“With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical.”

In his book, Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart speaks of the biblical text as many things, but none is more confronting than his viewing the text as a “joke.” His explanation, however, makes perfect sense. What makes a joke funny? It is either prior knowledge to which not everyone is privy, or a confounding of expectations (which are also based on prior knowledge to some degree). The Bible is full of such jokes, and realizing one is in on the joke is immensely satisfying.

The great thing about the Bible is that, if we read from the beginning, and we are paying attention, we are the in crowd, and the Author expects us to pick up on His subtleties. In the Scriptures, these are repetitions of certain words (such as “shatter,” for example, which ties a cursed Israel to the plagues upon Egypt) and repetitions of structure, which are entirely overlooked by modern commentators, who can’t seem to fit more than a single Hebrew or Greek word into their heads at one time for serious observation.

With this theory of the joke in mind, the final chapter of Nehemiah is holy and hysterical. We sit around in Bible study and commend him for dealing with the sins of old Jerusalem which are starting to sprout once again like weeds in his new Jerusalem. But I believe the Author has structured the chapter (and thus the events) so that those in on the joke might laugh and cheer his every move.

Firstly, here is the “matrix” structure of the chapter (to support some of the offensive and crazy things I have written lately). Since Nehemiah is cleaning house, it makes sense that the chapter is Tabernacle-shaped. And as this is a final cycle, the overall subject is Glorification and Covenant Succession, or Temple, Jew-Gentile relations (Booths), marriage and offspring, and the future.

While we are at it, we should also notice that the first stanza (represented in line 1 above) deliberately foreshadows the content of the entire chapter:

Now, before we get to the joke, we should also notice that the passage begins with the words of Moses and ends with the triune obedience of Nehemiah as the “bridal man.” He has remembered the Word of God and now asks God to remember him.

So, what is the joke here? It is a reference to Genesis 1-9, and its three-level Tabernacle architecture, the Garden, the Land and the World. Without this knowledge, we won’t get the joke. With this knowledge, based on a reading of the Bible as a book by a single Author (who is actually smarter than we are, likes to drop hints and deliberately obscures things for us to discover), the structure itself is a threefold architectural allusion. The text does not state this explicitly, and many would argue that this is eisegesis, but the events follow a pattern repeated so many times in previous Scripture that we have no excuse to ignore it. Being so deliberately obtuse when it comes to the Bible is only possible through an unnatural literary “dissection.” It is to treat the Bible like no other literature, and thus, not like literature at all. Masked as “conservative” and “cautious”, the stupidity is mind-boggling, and the arrogance outstrips even mine.

GARDEN

Firstly, Tobiah the Ammonite, who had previously opposed the reconstruction (Nehemiah 2, 4), and is now living in the Sanctuary. He is a snake in the Garden, squatting in God’s domain, “sitting (enthroned) in the Temple of God.” Notice that this creeping thing is living in a large room which had previous contained the priestly food, that is, the Tree of Life. As with the sin in Eden, this was related to a greater sin in the next domain.

LAND

Secondly, we can see that the refusal to give the Levites their portions and the trading with Tyrians on the Sabbath are a sort of “corporate” version of the sin of Cain, who presented his kingly firstfruits offering before Abel’s priestly offering, thus putting kingdom (the Tree of Knowledge) before priestly obedience (the Tree of Life). Cain went and built a “fortress” to protect himself from vengeance. Here, Nehemiah protects the “Abels” from the influence of the Cainites.

WORLD

Finally, we can see that the intermarriage of the men of Israel with unconverted women, and the resulting godless offspring, would eventually destroy Israel as it had done under the kings, and this corresponds to the sin of the sons of Seth in Genesis 6. (Note that this is not, nor is ever, racial but Covenantal.)

Why would the reader be cheering? Because Nehemiah is a man filled with the Spirit of God, plaiting a whip, cleansing the Temple (Leviticus 14:33-57), the holy city and the people of God in righteous indignation, offering a firstfruits in all three domains and allowing God to fill all three domains once again as a mighty, rushing wind.

