They had succeeded in their task, and God had blessed them mightily. So, all was good, right? If Nehemiah and the people he governed, who had returned to the land God had given them centuries earlier, had felt satisfied and merely celebrated after completing the wall around Jerusalem (see a depiction of that effort here), we might have thought that was actually pretty reasonable. And yet, these people of Nehemiah’s day felt convicted, and offered a prayer of confession and devotion. Ken Young and his Hallal music ministry turned their attention to how this group of Israelites was led by Levites who began this prayer with the stirring words “Blessed Be Your Name” that over 2,000 years later roused Ken’s spirit. The message of this episode evokes an attitude that should resonate for any generation – don’t forget Him and get complacent about the source of mercy and grace upon which you stand.
The people of Nehemiah’s era had been in exile in Persia for years, and were blessed with an opportunity to return to their homeland and rebuild a wall and make the city of David secure, a task they completed despite foreign opposition. The taunts and plots of Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem (see Neh. 2:19; 4:1-7; 6:1-16) were persistent, and yet God protected his people through Nehemiah’s wise leadership. It must have been a reminder of how this faithful Yahweh had been present through all of their history, not just in this latest episode. And so, they prayed with this in mind as they marked the successful conclusion of their mission. The Levites who prayed ardently to God basically recited Israel’s history of rescue by Him, but also their ancestors’ subsequent and repeated departures from His covenant with them. It was time to own up to what had brought them to this post-exilic point (sometime in the 5th Century BC), and to recommit to His way. The first verse of Ken Young’s echo of this prayer is a virtual word-for-word praise to Him that the Levites raised that day (see Neh. 9:5-6), as they stood on the shoulders of what God had done from them. Ken’s second verse reads like a summation of what the Levites said in the rest of their prayer – remembrance, confession, and a pledge of obedience (see Neh. 9:7-10:39); this 1993 version of this prayer wrapped up what the Israelites said in portions of two chapters (Nehemiah 9 and 10, comprising some 44 verses), with three brief sentences that said roughly the following: Lord, You are ‘awesome’, ‘endur(ing)’ – in other words, patient --, and all-‘see(ing)’; and You have ‘warn(ed)’ us repeatedly (four times in Neh. 9:26-34), and this time we will ‘obey’. The Hebrews certainly had experienced punishment, and also His forbearance.
Can any of us identify with what the Jewish race had endured up to Nehemiah’s day? What about history since that time? We’ve probably all seen horrific pictures of the Holocaust’s effect – concentration death camps, showing some survivors with little more than skin and bones, staring at the cameras with sunken eyes, or other gruesome images showing emaciated bodies piled up like cordwood. Perhaps those pictures in the last century make Jewish suffering more fathomable for those of us who’ve suffered little comparatively. But we all need rescue, whether we admit it or not. Was there some recognition by Ken and Hallal Music that this was true for themselves, perhaps in some episode that made this Levite 5th Century BC prayer reverberate 24 centuries later? Look at you own mortality honestly for a moment. Is any one of us immune from trouble if He’s absent from our corner? Don’t get to the endline and look back wishing you had uttered a prayer like Ken and some Levites have spoken. There’s still time to do that today.
Read about the 20th/21st Century songwriter’s music ministry here: https://hallalmusic.com/about/
Read the background of this song-prayer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nehemiah
See information about the image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Building_the_Wall_of_Jerusalem.jpg …This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1931, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. See this page for further explanation. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nehemiah
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