Today, we finish looking over the last of our “History” books. Nehemiah’s example of “Godly” leadership is quite striking.
Neh 13:23-30 - In those days also I saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab; and half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod, and they could not speak the language of Judah, but spoke the language of various peoples. And I contended with them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair; and I made them take an oath in the name of God, saying, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. Did not King Solomon of Israel sin on account of such women? Among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over Israel; nevertheless, foreign women made even him sin. Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women?"
And one of the sons of Jehoiada, son of the high priest Eliashib, was the son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite; I chased him away from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priests and the Levites.
Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign, and established the duties of the priests and Levites, each in his work.
Does this sound familiar or what? Beating up on people for marrying someone of the wrong race, forcing them to take oaths, and above all, blaming a particular group of people (foreign women) for all the woes of a nation? Not to mention "cleansing" out all the scapegoats.
I find it interesting that several of the things these people thought were “great evil” are today considered desirable or at least acceptable in much of the civilized world. This includes having children growing up in multi-lingual environments, and social mixing. Those who had a more “worldly” upbringing were dealt with here by force, and Nehemiah worked to establish a deeply isolationist, purist theocracy.
Comments?
