Reading for December 4th

Read Nehemiah 2.1-8. In 2.1-8: Artaxerxes' grant to Nehemiah. Just as Ezra's mission was the result of a gracious act by Artaxerxes, so nehemiah's appointment as governor is by the favor of the same king. This account shows the conditions of Nehemiah's appointment and underscores God's working through both Artaxerxes and Nehemiah. In verse 1: In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year: Nisan, is in early Spring, roughly March-April in our calendar, some three months after receiving the report of 1.3. The twentieth year of Artaxerxes would place this in 445 BCE, about 13 years after Ezra's mission. In verse 3: The city, the place of my ancestors' graves, lies waste is a some what exaggerted descritption, though it is probable that sectionns of the city remained uninhabitable from the ruins of the Babylonian conquest. In verse 6: How long will you be gone, and when will you return? Artaxerxes' reply assumes the granting of Nehemiah's request to rebuild Jerusalem, and the value of Nehemiah to the court. In verse 8: To give me timber to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress, and for the wall of the city: Nehemiah's task in rebuilding the city will include refortification, something the Persian empire would not allow without royal dispensation. Since the beams over the gateways need to be of larger and stronger wood than is redily avavilable in the region, Nehemiah asks for timber from the imperially controlled sources, probably the cedar forests of Lebanon. The granting of timber supplies was also the empowering of nehemiah to refortify the city, an act undertaken because of troubled conditions inthe Egyptian holdings of the empire. The gracious hand of my God was upon me parallels Ezra's claim of divine support (Ezra 7.6, 28). Comments or Questions..