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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
When Israel gathers to hear the book of Moses read, the people begin to weep. Nehemiah exhorts them, “This day is holy to Yahweh your God; do not mourn or weep.”
Ezra then reads the law, the Levites explain it, and the people go out for a “great rejoicing,” because “they understood the words which had been made known to them” (Nehemiah 8:9-12). Understanding produces joy.
How often do pastors, or parents, implicitly assume that if people really understood what they were saying they would mourn? How often do our worship services have the opposite effect – to make joyful people sad?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 5:36 am
Was first-century Judaism in a condition of continuing exile? Wright says Yes. Many have questioned him.
Perrin’s book, Jesus the Temple, offers an argument in support of Wright’s conclusion. Israel was driven from the land into exile because of a failure to keep Jubilee, a failure to release debt and restore property to the poor. In the first century, even though Israel was back in the land, the leaders were still refusing to keep Sabbath as required by the Torah. Even though they were back in the land, they were still in exile because the conditions that caused the exile still pertained.
Nehemiah saw the same thing. At the very center of Nehemiah, he’s dealing not with the people of the land nipping at his heels but with wealthy Jews who enslave fellow Jews through loans and mortgages (Nehemiah 5). They were still in exile because they were still doing what sent them to exile.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 2:56 pm
In my From Silence to Song, I highlight the fact that David sits in prayer before Yahweh at the ark-tent. David is enthroned along with Yahweh, a hint of what will come with David’s greater Son.
Nehemiah provides another example. When he hears about Jerusalem’s ruins, he sits, weeps, and fasts “before the God of heaven” (1:4). He too has a position of authority before Yahweh.
It is, moreover, a temple scene, implicitly at least. Nehemiah calls on Yahweh’s ear and eyes to hear and see the prayer that he offers (1:6). That language comes straight from the temple dedication scene in 1 Kings 8, where Solomon asks Yahweh’s eyes and ears to be attentive to the prayers offered toward the temple, and 1 Kings 9, where Yahweh promises to place His name, eyes and ears at the temple.
In Nehemiah’s time, the temple is in ruins, but still his prayer is effective, as he sits enthroned before Yahweh and prayers toward the crucified house where Yahweh’s Name dwells.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 10:49 am
The return from Babylonian exile is, Isaiah says, an exodus that so far surpasses the earlier exodus that Israel will forget Egypt and Moses and all that.
When it actually happens, everyone can see its sheen is far less brilliant than the first exodus. The new temple is a disappointing, pitiful shadow of the old, and Zerubbabel is a joke, a parody of Davidic restoration. Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is that Israel never really leaves exile. They return to the land, but they are still uner Persia. Some exodus! The second exodus is an exodus to delight the grumblers: An exodus in which no one has to leave Egypt.
Yes, Isaiah says, this is far, far greater than the first exodus. It’s marvelous, unprecedented, when Yahweh rips one goy out of another goy; it’s more marvelous when Yahweh establishes His people as a separate people in the midst of another nation. The success of the second depends on the first. Without separation from Egypt, Israel would not have been molded into the kind of people who can survive and remain faithful in Babylon/Persia. But the second is the greater work. The first exodus is like the flood, cutting off Egypt with water so that the Noachic Israel can start over. The second exodus is like the call of Abram. The first exodus is a separation, the second an incarnation.
And perhaps this is the pattern for the reformation of the church. Separation first; but then, later, at a second stage, the second and greater exodus occurs by a quiet infusion, an imperceptible injection.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 at 8:48 am
At the dedication of the city walls in Nehemiah 12, priests process around the walls carrying and blowing trumpets (vv. 35, 41). Last time we saw priests, trumpets and city walls, they were the walls of Jericho tumblin’ down.
At Jericho, priests with trumpets brought down the city walls and started the first conquest of the land. At Jerusalem, priests with trumpets dedicate the city walls and complete the second conquest of the land.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Matthew Levering wisely rejects von Balthasar’s notion that Ezra-Nehemiah is “like a brook in the process of drying up”: “Why should the rebuilding of the temple and the renewal of obedience to the Torah, despite the diminishment of the splendor of the temple and the continuing failure fully to observe the Torah, be counted as small things”?
More positively: “the rebuilding of the temple and the renewal of obedience to the Torah are precisely the kind of wrestling to be faithful to God’s gifts that one would expect from true sons and daughters of Jacob. A spiritually weak people would not have bothered to reclaim their temple and Torah, but would instead have been content gradually to blend into the wealthy and powerful society of Babylon religiously, economically, and politically. His wrestling with God at the threshold of the holy land may leave Jacob/Israel permanently limping . . . but this is a glorious wound, not a sign of drying up.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, May 30, 2008 at 9:47 am
Hannah Harrington gave a very fine presentation on the holiness and purity terminology in Ezra and Nehemiah. She showed that these post-exilic texts display an expansion of holy space to encompass the whole city as well as an expansion of the duties of Levites, a closing of the gap between Levites and priests. These two changes are perfectly consistent, displaying a general trend of “up-grading” the holiness of Israel after the exile. The people of Israel become the new sanctum, which can be contaminated and against which sacrilege might be committed.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, November 18, 2006 at 4:10 pm
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