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🎧 Day 315 | 1 Chronicles 11 | Store This Sentence — the Last Line of Chronicles Comes Back for It 1 Chronicles 11 has one sentence that explains David's whole rise to power. It is short. You could read straight past it. The last line of this book is going to come back for it. Yesterday the LORD put Saul to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. Four reasons, ending with this: he did not enquire of the LORD. Today the elders anoint David at Hebron, "as the LORD had promised through Samuel." That phrase is not in Samuel. Chronicles adds it, and adds it again at verse 10. The Jebusites sneer. Verse 5: "Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion." Then verse 9: "And David became more and more powerful, because the LORD Almighty was with him." Not because he was brilliant. Because the LORD was with him. Store this sentence. Samuel has it too. Chronicles gives it an echo. Second Chronicles 36:23, your NIV: "may the LORD their God be with them." The Hebrew underneath is singular. The LORD his God be with him. Same words, at the very end, over someone the book will not name. The heroes break through for a drink from the well at Bethlehem, and David pours it out to the LORD: "Should I drink the blood of these men who went at the risk of their lives?" Verse 14: the LORD brought about a great victory. Near the end, verse 41: Uriah the Hittite. In Samuel his is the last name on this list, like a wound. In Chronicles the list keeps going. Store the name. Not the strength of the king — the LORD with him. Tomorrow David's army, built out of defectors, starting with the one family you would least expect. #David #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/daily-bible-reading If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 314 | 1 Chronicles 9:35–10:14 | Saul Fell on His Own Sword — So Why Does the Bible Say the LORD Put Him to Death? In 1 Chronicles 10, Saul falls on his own sword. You would think that settles how he died. Then the storyteller steps in with a sentence Samuel's account does not have, and the question is no longer how. It is why. Yesterday, carried off for unfaithfulness, and trusted with the key. Today the Philistines close in on Mount Gilboa. Verse 4: Saul takes his own sword and falls on it. Verse 6: Saul and his three sons died, and all his house died together. We have just read his family tree, generation after generation. The royal house ended that day. The family did not. Today's tool, the third of seven: underline the narrator's verdict. Verses 13 and 14. Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD. He did not keep the word of the LORD. He consulted a medium for guidance. He did not enquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. Four reasons. "Unfaithful" is the fourth verse in the book to use the word, after Achar, the eastern tribes, and Judah. First Samuel tells this battle almost line for line and ends with the burial. No verdict. First Samuel 28:6 says Saul did ask the LORD, and heard nothing, and went to the medium. Chronicles' verdict on that is blunt: he did not enquire. Verse 4: the sword was in Saul's hand. Verse 14: the LORD put him to death. Both. The kingdom was not resting on Saul. The LORD turned the kingdom over. Tomorrow the kingdom changes hands, and the narrator gives the new king's success one reason. Just one. #Saul #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/daily-bible-reading If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 313 | 1 Chronicles 9:2–34 | Carried Off for Unfaithfulness — Trusted With the Key Straight after a sentence that sends a whole nation into exile, 1 Chronicles 9 lists the men who unlocked God's temple every morning. The word the writer chose for them has gone missing from your English Bible. Yesterday: listed, and taken to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. One man, three tribes, then Judah. And in the same breath, all Israel was listed. Today is the first passage set in the readers' own day. Verse 2: the first to resettle on their own property. Before Saul. Before David. Verse 3 names Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh. Nehemiah's list of Jerusalem's settlers has only Judah and Benjamin. This one writes two northern tribes back in. Four tribes, not twelve. The circle is open, not complete. And who comes first? The gatekeepers, stationed at the King's Gate on the east, "up to the present time." Verse 22: assigned to their positions of trust by David and Samuel the seer. The Hebrew is stronger. They were set there in their faithfulness. Not the same root as the unfaithfulness of verse 1. The opposite idea, twenty-one verses later. Store it beside "registered by genealogy." The book puts those two side by side once more, near the end. A key. A tally of the articles. A man entrusted with the offering bread. Musicians responsible day and night. Nobody here is a hero. The people just sent to Babylon are back, standing at the door, holding the key. Carried off for unfaithfulness — trusted with the key. Tomorrow the lists stop, and the story starts, with a king on a hillside and a sentence about him that Samuel never wrote. #Temple #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 312 | 1 Chronicles 8:1–9:1 | Chronicles Tells You the Ending Before the First King Is Crowned 1 Chronicles 9:1 tells you exactly how the whole story ends. Babylon. And why. It comes before the first king has been crowned. Yesterday Beriah carried a family's misfortune in his name, and a few verses later that line reached Joshua. Today Benjamin's families, people who lived in Jerusalem, and then verse 33: Kish the father of Saul. No crown. No story. A name between his father and his sons, and the list does not stop at him. It runs on through Jonathan and Merib-Baal, generation after generation, down to brave warriors who could handle the bow. Then the last verse. First Chronicles 9:1: all Israel was listed in the genealogies in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. They were taken captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. Not one king has reigned, and he has already told you where it ends, and why. His readers were living in the ending. Track the word. "Unfaithfulness" is the third verse in the book to use it. First, one man, Achar, behind the NIV's "violating the ban." Second, three tribes east of the Jordan. Now the NIV says "They," and the Hebrew says Judah, the tribe of the king's line. One man. Three tribes. Then Judah itself. Before "taken captive" comes "listed." The register and the verdict sit in the same sentence. The verdict is true — and the names are still written. In Luke 10, Jesus tells his friends to be glad their names are written in heaven. Tomorrow the lists of the returned begin, and the word your English Bible uses for the men at the door has gone missing. #Babylon #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 311 | 1 Chronicles 7 | The Son Named After a Family Disaster In 1 Chronicles 7, a father loses two sons in a single raid. When another son is born, he gives him a name you would never choose for a child. Beriah. Yesterday the landless tribe sat at the centre, and the priestly line ran into exile. Today Ephraim's line is marching — Shuthelah, Bered, Tahath — and then it stops. Read the interruptions. Verse 21: Ezer and Elead, killed by the men of Gath when they went down to seize livestock. Verse 22: their father mourned for many days, and his relatives came to comfort him. A genealogy that makes room for grief, and for the people who sat with him. Verse 23: he named him Beriah, because there had been misfortune in his family. In Hebrew the name sounds like "in misfortune." Back in 4:10, Jabez prayed and God answered. Here there is no prayer, and no word from God at all. Then verse 24: his daughter Sheerah built Lower and Upper Beth Horon, and Uzzen Sheerah. The list rolls on to verse 27: Nun his son, and Joshua his son. The man who led Israel into the land comes from the family that named a son after its disaster. The dead sons are named. The mourning lasts. Ephraim did not get his sons back. And the list does not stop at verse 23. Misfortune is in the record. It isn't the end of the line. Tomorrow, a sentence that tells you exactly how the whole story ends — before the first king is crowned. #Joshua #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 310 | 1 Chronicles 6 | The Tribe With No Land at the Centre of the Family Tree Right in the middle of Israel's family tree, 1 Chronicles 6 sets the Levites, the one tribe that never owned a patch of land. Why put them at the centre? The answer tells you what this book thinks matters most. Yesterday, rescued and then carried off, five verses apart, and the second verse of ma'al. Today the lists are still running, and not one king's story has been told, and the book pauses for the choir. Verse 31: the men David put in charge of the music in the house of the LORD. Heman, the musician, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel. Asaph at his right hand. Ethan at his left. If you know the Psalms, those names are in the titles. Verse 49: Aaron's sons offered the sacrifices, making atonement for Israel. That is what the list is arranged around. And the priestly line is unbroken, Aaron down through Zadok, until verse 15: Jozadak was deported when the LORD sent Judah and Jerusalem into exile. The centre of Israel's life was carried off too. The Levite towns are copied from Joshua 21. Joshua finishes that list with a verdict: the LORD gave them rest, and not one of his promises failed. Chronicles copies the towns and leaves the verdict out. It does not say why. It does not announce rest here. The house is at the centre. For us the house is the people gathered round Jesus. The centre has not moved. Tomorrow, a father loses two sons in a raid, and names the next child for the disaster. #Levites #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 309 | 1 Chronicles 4:24–5:26 | Rescued in Battle, Carried Into Exile — the Same Three Tribes 1 Chronicles 5 puts the same three tribes in two scenes, a few verses apart. In the first, God rescues them. In the second, God sends them into exile. What happened in between is the question this whole book keeps asking. Yesterday God granted the request of a man named Pain. Today Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh fight, and verse 20 gives the reason twice: they cried out, and he answered, because they trusted in him. Verse 22 adds a third: because the battle was God's. Then verse 25 starts with "But." Five verses from trusting him to prostituting themselves to other gods. Today's tool, the second of seven: track the repeated word. "Unfaithful." Your English Bible shows it here for the first time. The Hebrew was already in 2:7, behind "violating the ban." This is the second verse. Samuel and Kings, telling much of the same history, never use the word at all. It is the Chronicler's own word for what went wrong. Verse 26: the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and took those three tribes into exile. Store "stirred up the spirit." The same Hebrew idiom comes back at the very end, about another king. Your NIV will say "moved the heart" there. An answered prayer years ago does not carry you now. Who am I trusting now? Tomorrow, the one tribe that never owned a patch of land sits at the centre of the family tree. #Exile #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 308 | 1 Chronicles 4:1–23 | A Man Named Pain — and the God Who Answered Him In 1 Chronicles 4, in the middle of a long list of names, a man named Jabez — the name his own mother gave him — prays the first prayer in this book. Yesterday the record did not stop: Zerubbabel's sons, and the line still going, with no king. Today the list rolls through craftsmen and then stops. Verse 9: "Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, 'I gave birth to him in pain.'" In Hebrew the name is the word for pain, two letters swapped. Verse 10: he cried out to the God of Israel, and the last thing he asks is to be free from pain. Two times. His mother says it over his birth. He says it in the prayer. "And God granted his request." That prayer has been sold as a formula. The narrator does not put the weight on the wording. He puts it on the God who granted, and on a man named for pain who was not left with it. Around him, linen workers and potters at Netaim, people who never made the history books, written into this one. God answered a man named Pain — counted, not forgotten. Tomorrow, the same three tribes in two scenes, a few verses apart. In the first, God rescues them. In the second, he sends them away. #Jabez #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 307 | 1 Chronicles 3 | The Royal Family With No King 1 Chronicles 3 is a royal family tree that keeps going for generations after you would expect it to stop. David's line, and no king on the throne. That is not the scribe running on. It is the whole point. Yesterday, two verdicts in Judah's list, Er and Achar, and the line to David running straight through them. Today, "reigned" appears in one verse only. Verse 4, twice, both about David. The only man in the chapter called king is a foreigner, Talmai king of Geshur. Verses 10 to 16 are the men who sat on the throne, and the text never says so. Your Bible's heading, "The kings of Judah," is the translators helping out. The text just says "his son." Then verse 17: "The descendants of Jehoiachin the captive." The Hebrew could also be a name, Assir. The scholars are not sure. Either way, we are in Babylon. Jeremiah 22:30 said none of this man's offspring would sit on David's throne. None does. He has sons. He does not have successors. And the list does not stop. Verse 19: the sons of Zerubbabel, the governor who led people home and laid foundations, not a king. Then Pelatiah, Shekaniah, Shemaiah. The chapter does not hand you the king. It hands you the record, written by people who refused to treat the empty throne as the end. The record did not stop. Tomorrow, in the middle of another list, a man whose own mother gave him a terrible name — and he prays the first prayer in this book. #David #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 306 | 1 Chronicles 2 | The Man Whose Name Became His Crime 1 Chronicles 2 alters a man's name. Not misspelt. Changed. So that every time you say Achar, you're saying what he did. Joshua knew him as Achan. Yesterday, Adam. Empires trimmed, every Edomite king dead, and a sentence to carry: the story didn't start with me — and it hasn't dropped me. Today the royal tribe's family tree, and it is not polished. Today's tool, the first of seven: read the interruptions. When a list stops to tell you something, the author is waving a flag. Verse 3 stops for a verdict: Er, Judah's firstborn, wicked in the LORD's sight, put to death. Verse 4 names Tamar. If you know Genesis 38, that story is not tidy. Then verse 7: "The son of Karmi: Achar, who brought trouble on Israel by violating the ban on taking devoted things." Joshua 7 calls him Achan. Here he is Achar, the sound of the Hebrew word for trouble. Mr Trouble. And underneath the English, "violating the ban" is one Hebrew verb: he broke faith. The word is ma'al, unfaithful. An ESV prints "broke faith." This is the first verse in Chronicles to use it. Store it. We will count it, verse by verse, to the last chapter. It is this book's word for what went wrong. The line to David does not run around the failures. It runs straight through them. Not by my pedigree — kept by his choosing. Tomorrow, a royal family tree that keeps going long after anyone reigns. #Achan #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 305 | 1 Chronicles 1 | The Oldest Human Name — and Why a Tired