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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comThrough the Bible Day by Day - Nehemiah 13:15 - 13:15
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
a Disobedient and Gainsaying People
Neh 13:15-31
Let us remember to keep perpetual Sabbath in the heart, whatever be our outward life. In this life there is a Sabbath rest for the people of God, Heb 4:9, but we must labor to enter into it, and must set God’s angel of peace to keep the door against all intruders, Php 4:7. Twenty years before, Ezra had dismissed the strange wives, but the evil had risen again. Alas, how sadly do children expose the inconsistencies of their parents, and betray the evil of unequal marriages! We see plenty of this around us; and where there is such a union, the balance is almost certain to turn in favor of the world and against vital godliness, Deu 7:4; 2Co 6:14. Nehemiah did not hesitate to add strong acts to strong words. Josephus says that this expelled priest was Manasseh, and that he went to his father-in-law, Sanballat, who built for him a temple on Mount Gerizim like that at Jerusalem, and that this was the origin of the religious rivalry and hatred between Samaritans and Jews, Joh 4:20. The faithful servant and the dying thief join in the same petition, Neh 13:31. To be remembered by Jesus Christ is enough reward for any of us!