“Passion for your house has consumed me,
and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
(Psalm 69:9 NLT)

One final note. Nehemiah beats (Deuteronomy 25:2) and tears out the hair (or shaves) the Covenant breakers. Wesley says, “The hair was an ensign of liberty among the eastern nations; and baldness was a disgrace, and token of slavery and sorrow.”

“I gave my back to those who strike,
and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard;
I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.”
(Isaiah 50:6)

The books of Nehemiah follows the Bible Matrix, but so do Ezra and Nehemiah as a unit. With that in mind, Ezra tears his robe and tears out (or shaves) his own hair as a priestly Covenant head (Ezra 9:3; ), and Nehemiah calls the people to mourn (as Covenant body) because they had previously vowed to break off these marriages (Nehemiah 10:29). All Israel was now called to be like a Nazirite, a priestly warrior bride working within the Gentile empire. Together, Ezra/Nehemiah is totus Christus, bald, naked and cruciform at the inauguration of a new Jerusalem.

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See also Exploiting Nehemiah.
PHOTO: If you don’t get the joke, just to make a point, I’m not going to tell you.

For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.  And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18)

So, the New Jerusalem—at least the way it is described in Revelation 21—is the culmination of all the “Day 6s” since the original in the Garden of Eden. And, like the walls of water at the Red Sea and Jordan crossings, this entire, miraculous arrangement is held together by the Mediator-Man, the Lamb standing at the centre.

What’s interesting is that Old Covenant Israel’s Day 6 was seen by Daniel as a giant metal man. As Jordan brilliantly describes, this man was a Tabernacle made of the Gentile empires within which Ezra and Nehemiah’s New Jerusalem would act as a priestly advisor. When this structure got down to earth, however, this Old Covenant man got cold feet, feet of clay. The red dust of the Esau/Edomite Herods would not “intermarry” with the Roman metal however hard they tried. Revelation gives us the next episode in the story of this man. [1]

In Revelation 10-11, Christ stood with one foot on the Land (Israel) and one on the Sea (the Gentile oikoumene) until Jew and Gentile were a complete body. [2] What the Herods failed to do by might and power, Jesus did by His Spirit. Jesus commanded John to measure (test) the Temple and gave him a little book containing seven verbal thunders that would bring this decayed old worship construct tumbling down—DE-Creation. [3] The single man of Israel’s Day 6 (Atonement) was replaced with a married man at her Day 7 (Booths). Totus Christus, the complete Jew-Gentile man, replaced the Gentile kingdoms’ metal man in AD70. [4]

But Israel’s Day 7 was only the beginning of the World’s Day 6, as we have described. The Totus Christus is a Great High Priest of Whom we are a part. Now, from head to foot, He reaches—we reach—from the highest heaven to the lowest pit. [5]

“If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” (Psalm 139:8)

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[1] See The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men 1 and 2.
[2] I won a bottle of plonk at trivia for guessing what the Mercedes Benz logo means. Thanks to JBJ, I guessed right. The three-pointed star symbolises dominion over air, land and sea.
[3] It’s interesting that in Revelation 11 we have the Christ who has begun to reign, and in 12 we have the Woman and the dragon. As in the Creation Week, the rulers are at the centre. As in Genesis 3, the rulers at the centre are Adam, Eve and the serpent. See also Seven Bowls of Wrath.
[4] VERY interestingly, the 666 passage in Revelation is the sixth stanza in a “Creation Week” pattern. This occurs many times in Revelation, only with this passage, THE SEVENTH STANZA IS MISSING. As far as I can tell, this is the only place in the Bible where this occurs. This signals the end of the Herods’ attempt at rebuilding Solomon’s kingdom with borrowed Roman power. See my book Totus Christus for more detail on this structure. 666 denotes the beginning of Solomon’s corruption through his amassing of gold. The same sin in the Herods brought down the metal man of the oikoumene. When tested—threshed/sifted—the failed Adam returned to the dust (Daniel 2).
[5] On the church’s new relationship to the Abyss, see Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not and The Greatest Consumer.

