Making a Covenant with God (Nehemiah 10)

It is obvious that whenever a covenant is signed, it must involve people and it must include specific terms about which they are agreed. This is the case whether the covenant is between people or between people and God. In this chapter of Nehemiah, the author mentions both details. He lists the names of those who signed it in verses 1-21 and he then provides the details of the terms that they agreed to live by in the future as the people of God. Why did they do this?

In the previous chapter of the book of Nehemiah an account is given of the prayer of confession made by the Jews as they realised their sins against their God. That confession had been made freely and fully. They realised that their current state of spiritual poverty had been brought about as a consequence of their own disobedience. That prayer could be described as their turning from sin. Yet when a person turns away from something, they must turn to something. If all they were going to do was stop certain behaviours, then their former actions could be replaced by other sinful practices. The Jews here wanted to avoid such a change, so they detailed the new behaviours that they determined to engage in.

The people’s response

Some of the names recorded in verses 1-21 are mentioned earlier in the book and here the names are listed according to their roles. The list begins with Nehemiah as the governor and Zedekiah (an official of some kind), and then the names of twenty-two priests, seventeen Levites, and forty-four clan leaders are given. No doubt, they were representatives of the families and people that lived in Judea at that time. It would not be possible for everyone to sign the document because of the space that would be required for such names.

The list stresses the remarkable fact of unity among the people in supporting the making of this covenant with the Lord. The high and the low, the religious and the civil, the aged and the young, were committed to the terms. The people in general are detailed in verses 28 and 29, and we can see that those committed to the covenant included entire families, with even young children being involved as long as they were capable of understanding the terms.

The people who agreed with the covenant are described precisely in verse 28 as those ‘who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God’. Clearly they recognised that it was not possible for them to live at the same time according to the ideas of other religions and according to the law and requirements of God. A choice had to be made by them. I suppose we could say that they had three options: they could live according to the opinions of those who were not Jews, whether Persian or otherwise; or they could live in a kind of merged manner and allow both the opinions of non-Jews and God-fearing Jews to have equal value; or they could live according to the law of God and only do what he commanded them to practice. The first option would not have carried any weight among them, the second option was what they had been doing for quite a while, but the third option was the one they intended to pursue.

The author also highlights the seriousness of their intentions when he says that they ‘joined and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God…’. Every covenant has what we can call a positive and a negative side. Recall the covenant that Joshua made with the Israelites (). It included two opposite lists. One list was composed of blessings that would happen if they adhered to the terms and the other list contained curses or disasters that would happen to them if they failed to keep the terms. This is not something that should surprise us. Even if we think of the Christian life, we know that in general the path of spiritual blessing is connected to obedience of God’s commandments and the absence of spiritual blessing is connected to disobedience of God’s commandments.

So we can see that the response of the people as they repented of their failure to walk with God was realistic and serious. It was a day of solemn interaction with their God, and they realised that consequences were inevitable. There could be good days ahead of spiritual profit or there could be worse days ahead if they angered the Lord.

The terms

The covenant document was made up of a general intention and then a reference to four areas. Verse 29 describes their general intention: ‘and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his rules and his statutes.’ Then they went on to list some specific areas and they mentioned them because they were aspects of life that they had not been too concerned about previously, but which were wrong in God’s sight.

The first is found in verse 30: ‘We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.’ Obviously, this commitment is phrased for a society in which arranged marriages took place and in which parents had an involvement in the process. Parents would decide on suitable spouses for their children. Up until now, some had showed no concern about arranging marriages with those who were not Jews or Gentiles willing to join them like Ruth because they had become believers in the true God. No doubt, an important aspect was the danger of introducing the worship of false gods into family life, but there would also have been issues about keeping one’s inheritance and matters like that. The focus here is on the carefulness of the parents in ensuring that the covenant line was maintained

The second is found in verse 31 and concerns abuse of the Sabbath and other holy days: ‘And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day.’ Again we can see that there is a determination not to allow non-Jews to affect how they should keep their holy days of worship.

