Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Nehemiah 12:43
Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.
43. Also that day ] R.V. And that day.
great sacrifices ] Cf. Ezr 6:17.
God had made them rejoice, &c.] 2Ch 20:27, ‘for the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies.’
the wives also ] R.V. and the women also. The women and children who were present on the occasion of national gatherings (e.g. Neh 8:2) would participate in the festivities.
was heard even afar off ] Cf. the very similar statement in Ezr 3:13, ‘for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.’
44 13: 4. This section, in which the Memoirs of Nehemiah probably only form the outline of the Compiler’s work, falls into two groups, ( a) 44 47, dealing with Levitical organization, and ( b) Neh 8:1-4, relations with foreign peoples. The 1st person sing. is dropped.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Neh 12:43
Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced.
A great rejoicing
A great rejoicing as it should be.
I. Associated with the bites of religion.
II. The outcome of a great deliverance. From captivity to freedom: heathen surroundings to heaven-chosen city and Divinely-built temple. The memory of Gods great goodness should awaken joy–a joy that all may share. The wives also and the children rejoiced.
III. The preparation for strong adhesion to a great cause. Sacred festivals not an end, but a means to an end. (Homiletic Commentary.)
True joy
I. Its right. The God who has given us life wishes also that it shall move joyfully; the God who always anew overwhelms us with favours wishes that they should fulfil their mission; that is, make us happy, in the end holy.
II. Its occasion. Gods grace, which has strengthened, protected, assured, and elevated our lower or higher life.
III. Its kind. It raises itself to God, is a joy in Him; that is, becomes s service to God and our neighbours. (Dr. Schultz.)
The joy of Christian work
Notice–
I. That great sacrifices always precede great joy. Gods best gifts never increase by saving, but by scattering. The sea is in a constant state of evaporation. The mist rises, there are clouds above the hills, there are streams running into the valleys, there is life and greenness everywhere. There are some men who do not believe in evaporation. They believe in getting all they can and keeping all they get. But they are never joyful There is no joy in selfishness. It is against the great law of God, the law of sacrifice by His own Son. What is the meaning of these sacrifices mentioned in the text?
1. The sin-offering. This shadowed the great sacrifice. Morality alone will not save any man, and if you will only admit sin, you admit half the Bible, and the rest has to do with Gods way of getting rid of it.
2. The burnt-offering. This means that we give ourselves up to God entirely; and the happiest men I have met in my life have been men who have handed the keys of every room in their soul up to Christ, without keeping one closed to hide a loved sin.
3. The peace-offering. This was a peculiar offering in Israel. It was a free-will offering. When a man brought the peace-offering, God gave him a feast there and then in his house. A part of the offering was given back to the offerer. This peace-offering is very much like your contributions to-day. You can keep your offerings, but if you do God will keep the feast from you. We in Wales have two sermons in one service very often, and the collection comes before the second sermon. I have watched a man drop the smallest coin into the plate from a richly gloved hand. I have seen a poor old woman unwrapping a two-shilling piece from a paper, from another paper, from a third paper, in which she had wrapped it in order to keep it for the collection. And I have watched them through the second sermon. The tears of joy are coursing down the wrinkled face of the poor Christian woman, but the man who dropped his miserly coin is as dry as Gilboa. It is a remarkable fact that the Almighty never accepted a wild animal as an offering in the olden time. A man was always obliged to offer something he had taken trouble with: the fruit of his own garden, the fruit of his own farm, or from his own flock. I have heard a man say sometimes, If I succeed in this speculation now, I will give to the cause of Christ. Ah! that is a wild hare.
II. Great work for God brings great joy from God. Charles Kingsley has said that every man ought to thank God every morning because he has something to do that must be done that day. Work is the greatest blessing. I was once struck down with complete nervous prostration, and a medical man told me that I must do nothing for a twelvemonth, and that was the hardest work I ever did in my life–to do nothing. I see gentlemen come up along the Menai Straits in their yachts fighting the tempest. On they come like sailors on the ocean-wave, because it is easier to do that than to do nothing. You may see the room in which Louis XVI. worked as a common blacksmith, because it was easier to do that than to do nothing. Prisoners have come to the gaoler many a time, when confined in a room to do nothing, asking him for permission to pick oakum, or anything rather than do nothing. It is possible to do the most common work to God, to Christ, and when every one will do his work to Christ, that is the time when this world will be full of happiness and song. There is joy in serving Christ. Just think, for instance, of the erection of a place of worship: what an investment it is to contribute towards that.
III. This religion of great sacrifice and great joy will tell on our families. The wives also and the children rejoiced. Joyful religion repeats itself to others. Parents should let their children see that they value religion.
1. By making sacrifices for it.
2. By letting them see that they are most anxious for them to become decided Christians.
IV. That the religion of great sacrifices and great joy will be heard of afar off. Then joy was heard afar off. It is the names of self-sacrificers that live–Abraham–Abraham Lincoln–Florence Nightingale–Jesus, the Redeemer of the world. (E. Herber Evans, D. D.)