36. Acording to Preterists, all those left in Jerusalem were reckoned unholy. But see Isaiah 4:3-4.

Simple answer: Isaiah 4 refers to the “new Jerusalem” of Ezra and Nehemiah. But I’m going to use this as an opportunity to analyse Isaiah 4 and its context. This stuff blows me away.

Once again, the prophet uses the poetic Creation/Feasts pattern, the Bible matrix. This appears to be cycle 6 of a 7×7 cycle. [1] So each cycle follows the pattern, then all seven cycles together follow the pattern. If that sounds confusing, this diagram should help:

The theme of this one, #6, is the sixth feast, Atonement, the Day of Coverings. Notice it begins with seven women, just as Abraham made peace with Abimelech with seven ewes and the High Priest sprinkled blood in the Most Holy seven times.

Sabbath: And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, (Step 1 usually begins with someone speaking, the “Word” as Light. The man here is the “Adam”, the High Priest. The theme is, after all, the Day of Atonement)

Passover: “We will eat our own food and wear our own apparel; Only let us be called by your name, to take away our reproach.” (Exodus and Day 2 [firmament/veil] themes)

Firstfruits: In that day the Branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious; And the fruit of the [Land] shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped. (The Land on Day 3, and the Branch, the Davidic prince, as the firstfruits offering)

Pentecost: And it shall come to pass that [he who is] left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy — everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, (The Law given at Pentecost, the fire of the Lampstand, governing lights of Day 4. Also corresponds with the wilderness judgments for ‘harlotry’ in Numbers. It should be noted that Numbers 5 follows this exact pattern also.)

Trumpets: then the LORD will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. (Armies, plus Zion is a resurrected Sinai. They correspond chiastically. The reference to smoke and fire is also the Incense Altar)

Atonement: For over all the glory there will be a covering. (Jeremiah’s “new [ie. Restoration] Covenant.”)

Tabernacles: And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.

So, as you can see, even though each step corresponds to a feast, it also refers to the overall Atonement theme of this particular cycle. How brilliant is that?

37. According to Prets, all nations may continue — except Israel (see Jer. 30: 11).

‘For I [am] with you,’ says the LORD, ‘to save you; Though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, Yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, And will not let you go altogether unpunished.’

This refers to the Canaanite nations that surrounded Judah. They, and Judah, were submerged under the flood of Babylon, but only Jerusalem reemerged as a new, resurrected, mediatorial “Land” as a priesthood within a greater territory.

38. Idols are still worshipped by 75% of the world’s population (Isaiah 2: 18).

“But the idols He shall utterly abolish.”

This refers to Israel. Never again did they worship idols, at least until Herod turned his Temple into the “image of the beast.” Very cunning. As in the Revelation, “men” most likely refers to the mediatorial “Adams.”

39. The kingdoms of this world are not governed by Jesus Christ (Rev. 11: 15).

Yes they are. Psalm 2 was fulfilled at His ascension, and then Jesus gave this exact same authority to His first century (Gentile!) disciples in Revelation 2:26-27:

“And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations — ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron; They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ — as I also have received from My Father.”

Jesus will reign until all His enemies are under His feet, which requires enemies yet to be defeated.

40. James, Peter, Andrew, and John were already dead (?) before they got to see the abomination of desolation. See Matt. 24: 9, 15. (“Ye”/”You”).

Good point, but the chapter so obviously has a first century context. Does it even remotely look like Jesus is warning people living in some future Judea around some future rebuilt Jewish Temple to flee to the hills? There were still likely disciples alive when this abomination occurred. As mentioned in previous posts, the abomination was something only the Jewish priesthood could do—a Temple sacrilege. [2] It was most likely a massacre of Christians trapped in the beseiged city as a sort of corporate scapegoat. Just as Christ became the “standing lamb” sacrifice (see Chilton on this) as head, so these martyrs became the body, the second part of the ascension offering. [3]

We moderns have not been trained in how to read texts, let alone ancient ones. Reading texts requires not only an understanding of what is said but an appreciation of how it is said. Consequently, the sacred texts are simply scanned for information that supports what we have already received or they are mishandled entirely. T. David Gordon asserts that this is the reason modern preaching is so disappointing and unengaging. See Why Johnny Can’t Preach and Threshing the Text. We won’t allow the Bible to say anything new.

