Nehemiah 8

The wall is finished, and now the Word is read aloud to the whole people — and the day the law is heard becomes a day of weeping that Ezra turns into joy. The people gather as one man at the water gate and ask Ezra to bring the book; he reads from the morning until midday, and the Levites gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. The word this chapter cannot stop saying is impossible to miss: those who could hear with understanding, those who could understand, they caused the people to understand, they understood the words that were declared. Six times in eighteen verses. Hearing was never the point; understanding was — which is why the Levites are moving through the crowd giving the sense, and why a public reading takes from dawn to noon. The book read and explained is the city’s true foundation — stone walls without the Word inside them are an empty shell; the law read at the water gate is what makes the rebuilt city Jerusalem again.

And the reading is not Nehemiah’s idea. There is a statute behind it: at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before Yahweh thy God… thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing (Deut 31:10–13). Seventh month, feast of tabernacles, all the people gathered, the law read aloud — they are not inventing a revival; they are keeping an appointment that had been missed for longer than anyone could count. It may even have been a jubilee. Either way, the commandment for this exact day had been sitting in the book that had just been found.

The first effect of the Word understood is grief. The people wept, when they heard the words of the law — convicted by how far they had fallen from it. But Ezra and Nehemiah will not let the day end in mourning: This day is holy unto Yahweh your God; mourn not, nor weep… the joy of Yahweh is your strength. The joy of Yahweh is your strength — the conviction that breaks the heart is real, but it is not the destination; the day of hearing the Word is a holy day, and joy, not grief, is the strength it gives.

So the mourning turns to feasting. They go to eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared — the joy overflowing into care for the empty-handed. The joy that hears the Word shares its bread — the feast is not private gladness but a portion sent to those who have none, the strength of Yahweh’s joy spilling outward to the poor.

And the Word read leads them to the feast Yahweh had appointed. They find written that Israel should dwell in booths in the seventh month, and they keep the feast of tabernacles with a gladness since the days of Joshua unequalled, the law read day by day. Tabernacles kept with unequalled joy — the kingdom-feast, the booths that look forward to the day Yahweh tabernacles with his people; the rebuilt city tastes, for a week, the joy of the age when Yahweh dwells in Zion.

And the last day of that feast is worth standing on. The closing assembly falls on the eighth day (8:18), and the day carried more than the closing of a feast: it was the day the priest went down to the pool of Siloam, drew water in a golden pitcher, and poured it out at the altar while the people chanted Isaiah — with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. Centuries later, in the last day, that great day of the feast, a man stood up in the temple while that water was being poured and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink (Jn 7:37). Ezra reads the book at the water gate; the Word himself stands up at the water-drawing and says the wells are him.

The Word read and understood breaks the heart and then fills it; the joy of Yahweh is your strength — keep the feast, and send a portion to those who have none.

Joel 3

Joel ends where all the prophets end: the nations gathered to judgment, Yahweh roaring out of Zion, and Yahweh dwelling in Zion as the hope of his people forever. I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people. One observation ties all three chapters of Joel into a single thing, and it is worth having. The locusts of chapter 1 are called a nation come up upon my land; chapter 2 pleads that the heathen should not rule them; chapter 3 summons the Gentiles to the valley. All three words are one Hebrew word — goy, which means a nation and is used of a swarm. The locusts were the nations all along, and the plague Joel watched strip the fig trees was a small enactment of the armies that will strip the land and be judged for it. The name itself is the verdict — Jehoshaphat, Yahweh judges — and the nations that scattered Israel and parted the land are summoned to the place of reckoning. The valley of Jehoshaphat is where Yahweh judges the nations for what they did to his people.

The summons to war is fierce and ironic. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears — the reverse of the peace to come, the nations arming for a battle they will lose. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of Yahweh is near in the valley of decision. Multitudes in the valley of decision — the gathered nations stand at the threshing-floor of the great day, the harvest ripe, the winepress full; this is the gathering the Apocalypse calls Armageddon, the day of Yahweh in its final form.

Then the roar from Zion, terror to the nations and refuge to the people in the same breath. Yahweh also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. The roar that shakes the nations is the shelter of his people — the same voice that terrifies the gathered armies is the hope and strength of those who belong to him; the day of judgment and the day of refuge are one day.

Count the phrase that carries the book: the day of Yahweh stands five times in three chapters (1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14) — and five is the number of grace, which is a strange number for a day of darkness until you notice who walks out of it alive. And the book proves its author’s name as it ends: Joel means Yahweh is El, and the last chapter is nothing but the demonstration — that in Yahweh there is El, strength, for a people who have none.

And the book closes in the kingdom. A fountain comes forth of the house of Yahweh, the mountains drop new wine, the land is watered, and the verdict stands forever: Yahweh dwelleth in Zion. Yahweh dwells in Zion — the prophet who began with a stripped and locust-eaten land ends with a fountain flowing from the house of Yahweh and the Name enthroned in the city; the day of darkness gives way to the age when Yahweh dwells among his people in the place of his Name.

The nations are gathered to the valley of decision and Yahweh roars from Zion — but the roar that shakes them shelters his people, and the book ends with Yahweh dwelling in Zion.

2 Thessalonians 3

Paul ends the letter on the unglamorous virtue that carries the saint through the long wait for the day: steady, honest work, and not growing weary in well-doing. He asks first for their prayers — that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified — and assures them the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. That assurance traces back to its first appearance: know therefore that Yahweh thy God, he is God, the faithful El, which keepeth covenant and mercy (Deut 7:9) — the first time in Scripture the word faithful is fastened to the Name. The ground of a frightened ecclesia’s steadiness is a title given to Moses at the border of the land. The word running free is the great request — not personal ease but that the gospel would run unhindered, as it ran to the end of Acts, no man forbidding it.

Then the firm correction of the idle — and the vocabulary is military and nautical by turns. Those to be avoided walk disorderly: ataktōs, out of rank, the soldier who has left the line. The believers are to withdraw from them: the word is the furling of a sail, drawing in the canvas rather than running someone down. And what Paul asks the rest to keep is the patient waiting of Christ: hupomonē, to abide under — the word for an oarsman staying at his bench under orders while the ship goes where it is steered.

The rule itself is blunt. Some, perhaps over-excited about the coming day, had stopped working and become busybodies; Paul lays down the rule he had given before: if any would not work, neither should he eat. Waiting for the day is no excuse for idleness — the expectation of the coming does not empty the hands but fills them; the saint who truly watches for the Lord is the saint at honest work, not the one who has quit the world to wait.

The exhortation that follows is gentle and bracing at once. Brethren, be not weary in well doing. Do not grow weary in well doing — the danger of the long wait is not only idleness but exhaustion, the slow wearing-down of good people doing good things; and Paul’s word is simply to keep on, to let the work be steady even when the day seems to tarry.

The letter closes in peace. Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all. And it should not be lost that Paul’s counsel here — refuse the argument, furl the sail, get on with the work — is the thing Nehemiah did in the plain of Ono. Sanballat wanted a meeting; Nehemiah wanted a wall. Four times he sent the same answer, and the answer was the work. The Lord of peace gives peace by all means — the steady working life is not a grim endurance but a peaceful one, held by the Lord of peace through every means he uses. The saint waits not by escaping the world but by working faithfully in it, kept in peace until the day comes.

Wait for the day by working, not by idleness; be not weary in well doing, and the Lord of peace will give you peace by all means until he comes.