Sacrifice, a condition of joy
The principle of sacrifice stands at the very threshold of the ever-fascinating study of life, and is found at every turn of the bewildering maze which marks lifes upward pathway of struggle and survival. In merely physical processes, as well as in many vital functions of vegetable and animal life, there are clear foreshadowings of the part which sacrifice plays in the great tragedy of existence. The primitive rock, when subjected to the disintegrating action of the atmospheric agents, yields up its characteristic compactness, and crumbles into soil, which, in turn, surrenders its richness to promote the welfare of multitudinous forms of vegetable growth. In the lower species of animal life the death of the parent is the essential condition of the life of the offspring, and in the higher grades of creatures there is invariably a parental sacrifice in favour of the well-being of the progeny. Notwithstanding that these functions are nothing more than compulsory obedience to the stern mandates of nature, Mr. Herbert Spencer calls them acts of unconscious sacrifice, and so distinguishes them from those voluntary surrenders of self which spring from love to others, and which, strictly speaking, can only be termed sacrifice. The helpless infant survives merely on account of the care which the maternal love lavishes upon it. Let the attention of others be withdrawn, and the child must perish. It lives by the sacrifices which others make for it. The bond of family life is kept intact by a succession of beautiful deeds, springing from the ever-growing tendency to sacrifice the immediate interests of self to promote the good of others. The capacity to enjoy purely egoistic pleasures is heightened by ministering to the wants of others. Indulged selfishness, by producing satiety, defeats itself. But a nobler truth than that is this–that the deepest satisfactions and most lasting joys of life are blossoms on the tree whose roots derive nutriment from the soil of sacrifice. (S. S. Chronicle.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Either their loud voices and instruments were heard to a great distance, or the fame of it was spread far and near.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
43. the joy of Jerusalem was heardeven afar offThe events of the day, viewed in connection withthe now repaired and beautified state of the city, raised the popularfeeling to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and the fame of theirrejoicings was spread far and near.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced,…. Or many sacrifices, as Ben Melech interprets it; and these perhaps of the larger sort of cattle, oxen; and which, at least many of them, being peace offerings, the people feasted on them, so that it was a festival day:
for God had made them rejoice with great joy; on account of the wall being set up all around, and so were in greater safety from their enemies:
the wives also and the children rejoiced; while the priests blew the trumpets, and the singers sung and played on their instruments, the women and children gave loud shouts for joy:
so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off; as at the laying of the foundation of the temple, Ezr 3:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(43) Rejoiced.This verse is full of joy; but before the rejoicing comes the abundant offering of sacrifices.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
43. Joy of Jerusalem The joy of the people over their completed work, and the prospect of peace and prosperity. Their hosannas, says Wordsworth, “may be caught up and re-echoed by us, when we look forward to the time when the Church militant will have encircled the world, and have completed her mission in preaching the Gospel and in building up her walls; and when the two companies of Gentile and Jew will meet together at the heavenly Zion, and join in one song of united praise to God. Then will the saints see the jewelled walls, and the gates of pearl, and the streets of pure gold, of the heavenly Jerusalem, (Rev 21:11-21,) and will sing hallelujahs to God and the Lamb, and dwell forever there.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Culmination Of The Celebrations Which Took Place In The Temple ( Neh 12:43 ).
The processions on or about the wall having been completed the people gathered in the Temple area and offered large numbers of sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. These would then, of course, have been partaken of, and there would be a great feast as all the people, men, women and children joined in the rejoicing and celebrations. They had a new sense of Jerusalem as the holy city, and of the presence of YHWH acting on their behalf.
Neh 12:43
‘And they offered great sacrifices that day, and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy, and the women also and the children rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.’
These sacrifices would inevitably include burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, but in the main they were probably sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving of which all could partake, and it is clear that there were a great many of them. Indeed this was necessary in order to provide meat for the feast. But they would be offered with joyful hearts and a real sense of gratitude to God. Note the emphasis on the fact that everyone was gathered, even women and children, for which compare Ezr 10:1, although there it was in penitence.
So great were the crowds, and so loud the praise from such a great multitude, that ‘the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off’. Compare for this Ezr 3:13. Note the emphasis. ‘They rejoiced — God made them rejoice with great joy — the women and children rejoiced — the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off’. Joy was at the centre of their worship. As a consequence everyone around knew that God had done great things for His people, and that they were correspondingly grateful and filled with joy.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Neh 12:43 Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.
Ver. 43. For God had made them rejoice with great joy ] By giving them both matter of joy, and hearts to do it aright. Crede mihi res severa est verum gaudium, saith Seneca, true joy is a severe business. Quid nobis cum fabulis, cum risu? saith Bernard. What have we to do with jesting and pastime, &c.? we have meat to eat, pleasure to take, that the world knows not of; we can let out our souls into God the fountain of all good, and rejoice in his word, as one that findeth great spoil, wherein the pleasure is as much as the profit, Psa 119:162 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
offered. Hebrew. zabach. App-43.
children = offspring.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
offered: Num 10:10, Deu 12:11, Deu 12:12, 1Ch 29:21, 1Ch 29:22, 2Ch 7:5-7, 2Ch 7:10, 2Ch 29:35, 2Ch 29:36, Psa 27:6
God: 2Ch 20:27, Job 34:29, Psa 28:7, Psa 30:11, Psa 30:12, Psa 92:4, Isa 61:3, Isa 66:10-14, Jer 33:11, Joh 16:22
the wives also: Exo 15:20, Exo 15:21, 2Ch 20:13, Psa 148:11-13, Jer 31:13, Mat 21:9, Mat 21:15, Eph 5:19, Jam 5:13
the joy: 1Sa 4:5, Ezr 3:13
Reciprocal: Lev 7:12 – a thanksgiving Num 7:10 – dedicating 1Ch 15:16 – lifting up 1Ch 25:1 – harps 2Ch 20:19 – a loud Ezr 6:16 – with joy Neh 4:2 – sacrifice Job 8:21 – rejoicing Psa 53:6 – Jacob Jer 30:19 – out Zep 3:14 – shout Act 21:5 – with Heb 13:15 – the sacrifice
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Neh 12:43. For God had made them rejoice with great joy By restoring the holy city to such a secure condition, that they could praise the Lord there without disturbance or fear. And the children rejoiced And their hosannas were not despised, but are recorded to their praise. All that share in public mercies ought to join in public thanksgivings. So that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even far off Either their loud voices and instruments were heard at a great distance, or the fame of it was spread far and near.