At a church we used to attend, the mid-week home groups all committed to following a one-term study guide based on Nehemiah. It was intended to encourage us to imitate Nehemiah’s virtues and provide a blueprint for our own rebuilding of broken communities.

The last section of Nehemiah was not included in the study as it had nothing to contribute to this imposed objective. Besides being offensively politically incorrect, it wasn’t at all useful. Rather than throwing open this powerful book as a window to some transforming light, the author of the study used it as an opaque sounding board for his own agenda. When I pointed out that Nehemiah is actually more about church discipline, rebuilding a wall between God’s people and those outside, and that this study was not, in fact, engaging at all with the text or its place in redemptive history, it was like I rained on the parade.

Our academies and churches have capitulated so fully to the surrounding culture that they have replicated the very defense mechanisms built by that culture to avoid any transformation by the Bible. So, instead of casting out Tobiah we invite him to join the worship team.

See also:
How Not to Read Genesis
How to Read the Prophets
How to Read the New Testament

“Yoder argues that from the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews developed a proto-”free church” model of community life. True in some respects. Jews didn’t have their own polity. But I’ve got doubts if that’s a fair characterization of Jews in and after the exile.

Why? The Bible for starters. Jews in exile are not isolated in their ghettos. They are seeking the peace of the city; Daniel, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Esther are the heroes of the time, and all fully integrated in imperial culture, whether Babylonian or Persian. They weren’t Amish.

Then there’s archeology. Jewish synagogues are everywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, and they aren’t huddled off in some corner of the city. Some of them are right on the main drag.

If that’s right, it didn’t stay that way. Jews did retreat into more isolated communities over time. Which raises the question: What happened? Christian hostility to Jews is a big part of that story. But there’s perhaps something more fundamental: AD 70.

Robert Wilken wrote long ago that “the bond between Judaism and the Graeco-Roman culture was torn asunder by the Roman-Jewish wars. The epoch of Philo was the last in which the ideals of a brotherhood between Greeks and Jews could still be seriously envisaged.” AD 70 was the end of a world, the world that Jim Jordan calls the “oikoumene,” a cooperative between Jews and Gentiles that God set up at the time of the first fall of Jerusalem.

This has implications in several directions (perhaps). With regard to Yoder: The detached, free-church model comes late, not at the time of the exile. It’s a product of the Lord’s destruction of a unified Jew-and-Greco-Roman system. The “exilic” model that is found in the OT is a model that prominently includes Jews who are thoroughly engaged with the empire — even to the point of being civil servants, advisors, and prophets to the king.

More broadly: Wilken’s point challenges any simplistic Hebraic/Hellenistic dichotomy. Up until AD 70, there was no such dichotomy.

Finally, this also points to another of the ways in which AD 70 is the beginning of the Christian era. Through the Jewish wars, Judaism was isolated from Greco-Roman civilization, and gradually the church moved into the vacuum. As Tertullian claimed, the estrangement of Jews and Greeks meant that the church was the medium by which the antique wisdom and law of Judaism was brought into the Roman world.”

1. See James B. Jordan, The Handwriting on the Wall, for a full rundown on this important factor. Like so many things he has written or said in lectures, you might initially think it is odd, but then it plays out in the Bible hundreds of times and answers many niggling questions.

(Thanks to Dr Leithart for his kind permission to republish here. I actually asked him this time!)

“Because of Christ we are thought of as fools, but Christ has made you wise. We are weak and hated, but you are powerful and respected. Even today we go hungry and thirsty and don’t have anything to wear except rags. We are mistreated and don’t have a place to live. We work hard with our own hands, and when people abuse us, we wish them well. When we suffer, we are patient. When someone curses us, we answer with kind words. Until now we are thought of as nothing more than the trash and garbage of this world.” 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

So, are God’s people to wear rags? Or should they be dressed well like Solomon or the woman in Proverbs 31? Or is that even the right question?