The third aspect concerns the necessity of land of having a rest every seven years and of debts being dismissed (v. 31). People in our society might regard those requirements as unusual, but they were a reminder to the Israelites that ultimately the land and the people belonged to God.  During the seventh year, there would be natural growth of various items but they were not to be used for the benefit of the owner: ‘For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard’ (Exod. 23:10-11). Deuteronomy 15:1 says that all debts should be cancelled in the seventh year. We are likely to read this in line with our practice of debt, but in Old Testament life a debtor usually had become poor because of personal troubles such as the death of a husband or a bad harvest. In Israel, this law removed the possibility of permanent bondage.

The fourth aspect concerns the needs of the temple and how it functioned and was financed (vv. 32-39). Each person was to pay an annual amount to enable the sacrifices and other activities to take place. Arrangements were made to ensure that sufficient wood was collected for the altar. The giving of various firstfruits and tithes was restored. This aspect of their commitment is stated in the words of verse 39: ‘We will not neglect the house of our God.’

The focus on those four areas is a reminder that a general intention is not sufficient if there are obvious deficiencies that should be dealt with. These people looked at their behaviour, saw what needed to be changed, repented of their failures, and resolved to be biblical in their practices. What does their experience say to us as we face our circumstances? It is possible to take their overall intention and their four concerns and apply them to the contemporary situation that we face.

Lessons

The first response we can make to their covenant desire is to remind ourselves that life in the Christian church is largely about covenant roles. This can be seen in several ways. For example, the Lord’s Supper is a covenant meal in which those who are the recipients of the blessings of the new covenant meet with their Lord. There are blessings connected to the Lord’s Supper and we can have our faith strengthened, our love increased, and our dedication renewed by participating. Yet there are also severe judgements connected to the Lord’s Supper as we can see from what happened to those in Corinth who misused the occasion for their own ends. Baptism is also a covenant ordinance, which is one reason why parents make vows when bringing their children for entrance into the visible church. Fellowship is the outworking of covenant relationships because we have chosen the Lord’s people to be our people. Gathering for worship to hear the Word of God is an occasion when those in covenant with God hear and respond to what he says in his Word. The fact of the matter is that the gospel is a covenant offer. In it, God offers to be the Father of sinners, the Saviour offers to be the Lord of sinners, and the Holy Spirit offers to indwell sinners. By believing in Jesus, we commit ourselves to belong to the people of God, to do his will, and we do so because we are the recipients of the blessings promised in the new covenant.

The second response to make is to recognise the importance of parents in maintaining the covenant commitment of the family. It would be easy to focus on the commitment about marriage in verse 30 and say that believers should not marry unbelievers. That prohibition is true, but it is not the only point being made here. The picture here is bigger, which is the continuation of covenant family faithfulness. Obviously, the practice of arranging marriages with people from other backgrounds was causing a reduction in the covenant commitment of the people in Judah to the true God. That was the biggest danger at that time. It is still a big danger today and most Christians who marry non-Christians end up with huge spiritual problems. But here the challenge is to the parents in Judah not to do anything that weakened the covenant commitment of their families.

A third response we can learn from their covenant is the degree of value we should put on spiritual rest. By spiritual rest I don’t mean inactivity. The Sabbath and the holy days were festivals in Israel, and they were not to be interrupted by foreign business activities. They were times of rejoicing in the presence of God and his people, and much of it was done as families. Such occasions were for gathering together with those who loved the Lord and appreciated the great things he had done for them. While there are aspects of individual spiritual life that should be done on our days of spiritual rest, we should not ignore the communal aspects. These occasions should be foretastes of heaven. The Lord’s Day is a weekly time for doing so. There is something profoundly sad when believers look for spiritual rest away from living contact with the people of God.

A fourth response is the importance of preventing greed and the exploiting of others. We can see this aspect in the emphasis on the seventh-year rest for the land and the annulling of debt in the same year. How kind of God to provide a practical method of preventing accumulation at the expense of others in Israel! We don’t have such a law in our society, but there can be many ways of exploiting the poor, and we should avoid them if we wish to have God’s blessing. This response is a reminder of the importance of the practical expression of brotherly love.

The fifth response is that practical support of the worship of God has to be practised. Obviously, the temple and its rituals have ceased to function. But the dedication of the covenant signers to provide for the temple is a reminder that it is our responsibility to provide for the upkeep and activities of a congregation or denomination. As there was with the temple, there are different areas in church life where such support is needed repeatedly.