People Needed It 1 Chronicles 1 opens with Adam. It is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, written for a small, tired people who were afraid they had dropped out of God's story. Just one name. The oldest there is. Yesterday Ezra–Nehemiah ended with the walls up, the temple standing, and Nehemiah on his own: "Remember me with favour, my God." Home, and still not home. Today Chronicles goes back. Past the exile, past David, past Abraham, to the first man. Verse 1: "Adam, Seth, Enosh." In the traditional order of the Hebrew Bible, this is where the Hebrew Scriptures end. Around 400 BC, a small Persian province, a king's family tree and no king, a rebuilt temple that looked like nothing. One question underneath: have we fallen out of God's story? The book answers by telling the whole story again, with their names still in it, and the door still open. It is an invitation, not a telling-off. Genesis takes thirty-six chapters to cover this ground. Chronicles takes fifty-four verses, and it trims as it goes. Check Genesis 10:10–11: Nimrod's kingdom runs on into Babylon and Nineveh. Chronicles cuts the empire. Then the kings of Edom. Seven times, "When … died." An eighth at verse 51: "Hadad also died." Genesis 36:39 leaves that last king still reigning. Chronicles adds the line. Every king in that dynasty dies, and not one of them is the point. The point is the line that keeps running. Hold this for the days you feel written out: the story didn't start with me — and it hasn't dropped me. In older English Bibles the book ends with four words: let him go up. The NIV prints "may go up." The Hebrew is singular. On the last day, that matters. Tomorrow, a name in the list has been changed, so that saying it says what he did. #Adam #1Chronicles #DailyBibleReading #Bible #BibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 304 | Nehemiah 13:4-31 | The Last Words Are Exile Prayers The last words of this book are a prayer. It is the kind of prayer people prayed in exile — far from home, holding on by their fingernails. The man praying it is standing inside the rebuilt city, behind the finished walls, next to the working temple. He has everything the exiles dreamed of. And he prays like a captive. Yesterday, joy heard far away. It looked as if it was going to work. It did not. Nehemiah returns at least twelve years on. That is all the most solemn commitment in this book got. Watch chapter 13 test the three sealed promises. The house of God: Eliashib the priest — some read him as the high priest who laid stones at the Sheep Gate — has given Tobiah a room in the temple courts. Remember Nehemiah 6: letters to Tobiah, many under oath to him. The enemy who had friends inside the wall now has a room inside the temple. Nehemiah hurls the furniture out and brings back the equipment of the house of God. That is the same Hebrew word as the temple articles Cyrus sent home in Ezra 1. The book opened with an emperor counting them out. It all but closes with one man putting them back after the enemy's bedroom. The Levites have gone unpaid. "Why is the house of God neglected?" — the oath's own last line, quoted back at the men who signed it. The Sabbath: the loophole they closed is open again. Put a finger on three questions. Nehemiah 2:19, the enemies: "What is this you are doing?" Nehemiah 5:9: "What you are doing is not right." Nehemiah 13:17: "What is this wicked thing you are doing?" The taunt thrown at the wall has ended up in the governor's mouth, aimed at the people the wall was built to protect. The marriages: children who speak the language of Ashdod, not the language of the Torah their grandparents wept over. And verse 28. Remember Ezra 10 — Joshua's family, first on the list? Eliashib's grandson is son-in-law to Sanballat. The book opens its crisis with priestly failure. It closes with priestly failure. Count "remember" today: verses 14, 22, 29 and 31, and the tally of that command reaches eight. The first two asked God to remember his word, and told the people to remember the Lord. The last six ask God to remember Nehemiah, or his enemies. Underneath every one is zakar. Once more, the other way: Nehemiah 9:17, they failed to remember the miracles. Four prayers in this book, each narrower than the last — Ezra's confession that asked nothing, Nehemiah's prayer that stopped one verse short, the community's confession that reached for a pen, and now one man asking God to credit his own works, and asking nothing for the people. Not one of them ever asks God to change the heart. Exile in the land. They went home, and exile went with them. #Nehemiah #Bible #BibleReading #RememberMe #DailyBibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 303 | Nehemiah 12:1-13:3 | The Echo Ninety-Two Years in the Making No one could tell the joy from the weeping. Near the beginning of this book, a crowd made a sound so loud it was heard far away. Today the same words come back in your Bible: heard far away. Ninety-two years later. Listen for what is missing from the sound this time. Yesterday, settlers in the holy city, blessed and not pitied. Today the city is consecrated, and the book gives the party everything it has. Priests and Levites purify themselves, then the people, the gates, and the wall. Stonework, set apart. Two