We need to get a handle on the biblical pattern. It is nakedness to glorious robes, childhood to maturity. From later patterns, I believe Adam and Eve would have received glorious robes if they had obeyed (Noah, Joseph, Daniel and Mordecai are some examples that spring to mind). If we are faithful, the robe of rule is GIVEN to us. Paul was writing to the Corinthians as children.

“What is so special about you? What do you have that you were not given? And if it was given to you, how can you brag? Are you already satisfied? Are you now rich? Have you become kings while we are still nobodies? I wish you were kings. Then we could have a share in your kingdom. It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us.” 1 Corinthians 4:7-9

Israel became a corrupt woman in her glorious robe, so God sent “naked” prophets to warn her. They began a new “poor” kingdom “outside the city” corrupted by the riches received from God. But the plan is always to glorify the new kingdom. The new worship founded under Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah was glorified in Esther.

Paul, like John the baptist, was one such pioneer. The nakedness is never permanent, and the church will be eventually, rightfully “clothed.”

If the church is rich on the outside but inwardly naked, immature (like Laodicea), God will deal with it. But the aim is to be clothed both inwardly and outwardly, consistently glorious.

Nehemiah’s new Jerusalem is pictured as a new creation. It’s construction follows the Creation week pattern. The book ends with three victories.

Where the serpent conquered Adam in the garden Nehemiah evicted Tobiah the Ammonite, who had been an opponent to reconstruction and was now squatting in the Temple compound.

Where Cain broke sabbath and slew his brother, Nehemiah barred the Canaanite merchants from the city on Saturdays (this is also alluded to in Zechariah 14:21). He also chased away a grandson of Eliashib the High Priest, who had married a daughter of Sanballat, another major opponent of the restoration of the walls.

This brings us to the children. The sons of God (Sethites) had intermarried with pagans and produced an army of mighty men. Here, Nehemiah attacks the potential “mighty men” children. They were cursed, beaten and had their ‘false Nazirite’ hair torn out. They would not fill the ‘world’ of this ‘new covenant’ with violence. This was a new creation and the old sins would not be tolerated. These children of compromise were ‘sins’ that would not grow to maturity.

Thus I cleansed them from everything foreign… Remember me, O my God, for good. (Nehemiah 13:30-31)

The king’s cupbearer saw his new creation with the eyes of God, the bride-city he had rebuilt, the walled garden he had guarded and cleansed for God. He (kind of) prayed the Lord would say it was very good.

Ezra took a great risk to bring Levites and riches to the Temple from Persia. Mixed marriages were suddenly of more concern, which poses a difficult question. Things seem to be heading backwards—away from the New Testament rather than towards it.

In the accounts of the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, the priests’ genealogies were central. Peter Leithart writes:

“When the people as a whole begin to show a concern for genealogy, it’s a sign of their enhanced priestly status. Priests were apparently permitted to marry converted Gentiles, but the high priest had to marry a “virgin from his own people” (Lev 21:14). It’s no doubt too strong to say that the people as a whole have to conform to the marital requirements of the high priest, but there may be some move in that direction.

Two comments on all this. First, at the heart of Pharisaism is precisely this upgrade of holiness to all Israel. Every Israelite is to be holy as the priests are holy, since the land and city are like the forecourt of the temple. Pharisaism is a perversion of the restoration arrangements, but it is clearly working within the framework of Ezra-Nehemiah.

