Nehemiah faced so many obstacles when he was trying to rebuild walls around Jerusalem, but as the good and trusted administrator, he persevered through all of them without losing sight of the goal. None was more discouraging than the complaints of some of the Israelites against their Jewish brothers. The people who returned from exile earlier were sold to the Gentiles as slaves. When they could, they were bought back, but now they were being sold to the more prosperous Jews who had returned to be administrators. In the past, the administrators had placed a heavy burden on the poor Jews remaining in Israel. They took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. The people lost their houses, fields, vineyards and olive groves.
Nehemiah called all of the priests, nobles and officials and made them take an oath that they would return what was due to the rightful owners and stop the practice of usury between their fellow Jews. Once this issue was settled, and the poor of God's people were being treated rightly by their own, work was able to continue with God's blessing. In spite of all the insults and intimidation, the wall around Jerusalem was completed. So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. - Nem. 6:15-16 NIV
Finally, the walls are done, the doors have been set in place, gatekeepers, singers and Levites have been appointed and Jerusalem is safe once more.
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