an apartment in the house of God, and his grandson has married Sanballat’s daughter. Meshullam repairs two portions here and gives his daughter to Tobiah’s son (6:18). The men whose names head the register of builders are among the men who let the enemy in by the back door. You can build the wall and marry the wall’s enemies — masonry is easier than separation.

And one sour note is recorded on the spot: their nobles put not their necks to the work of their Lord. The men of Tekoa built — two portions, more than anyone else on the circuit — but their nobles would not stoop. The proud neck that will not bend to the work is named in the register of builders as a permanent reproach — the only ones in the chapter who refused are the great ones who thought the labor beneath them. The wall was finished without them, and their refusal is remembered.

Build well the length in front of your own door; the whole wall rises from many hands, and the only ones shamed are the proud who would not bend their necks to it.

Hosea 13

Hosea 13 holds Israel’s self-destruction and Yahweh’s death-conquering promise in the same breath, and the promise is the one Paul will seize for the resurrection chapter. Ephraim, once exalted, offended in Baal and died; they sin more and more, making molten images and kissing calves. Yet against the idols stands the bare declaration: I am Yahweh thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. There is no savior beside Yahweh — every calf and Baal is a counterfeit; the deliverer who brought them from Egypt is the only one there is.

The diagnosis is exact. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. You have destroyed yourself; your help is in him — the ruin is the nation’s own work, the rescue is wholly Yahweh’s; the sinner authors his death, the Savior alone authors life. They had asked for a king to save them; now Yahweh says I will be thy king, the only king who can.

One image in the middle of it is worth stopping over, and it opens: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. It is the moment of birth gone wrong — the child in the passage and no strength to deliver it, the crisis that ends in a living child or a dead mother. It is the proverb Hezekiah reached for with the Assyrian at his gate: the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth (Isa 37:3). Ephraim is a child that will not be born, lodged in the neck of the womb, and a nation that will not come through its travail kills the mother.

The judgment gathers like a storm — the lion, the leopard, the bear bereaved of her whelps — and then, in the middle of the wrath, the promise breaks open like sunrise. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction. Death itself is sentenced to death — the grave that swallows all is told it will be plundered, and Paul lifts these very words into 1 Corinthians 15 as the shout of the resurrection morning when the last enemy is abolished.

This is the kinsman-redeemer’s work at its furthest reach. Yahweh, through the One who shared the nature death held, will ransom his people from the power of the grave — not by snatching an immortal soul out of reach of death, but by raising the dead and abolishing death altogether. The ransom from the grave is resurrection, not escape — the sleepers are not somewhere else awaiting rescue; they are in the dust, and the dust is what will be plundered when death is destroyed.

You destroyed yourself, but your help is in him — and the grave that swallows all is itself sentenced to destruction in the resurrection morning.

1 Thessalonians 1–2

Paul’s first letter opens with the perfect summary of the Christian life in three verbs: they turned, they serve, they wait. There is a thread to watch through both letters: the coming of Christ is named in every chapter of both epistles — 1:10, 2:19, 3:13, 4:15, 5:23, and again 2 Thess 1:7, 2:1, 3:5. Eight chapters, eight sightings of the return. Paul is writing to people in trouble, and every single chapter he ends by pointing at the horizon.

He thanks God for the Thessalonians’ work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope, and the gospel that came to them not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit. The mark of a true conversion is written plain: ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven. Turned from idols, serving the living God, waiting for the Son — exactly the opposite of Hosea’s Israel that turned from Yahweh to Baal. And lay the three verbs against the three stages of the Master’s own work: he came once to call men to turn; he is at the Father’s right hand now, high priest for those who serve; and he is coming again, for those who wait. The believer’s life has the same three movements as the Christ’s, in the same order.

The waiting has a specific shape, and it is the resurrection hope. They wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. The Son they wait for is the Son God raised — the conquest of the grave that Hosea promised is accomplished in him, and the people who turned from idols now wait for the risen One to come and deliver them from the wrath. The turning and the waiting are held together by the resurrection.

Paul’s own ministry among them is the model of a shepherd, not a hireling. He was gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children; he was willing to impart not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls. He worked night and day so as not to be a burden, and exhorted them as a father doth his children. The true minister gives himself, not just his message — the opposite of the nobles who would not bend their necks; Paul bends his whole life to the work nearest him.

And the letter names the reward that holds the laborer up. What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy. The crown of rejoicing is the people, at his coming — not at death, not now, but at his coming; the saints Paul gathered are his joy on the day the Son he waits for is revealed. The whole horizon of the letter is the return.

Turn from idols, serve the living God, and wait for his risen Son from heaven — and the people gathered along the way will be the crown of rejoicing at his coming.