“‘We promise not to let our daughters marry the pagan people of the land, and not to let our sons marry their daughters.’
We also promise that if the people of the land should bring any merchandise or grain to be sold on the Sabbath or on any other holy day, we will refuse to buy it.
Every seventh year we will let our land rest, and we will cancel all debts owed to us.'”
Nehemiah 10:30 – 31
Last time we saw our returned exiles declare they would follow Yahweh’s torah, mitzvah, mishpat, and choq. Today we get into the specifics of those commands.
The first way our gathered group declared to follow Yahweh was one of His oldest commands: to not give their daughters in marriage to the peoples around, nor take (laqach – take, accept) daughters of the nations as wives for their sons. Remember, this is not about making room among His people for all nations, but rather the hearts of those who refuse Him.
When our hearts are given over to idols, it is impossible to worship the One True God. Those whose gods were no-gods could not join with the people of the Most High and expect there to not be a clash in authority. We can only have one master. I can only have one master. God was warning His people not to unite themselves to those who had refused Him.
Seems like a timely reminder to us now, yes? Most of us are either cooped up or making a beeline from work to home each day amid this pandemic. And many not for our own sakes, but for others’. So what will surface in your heart and mine in this downtime? Probably some junk we didn’t have time to face until now.
For me, as a teacher dealing with school closure and still getting paid, it is the pride that I’m not earning my keep. While I trust leadership to show us what is expected in these new structures, it is hard to feel like I’ll be pulling my weight. Hard to rest and trust.
Let’s face our junk together, shall we? Our only identity, if we are in Him, is being His beloved. It is very, very hard to rest in that when you’re restless, uncertain, and anxious. Help us, Lord. We need You right now. Show Yourself beautiful, True, majestic, and worthy as all other things fail us in this time.
And let’s pray for one another. It’s not just idol exposure that is difficult right now; some of us are really struggling with our circumstances. Let’s lift others up together:
Those who are immunocompromised or elderly
Those already ill
Those living alone for whom isolation is difficult
Those whose personalities desire more social time than is appropriate right now
Those with particularly small living quarters
Those for whom home is not a safe place – physically, emotionally, verbally
Those with big dogs (!!)
Those with small children, feeling cooped up and no one to share the burden of entertainment and care
Those scrambling for childcare plans in the face of school closure
Those who themselves or their children require routine and structure
Those with special needs kiddos now at home full time
Those who are now out of work and know not what is next
Those who are discerning how to best lead us right now
Those who are making decisions how to lead us spiritually
Those required to keep working: grocery stores, gas stations, medical professionals, caregivers.
We all need one another right now. May we pray to the One Who holds it all in His hands.
The second way our group vowed to follow Yah was to not buy or sell wares or grain on the Sabbath or any other holy day. The word for wares is maqqachah which comes from laqach – to take, buy, bring, accept, mingle, receive.
The idea is the people of Jerusalem may not have gone out of the city to sell and buy, but others were coming in offering their wares on a day which God insisted on rest and trust. Rest and trust.
Why is it so difficult? If those who did not know God’s law went ahead and set up shop on the Sabbath, why so hard to simply not buy? And why does this Sabbath rest matter so much to God?
Sabbath in Hebrew is shabbath from shabath – to cease, desist, rest, celebrate, desist from exertion, put away. Frankly, it should seem like the easiest of all commands to follow: Chill out, celebrate, put away our need for getting ahead, desist from the exertion of the rest of the week.
Instead, like me, the returned exiles were apparently struggling. If they were learning Torah and realized this was required, the implication is they had continued as usual through the Sabbath (Shabbat) up until now. And not just Shabbat, but “any holy day” (qodesh – apartness, sacredness, consecrated, holy, dedicated).
Perhaps that definition for holy is the key to our understanding, both why rest was important to God and why it is so difficult to obey. When God’s people took Him at His word and didn’t sell or buy wares or grain, they looked different than the rest of the peoples who don’t know Him. They were separate, set apart.
It looked like they trusted God to meet their needs even with this day of rest. Harkening back to the forty years when mysterious manna fell from the sky, and in double portion the day before Shabbat, to be gathered for the next day with no fear of molding.
God may be calling us right now to stop gathering more than we need, or to gather extra for our brothers and sisters who cannot gather at all right now. Either way, the rest and celebration, trust and community, are crucial lessons in our international moment. Those of us whose lives have been dedicated to Yah and His Kingdom are called to rest, trust, and serve right now. May we do so together.
The final way in today’s verses the group promised to obey God is to let the land rest every 7th year and cancel all debts. It’s as if the resting and trusting are being taken up a notch, huh? “We will forgo the land” in Hebrew is natash – leave, forsake, permit, abandon, cast away.
For an agrarian society this was Shabbat on steroids. Every seventh year, for an entire year, they would not work the land. They would rely on God’s provision and daily bread while at the same time trust this land rest would yield enough next year.
Not only that, but every seventh year they would cease “the exacting” (mashsha – lending, interest, usury) of every debt (yad – guarantor, what deserves, yield, hand – open one indicating power and means versus closed one: hollow, flat, palm, bend down, bow).
They would stay their hand of power, demanding to be paid back what they were owed, to those with a hollow hand bowed down to them in their debt. That whole power situation would be reversed. Debts cancelled, as God’s Law outlines, that generational bondage would not overtake families. Those who had enough to lend in the first place were forced to see it was all God’s all the time and open their hands to His gracious one.
Where does that rub against your ideas of rightness and justice? Of fairness or the American dream? I think it’s supposed to be hard to swallow. I think the demand for rest and not earning, for letting go of debts and receiving debt forgiveness are all blows to our pride and self-sufficiency.
But we have a God continually pointing us to the Cross. Where we were forgiven a debt we would never be able to pay, given a salvation we never earned. Who Scripturally seems to care more about us communally flourishing in Shalom than individually climbing the financial ladder.
God has a Word for us in these difficult days. May we take the opportunity to listen.