Cut and Paste

I don’t know about you, but there are parts of the Bible that I simply blow past. In particular, those long lists of loaded with seemingly random numbers and weird names. Nehemiah 7:5-73 just happens to be one of those. And if that’s not crazy enough, the author appears to have simply cut and pasted from a roster Ezra lists in the book that bears his name (another passage that I would probably rather zoom past). But I need to pump my breaks and take a closer look at what Scripture has to say. I need to remember that God has inspired everything in the Bible (2Tim 3:16-17). That includes stuff I think are filler and irrelevant. So why in the wide word of sports has God gone out of His supernatural way to include this roster in the Bible not once, but twice? It’s a great reminder that there’s a much bigger story being told. A story about a Hero who’s coming to the rescue. A story that includes Nehemiah. A story that includes you and me.

Let’s back up a bit first. The place is Jerusalem. The year is 445 BC. The walls of city are back up 150 or so years after the Babylonians knocked them down. For the first time in a very long time, things are looking up for God’s people. And you won’t believe who God has handpicked to lead this amazing recovery. A cupbearer from the court of the Persian king. Yeah, that’s right, the LORD is using a royal wine steward named Nehemiah to oversee one of the greatest comeback stories in the ancient Near East. The people have made incredible progress, but they’re still not out of the woods. Local enemies led by Sanballat are actively trying to sabotage what’s being done. A new leadership team for Jerusalem is in place. Nehemiah has the city on red alert. And while the walls may be up but Jerusalem remains mostly a ghost town. 

If Nehemiah is wondering what to do next, God taps the governor on the shoulder. “Then my God put it into my heart” (v5). Nehemiah constantly acknowledges God’s active role in the restoration of Jerusalem and the rescue of His people. He knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the LORD has both hands on everything (Neh 2:8, 18). Even the enemies of Jews clearly understand that “this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (Neh 6:16). Clearly God is not done and still intimately involved with the project. The LORD gives the governor the inspiration for what to do next. One of the big points of the entire Bible is that our God is a Giver! He’s constantly giving us what we don’t deserve. He consistently places us under the endless waterfall of His grace. Remember, we don’t deserve it. We’ve done nothing to earn His goodness. As a matter of fact, we’re rebels against His kingdom (Rom 5:8). If we deserve anything, it’s punishment. But He gives. And He gives. And He gives. Tullian Tchividjian calls grace God’s descending, one-way love. He gave Adam and Eve and entire garden to enjoy with only one exception. He is a Giver who consistently shares His love. He gives His Son. His Son gives us His life. He gives us His Holy Spirit. He gives us spiritual gifts. Yeah, God is a Giver. And here He gives Nehemiah the inspiration on what to do next.

The LORD motivates Governor Nehemiah “to assemble the nobles and the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogy” (v5). He desperately needs to know who’s in Judah before he takes his next step. The brand new city walls aren’t worth a lick if not properly manned. And the city isn’t really a city if people don’t live there. Maybe you’re really into genealogy and family history. If so, you probably find this stuff absolutely fascinating. The writers of the Bible sure do. The pages of Scripture regularly list genealogical charts. So much of ancient life depends on family lineage and inheritance. You have to prove you are a legit member of the family. Genealogies are a VERY big deal. But the most important family trees in God’s Word are for God’s Son. Matthew traces Jesus’ family back through his adoptive father Joseph (Mt 1:2-16). Dr. Luke connects the dots on Christ’s mother Mary’s side (Lk 3:23-38). And the crazy thing is that God adopts us into His family through His Son (Eph 1:5). A genealogies is a lot more interesting when your name is in it. 

God inspires Nehemiah to check the roster according to family lines and then provides the written resource he needs to do the job. “And I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up at the first” (v5). The governor blows the dust off the very roster that Ezra put together back at the base camp in Babylon before Zerubbabel’s initial expedition left for the Promised Land. Ninety-three years ago in 538 BC, God orchestrates the liberation of His people from captivity. The LORD inspires a pagan Persian king by the name of Cyrus to not only send a lot of his Jewish workforce back to their homeland but to write the check for it as well (Ez 1:1-4). Before hitting the road for Judah, Zerubbabel writes down a record of everybody making the trip. He organizes this roster by family. It’s this genealogical list “of those who came up at first” (v5) that Nehemiah finds so incredibly useful when gathering the citizens of Judah under his watch. 

At this point in the book of Nehemiah, we run into what amounts to a cut-and-paste from Ezra 2:1-70. With only a few discrepancies, these two passages are almost identical. It must be a big deal if God makes the point of including this list not once, but twice. You might be wondering why there are differences, small that they are, between them. I know it certainly left me scratching my head. Here are a couple of thoughts from folks a whole lot smarter than me. First of it could be mistakes in copying from one ancient manuscript to another. It wouldn’t be the first or only time. But the most likely idea is that Zerubbabel compiled the list in Ezra BEFORE leaving for the Promised Land and Nehemiah is reading one put together AFTER they got there. That could explain why Ezra’s list totals 29,818 people and Nehemiah’s roster has 31,089 folks on it. 

So why is this genealogical register such a big deal to the governor? This is going to be important data that Nehemiah will use this info as an important part of the process of repopulating Jerusalem (Neh 11:1-2). Remember, the city is all but deserted (Neh 7:4). He’ll need to know who’s available to move back in when the time comes. This roster also allows Nehemiah and the people to make a strong connection with all those God first brought from captivity almost 100 years ago. It’s a reminder of what He’s done and still doing. It’s a powerful spiritual scrapbook which tells everyone where they’ve been and where they are now. 

This Hebrew headcount reminds Nehemiah and the people that they are part of a bigger story. God’s story. The Bible isn’t about us. It’s about God. It’s His story. Are those made in His image, we’re part of it. But we’re not the heroes. There are some interesting characters throughout Scripture. Folks like Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Esther. Even Peter, Paul, and Mary (not the folksingers!). God invites them into His story and uses them to do some amazing things. But they aren’t heroes. Far from it. They need a Hero. And that Hero of the story is Jesus. Christ Himself makes the audacious claim that the entire Bible is about Him (Jn 5:39). He has the gall to say Moses was writing about Him when the Mighty Mo wrote the first five books of the Bible (Jn 5:46). The resurrected Rabbi delivered the most incredible overview of the Old Testament to a couple of unsuspecting followers walking back to Emmaus. “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted them in all the Scriptures concerning Himself” (Lk 24:27). It’s one story and Jesus is the Hero of the story.

If the entire OT is about Jesus, that includes the roster in Nehemiah 7:6-73. God has invited the governor and those people listed to be part of His story. Just as that story didn’t end after the Old Testament, it kept on going after the Apostle John wrapped up writing Revelation. No, there won’t be any new books of the Bible. But God’s story continues. It continued with Zerubbabel. It continued with Nehemiah. It continues to this very day. Jesus graciously includes you and me to be part of the story of the greatest rescue story the universe will ever see. 

This passage is SO much more than a boring cut-and-paste. It’s part of His story.