Today in the Bible

Tammuz 13, 5784; from sunset July 18, 2024, to sunset July 19, 2024

Sometime between the months of Nisan (the first month) and Av (the fifth month) – Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, about 13 years after Ezra did.  It took Ezra four months to make the journey – with a large group of people.  Nehemiah likely made the journey in less time, for the king had sent captains of the army and horsemen with him.

The Bible doesn’t give us a date for his arrival in Jerusalem.  We believe he may have arrived sometime during the middle of the month before the work on the restoration of the wall began.  The text says he rested three days before taking his secret night ride around the city to inspect the damaged walls.  In my mind, he must have needed the light of a full or nearly full moon in order to do this quietly, without a torch.  This would place his night ride near the middle of the month.  The verses below take us from the time he went before the king to make his request to return to Jerusalem (Nisan) – to when he arrived in Jerusalem (Tammuz?)

Often-times the meanings of the names of people and places in the Bible are woven into the story being told.  We believe this is the case with Nehemiah.  Sometime last winter, in the month of Kislev (around December on our calendar), the dire living conditions of the inhabitants of Jerusalem became known to Nehemiah (Nehemiah chapter 1).  God laid it on his heart to do something about it.  Nehemiah wept and mourned, fasted and prayed, and repented of his sins and those of his people.  A few months later God made an opportunity for him to go before the king and request the time and resources to rebuild Jerusalem.  Let’s take a look at the name of Nehemiah in Hebrew and in the ancient picture language to see if we can find a connection between his name and his story.

נְחֶמְיָה

The name Nehemiah transliterated from Hebrew is Nechemyah.  The “ch” in Hebrew is pronounced like the “ch” in the word “Bach.”  To pronounce his name, you would say:  “Neh-khem-yah.” Nehemiah is a combination of two Hebrew words: נחם and יה.

נחם

The verb-root “nacham” means “to be sorry, to repent, to regret, to be comforted, or to comfort.”  Most frequently this word is translated as “to repent;” second most common is “to comfort” or “to be comforted.”  Additional words stemming from this root are:

The root also occurs in other Biblical proper names such as Nahum, Menehem, and Capernaum (meaning, “Village of Consolation”).

The TWOT lexicon states that the origin of this root seems to reflect the idea of “breathing deeply,” hence the physical display of one’s feelings, usually sorrow, compassion, or comfort.  The first chapter of Nehemiah tells us that when he heard of the state of disrepair of the city and the dire living conditions of those in Jerusalem, he wept, mourned, fasted, and prayed for days.  Nehemiah embodied the origin of his name; “sighing or breathing deeply, the physical display of one’s feelings.”

The second part of Nechemyah is…

יה

“Yah” is a truncated form of God’s Holy name, which consists of the letters – י ,ה ,ו ,ה – when spelled in its entirety.  Yah is mainly found when praising God in the Psalms; otherwise, it is used only four other places in scripture.

So, the name Nehemiah means something like “Comfort (Nechem) of the LORD (Yah).”

Nehemiah in the Picture Language

All of the letters we use in Hebrew today were originally pictures.  Below are the pictographs for the three letters which comprise the main root of Nehemiah’s name, along with their meanings.

The first letter, “nun” (pronounced like “noon”), was originally a picture of a seed sprout.  It carries the meanings of “seed, life, abundance, off-spring, and continuation.”

The second letter, “cheit” (pronounced like “khate”), was originally a picture of a tent wall.  It is associated with the ideas of “a wall, divide, inside, outside, and separation.”

The third letter, “mem,” was originally a picture of waves of water.  It carries the meanings of “water, mighty (like the sea), chaos, flowing, and blood.”  The swelling and crashing of the waves in the sea can be seen as chaotic and representative of sin or sinfulness.  (The letter mem takes on the appearance of the first letter shown above when it occurs at the beginning or in the middle of a word; the second letter shown is called “mem sofit” and is only found when it is the last letter of a word.)

So, let’s take a look at the picture painted by the root “nacham.”  We can see a “wall” in the middle of Nehemiah’s name.  It is separating “life” (the seed sprout) and “chaos or sinfulness” (the waves of water).

One could look at this picture and see a symbol of holiness.   Prior to its destruction, the Temple was the home of the Living God, which had been located within the walls of Jerusalem.  It was a place where anyone who wanted to enter had to immerse themselves.  They had to “wash off” the sin and death that had contaminated them in the course of everyday life.  Eternal life and sinfulness, which causes death, cannot be mixed.

The verb-root “nacham” also means to be sorry, to repent.  The people of the exile were sorry and ready to repent of their sins.  The rebuilding of the wall is symbolic of the people’s repentance, their desire to be a holy nation again.  To be holy simply means to be separate, to be set apart…just like a wall separates.  Their desire – to repent of their sinful ways and follow the commandments of the LORD – is their wall, their holiness.  By doing so, they were separating themselves from chaos, from sinfulness.

This reminds me of the little skit we’ve all seen, there’s an angel on one shoulder saying, “don’t do it” and the devil on the other shoulder saying, “go ahead, do it, it’s ok.”  The waves are the devil, the seed sprout is the angel, and the wall is our mind.

Moses said, “I set before you life and death, blessings and curses…choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).  By choosing to obey the word of the LORD, we choose life.  It’s our choice.  We can choose life or death.  We can choose blessings or curses.  Nehemiah’s choice was repentance, as evident in his prayer below:

And though it took a while to get there, the end result was a completed wall and a rebuilt Temple, a restoration of the dwelling place of God.  Of course, we can see this as a picture of the work of our Messiah.  He showed us the way of life and blessings.  He perfectly lived out the word of God.  He showed us how to live a holy life.  He loved the LORD, His God with all of His heart, soul, and might…and He loved His neighbor as Himself.

This is the intention of the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:36-40).

In just a few short weeks, Nehemiah will have inspected the walls and gates, gone before the elders to plead his case, and begun the restoration of the walls and gates. We intend to work our way through the meanings of the names of the men and women who devoted their labor into making that a reality. It took 52 days to complete the restoration; we’ll take 52 days to study it…hope you’ll join us!