choirs climb onto the wall and march in opposite directions along the top — music over the city from the stones Tobiah said a fox would knock over. They meet at the house of God. Verse 43 piles it up: rejoicing, joy, rejoiced, rejoicing — four times in the English, five in the Hebrew. God had given them great joy. Even the rejoicing is a gift. Now fingers on both verses. Ezra 3:13: joy and weeping, indistinguishable, heard far away. Nehemiah 12:43: the sound of rejoicing, heard far away. The author has waited ninety-two years of story to say it again. This time, no weeping. The sound no one could sort now has a name: in the Hebrew, what is heard far away is the joy of Jerusalem. Then verse 44, the same day: men appointed over the storerooms, portions set aside for the priests and Levites, and Judah glad over those who serve. Last, Nehemiah 13:1–3: the Torah is read, the people act on it that day, and the verse does not say what made the mixture the problem. Hold that open. There is a time to name what is unfinished. Today is not it. Receive it gladly. Where are you holding back from a joy God has given, waiting for it to be safe? Tomorrow is the last day of this book. Come and hear how it ends. #Nehemiah #Bible #BibleReading #Dedication #DailyBibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 302 | Nehemiah 11 | The One-in-Ten Who Moved House A lottery nobody wants to win, and thousands of people are entered. The prize: leave your farm and your village, and move into a half-empty city with a target on it. One in ten gets picked. Listen to what the community does to the ones who go willingly. Yesterday, three promises, written and sealed. Today the city from Nehemiah 7 is still large, and still short of people. Walls do not make a city. Verse 1 calls Jerusalem the holy city — the first time this book has said it, and the dedication has not happened yet. Holiness here is spreading, from the temple outward, ahead of the paperwork. The lot costs farming families their margin of safety, for a city every enemy has already plotted to attack. Verse 2: the people commended all who volunteered. The Hebrew is simply "blessed." Honour, not pity. Then the names, and at verse 17 Mattaniah, whose job is to start the thanksgiving — in a city still half-empty, someone is rostered to begin the praise. Do not skim the last section. Verses 25 to 36 list the villages, and verse 30 lands it: they were living all the way from Beersheba to the Valley of Hinnom. Check the order yourself: put Joshua 15, verses 21 to 41, beside the list. For Judah's towns the names run in Joshua's order, ten or eleven in a row, and then the pattern breaks; the Benjamin towns do not follow Joshua at all. Why the author reached for the old inheritance map, and whether the list is hope or disappointment, the text does not say. The book is glad of the gap. It does not apologise, and it does not pity the people who moved in; it blesses them. Say it of anyone who goes to a hard or small place: blessed, not pitied. Tomorrow the wall is dedicated, and a phrase from the beginning of the book comes back — with one sound missing. #Nehemiah #Bible #BibleReading #HolyCity #DailyBibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.

🎧 Day 301 | Nehemiah 9:38-10:39 | The Promise With a Price List A third of a shekel a year. A rota, drawn by lot, for who brings the firewood. This isn't poetry. It is the small print of a promise to God, written down, sealed with names and costed to the last bundle of wood. Israel had made big promises before. This time they put in the price. Yesterday: we are slaves today. Today, "in view of all this," they make a binding agreement. Remember Ezra 1:1? A king put a decree in writing, and the LORD had moved his heart to do it. Now a people puts its own word in writing. Israel has promised before. Finger on Exodus 24:7: at Sinai they said, "We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey." Now "everything" gets itemised. Three promises to store. One: no daughters given, no daughters taken, which is Deuteronomy 7's line, and verse 28 says they have separated themselves for the sake of the Law of God. Two: no buying from the neighbours on the Sabbath. As far as the Law's own wording goes, it forbids the work, not the shopping. The same verse adds: every seventh year, cancel all debts. Back in Nehemiah 5 the poor were mortgaging fields and children. Three: the house of God, and the last line, we will not neglect the house of our God. Now the receipt: twice the oath says "as it is written in the Law", at verses 34 and 36. Some of it the Law already asked. Some they added where the page was silent. Before you promise God anything, finish the sentence out loud: in view of all this. Say the "all this" first: what he has done, and what you have done. Tomorrow the city itself needs living in. A lottery nobody wants to win. #Nehemiah #Bible #BibleReading #Covenant #DailyBibleReading Daily Bible Reading is a chapter-by-chapter Bible reading podcast from Christ Church Hemel, helping you read through the Bible one chapter at a time. Follow the full reading plan here: https://www.christchurchhemel.org.uk/resources/daily-bible-reading/ If you're local to Hemel Hempstead, you're very welcome to join us on Sundays at 10:30am and 6pm.