Day 135: Nehemiah 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble – burned as they are? (Nehemiah 4:2)

In his insightful book Rebuilding the Real You, Jack Hayford compares Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls with the Holy Spirit rebuilding the walls of our lives. [1] The temple had been rebuilt, but the city’s means of protection were only piles of rubble. Hayford says the temple illustrates our spiritual center, whereas the work on the walls illustrates the longer and slower process of rebuilding our personality – a sort of healing from the wounds of life.

Notice the opposition to Nehemiah’s rebuilding project. When Sanballat . . . heard about this, [he was] very much disturbed that someone had come to promote the welfare of the Israelites (2:10). In our focus verse, Sanballat ridicules them for their efforts to rebuild. Your enemy wants you to think what is broken must remain broken.

Hayford also reveals that the name Nehemiah can be literally translated as the comfort of Yahweh. Jesus said: And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever (KJV, John 14:16). We want to stop short of allegorizing this text, but it’s interesting how closely the restorative roles of Nehemiah and the Holy Spirit complement one another.

Do you need help rebuilding the walls of your life?

[1] Jack Hayford, Rebuilding the Real You (Ventura: Regal, 1986).