This post is Day 29 in a series of studies about “Nehemiah”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

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Nehemiah – Day 29

Can you imagine the excitement of those people going home? Most of them to a place they had only heard about through their parents and grandparents, and the songs they had sung in the temple. There would be such joy in the Lord as they returned to this sacred city.

Nehemiah 7:4-5

Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. I found the genealogical record of those who had been the first to return.

The Thought

How thrilled Nehemiah must have been to find the records which are given for us in great detail in the following verses, but which to me thousands of years on, seem like just a list of mainly unpronounceable names (Nehemiah 7:6-63)!

When we get to verse 66 we see that the whole company numbered 42,360 not counting slaves and singers. That was a lot of people who returned to their homeland.

Can you imagine the excitement of those people “going home”? Most of them to a place they had only heard about through their parents and grandparents, and the songs they had sung in the temple. There would be such joy in the Lord as they returned to this sacred city.

The census didn’t end with the people. It continued and verse 68 tells us how many horses, mules, camels and donkeys had travelled with them.

Not satisfied with the census of people and animals, Nehemiah then went on to record for us the people who gave the finance for rebuilding and the equipment for the temple.

He was obviously a very thorough character.

Action

Ask yourself today how you would feel if you had ancestors whose names appeared in the Bible!

Praise God for the Old Testament writers who left us such details. Praise Him that the Bible was put together so that we can read it today. Pray for those who don’t have it in their own language, and for those missionary organisations who are translating it, even into some languages that have never been written!

Read Nehemiah 7 today and praise The Lord for the details given there.