Or, Resolved to Walk in God’s Ways
Scripture: Nehemiah 9:38-10:39
Date: June 29, 2025
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We’re nearing the end of the Ezra-Nehemiah record. A great remnant of Jews have returned to the land of Israel, just as the Lord promised. They have rebuilt the altar, they have rebuilt the temple (though not at its previous glory), and they have rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem (also not to its previous extent). It’s been over 90 years since the first group came back, and there is still foundation level rebuilding to do. The intangibles are always tougher to build; hearts are harder to work with than wood and stones.
They are building on the Book. They didn’t have a complete Old Testament in 445 BC, but they did have the “Law that was given by Moses the servant of God” (Nehemiah 10:29) and they resolve to obey it.
They wanted to understand the Book, so Ezra and the Levites read it (chapter 8). The more they understood, the more they recognized their disobedience, as well as the hardships brought by the disobedience of the previous generations, so they fasted and prayed and confessed their sins (chapter 9). And now they collectively consecrate themselves and commit to obey (chapter 10).
For them, it was worship or bust. “Or bust” is a way to say that one will do everything possible to get somewhere, or lose everything trying.
There is no verse that requires this kind of group resolution. There are verses that the group, and the individuals in it, are required to obey. But what we see here is an example of God’s movement in a people, and what it looks like when the group recognizes and commits to live in obedience to the Lord.
English translations missed the chapter break by a verse, but after the corporate confession they make a corporate commitment.
Because of all this we make a firm covenant in writing; on the sealed document are the names of our princes, our Levites, and our priests. (Nehemiah 9:38)
This introduces the firm covenant in writing. The names come in verses 1-27, and the list is compact.
The ESV calls it a covenant, though the Hebrew word is not the usual word for covenant, not even the word used in chapter 9 in reference to the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. This word could be distinguished as a “binding agreement” (NIV), “a firm promise” (Kidner), a pledge or resolution, though the verb is “to cut” which often goes with covenant making. This is a “one-sided agreement” from man’s side. That it was in writing made it easy to reference and hard to change.
When it comes to culture (re)building, where does it start? Is top down or bottom up the way? As usual, God can and has done it both ways, and uses both. For us, we’re not at the top, so we obey where we’re at. We also pray for God to put some obedience-lovers at the top, and that God would move them to get after it.
This list is almost just names, barely any extra comments. Priestly families signed in verses 2-8, Levites in 9-13, lay families in 14-27. These are signers of the document, though their signature probably counted as their seal.
Verse 28 resumes their promise, reiterating the kinds of people who are leading the way for the resolutions. Some of them had particular cultic vocations (priest, Levites, etc.) but it wasn’t limited to them. It’s all who have knowledge and understanding, old and young, male and female.
The key: join…and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord and his rules and his statutes (verse 29).
The curse owns the negative consequences of failing to follow the promise. “We will obey or bust.” The oath is a public statement of intention. All the people resolve to obey.
Halakot is a Hebrew word meaning “traditions applying the law to life” (Breneman) that guided daily norms. The term is rooted in the Hebrew verb halakh (to walk), implying a way of life or path to follow.
The rest of the chapter pulls out some particular parts of the law to obey, perhaps because they were either not being obeyed or because they were recognized as important. We could summarize the areas of particular commitment as family and worship.
We know that some of the Jews already had taken foreign wives. Ezra confronted this (Ezra 10). There the people acknowledged their guilt, not for failing to be racist, but for failing to be wholehearted in serving the LORD. Those men who married, or just brought into their house, women who served other gods almost always were pulled away from their responsibility to “have no other gods” (Exodus 20:3). This appears to be a renewed commitment not to water down the culture of worshipers.
We are not in quite the same position, but giving our daughters to unbelievers for (education let alone for) marriage is wrong.
”It is in vain to dream that congregations will be holy, if families be profane.” —Vincent Alsop (17th century pastor)
The first time the Sabbath (capital S, or Sabbath proper) is referenced in the Ezra-Nehemiah record was Nehemiah 9:14, not just as history but in a list of good things given by God to His people. “You made known to them Your holy Sabbath” (Nehemiah 9:14).
What was different between then (after Egypt) and now (after Babylon) was the peoples of the land who were nearby enough to want to do business on the Sabbath. The Jews maybe weren’t buying and selling to each other or working themselves, but perhaps they weren’t as worried about buying from other sellers. This was an application of the Sabbath laws to the new situation.
There is also a sabbath year in the second part of verse 31, letting the land rest and relaxing debt collection.
We are also not in quite the same position, but there is a sabbath principle that continues to apply in honoring the Lord week by week.
When Cyrus decreed that captives could return to their homelands, part of his policy was to provide for their worship. It wasn’t because he converted, he was a syncretist; the more gods blessing him the better. But his money still bought resources/equipment for sacrifices, including for the Jews. Many Persian kings continued the policy.
Now that the Jews had been back for almost a century, it was time to start paying for worship things themselves. There wasn’t an exact law that required paying for the temple, but the third part of a shekel tax taken during a census provided an example of an obligation to provide for the service of the house of our God. You know things are serious when the people themselves resolve to pay taxes.
There are a variety of offerings in this final section.
Verse 34 is about making sure there is a wood offering, that is, that a regular supply of wood would be available for all the necessary fires.
Verses 35-37 are about the firstfruits and firstborn offerings, all of which help supply the livelihood of the Levites and temple servants and gatekeepers and singers. The Levites did have collection responsibilities, as well as their own tithe of the tithes (verse 38).
The last sentence summarizes the theme of the resolutions: We will not neglect the house of our God.
Houses, as in marriages, must be pure. So also the house of God, though different in our age, must be pure and provided for. Jesus said that the blessing of God’s presence would be for “true worshipers” who worship not in a particular place, but “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
Failing to uphold worship was worth a self-imprecatory curse. It was worship or bust.
And it was a group project. They had separated themselves as a group, and as a group they resolved to walk in God’s ways.
God’s Word should be the joy of your heart, and then let your resolve be obedience or bust. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6–7)
[May your] hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2–3 ESV)