Second, if it is true that a conception of genealogical holiness takes shape in the post-exilic period, why is that? How is that part of the maturation of Israel that we see throughout the Old Testament? It would seem that as Israel approaches the New Testament, we’d see a clearer sign of the extension of Israel to encompass the Gentiles, rather than a tightening of regulations and a closing of gaps in the boundaries between Israel and the Gentiles.”1

Ezra’s “closing of gaps in the boundaries” between Israel and the Gentiles, a “priesthood of all Jews,” prefigured the New Testament’s Jew/Gentile “priesthood of all believers.” Nehemiah constructed a virgin city of living stones, a kingdom of priests. Jerusalem was no longer a loose woman. She was a bride-city again, purified by death and resurrection.

1  Peter J. Leithart, Ezra-Nehemiah: Purity and Holiness, www.leithart.com

“Danger!” the dispensationalist pundits are shouting. “Watch out for replacement theology!” This specter of “replacement theology,” also masquerading under the pseudo-academic moniker “supersessionism,” looms ominously over Christendom. One blogger blogs, “One of the most dangerous and subversive doctrines held by adherents of Preterism, is the view that in A.D. 70, at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, God’s covenant nation of Israel was superseded by the Christian church.” A website adds, “There is a demonic cancer coursing through the life blood of the Church of Jesus Christ and its name is REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY.” Yet another puts it bluntly, “This is a heresy . . .” Joel McDermon, Replacing Replacement Theology

Fight terminology with terminology. Throughout the Bible it is clear that God’s priestly nation went through many death-and-resurrection renewals. No one calls those ‘replacements.’ Can you imagine theologians arguing that Ezra’s Temple and Nehemiah’s new Jerusalem were only a temporary parenthesis, and that God would give Israel back their old kingdom?

The same thing exactly happened in the first century. Israel died and was resurrected anew. So, I propose new jargon – ‘Transformation Theology: don’t stay left behind.’

“…and I came to Jerusalem and discovered the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing a room for him in the courts of the house of God. And it grieved me bitterly; therefore I threw all the household goods of Tobiah out of the room. Then I commanded them to cleanse the rooms; and I brought back into them the articles of the house of God, with the grain offering and the frankincense.” Nehemiah 13:7-9

After the failure of Israel’s kings and their adulterous priesthood, God established new worship in the “wilderness” of Babylon under Daniel and Ezekiel. When Babylon fell, He brought His new Jerusalem, like a pure bride, back to the mountain of God.

In Ezra, opposition to the building of the Temple was overcome. But the returned exiles were sitting ducks without a city wall, and this is what distressed Nehemiah. In its last chapter, Nehemiah describes the expulsion of Tobiah from the Temple, one who had previously opposed restoration; the Canaanite 7-day traders are also locked out of the city on the Sabbath, and the children of mixed marriages who speak foreign languages are struck and have their hair torn out. Hardly a model of tolerance.

This new Jerusalem, like the old, was a new garden of Eden. The sin pattern of early Genesis is reversed. Tobiah the serpent was cast out of the garden by ‘Adam.’ The Canaanite ‘false brothers’ were prevented from polluting the Sabbath in theLand, and the children of the “daughters of men,” future “mighty men” were terrorised before a harvest of bloodshed in the world.

Then Nehemiah reminds them that this last sin brought the downfall of Solomon’s kingdom. Which brings us to the New Testament, and Revelation.

“But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” – Mark 13:14

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” – 2 Thess. 2:3-4

Like Nehemiah, the first century builders of the walls of New Jerusalem were troubled by false prophets as Jesus had predicted. The later epistles make this final apostasy plain. It was to separate those who were approved before the final harvest. But the point is, there was once again a man who had opposed the restoration of Jerusalem now living in God’s house — King Herod and his puppet High Priest, twin horns on a lamb-faced dragon — a false Solomon.

Like Nehemiah, Christ expelled this predatory squatter from the house of God (2 Thess. 2:8), locked out the Canaanite traders (Zechariah 14:21; Revelation 18:11-15; Revelation 22:15) and wiped out the “mighty men” children of spiritual adultery, the Judaisers and Jewish rebels, in a flood (Daniel 9:26).

The New Worship was established in the wilderness, replaced the earthly city and now mediates between heaven and earth with walls of pure crystal. One day, like Nehemiah’s city, she too will descend upon the mountain of God.