Month: May 2025

Week 19  Nehemiah 7

Nehemiah: God put it into my mind to assemble the people to be registered by genealogy. I found the genealogical record of those who came back first. So Nehemiah then started his list in verse seven. I see a cross-reference from there to Ezra 2:2. Sure enough Ezra had a list of names. I flipped back…flipped forward. Back. Forward. The lists looked the same.
I drew a table with two-columns and wrote Nehemiah’s names down the left-hand column: Zerubbabel Jeshua Nehemiah Azariah Raamiah Nahamani Mordecai Bilshan Mispereth Bigvai Nehum Baanah.
In the right-hand column I listed Ezra’s names: Zerubbabel Jeshua Nehemiah Seraiah Reelaiah Mordecai Bilshan Mispar Bigvai Rehum Baanah.
Now I could see a couple of discrepancies. First of all four names were different. Instead of Seraiah Nehemiah said Azariah. Same with Reelaiah: Raamiah. Mispar: Mispereth. Rehum: Nehum. But they’re fairly similar and (maybe) variations of the same name – like Jayden and Jaden.
The second (more perplexing) glitch is that Ezra has 11 names but Nehemiah has 12. Nehemiah’s twelfth man is Nahamani and I wonder why Ezra didn’t list him. I check my word book. Nahamani shows up only this once in the whole bible.
These 11 (or 12) men were leaders and the first ones on the lists so it’s hard to imagine Ezra forgot one of them.
The long-and-short is that the lists don’t match. Simple as that. Which is too bad since the discrepancy irks me.

Note: quote edited from Nehemiah 7:5-6. 7:7 & Ezra 2:2 (CSB)

 

Week 19  Psalms 120-134

The fifteen consecutive psalms running from 120-134 are a kind of unified collection because a) they are all bunched together one-after-the-other and b) each one of them has the same subtitle: A Song of Ascents. So these psalms are a) musical psalms and b) have something to do with going up. Moving up. Rising. They’re Ascending Songs.
I checked a couple of other versions and they used the same subtitle: A Song of Ascents. Another one said: A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem. That’s an explanation I’ve heard before: the people of Israel who were living in the Promised Land were supposed to travel to Jerusalem three times every year to offer sacrifices. Since Jerusalem was up in the (low) mountains the trip for most people would be an uphill grind. So I guess it’s possible that’s the time when these fifteen On-the-Road songs were used.
I checked a couple of keywords to see if the Songs of Ascent focused on the destination. I found Jerusalem five-times. Zion seven-times. The house-of-the-Lord & house-of-David four-times. Temple zero. Sacrifices zero. Priests once. So sacrificial topics didn’t seem to be a big part of the songs’ content.
And as far as that goes the lyrics of several of the songs – 120 121 123 124 126 127 130 & 131 – don’t have anything much to do with Jerusalem or temple worship. Which doesn’t mean they weren’t pilgrimage songs. But does mean they were likely multi-purpose songs – useable on other occasions.

Note: Moses’ ruling on the Three Trips is in Exodus 34:18-24