Back to Basics: Nehemiah’s work of repopulating Jerusalem is put on hold until chapter 11. The editor has put chapters 8–10 together and placed them here in pursuit of a different but related agenda. This chapter presents the first two of a series of readings from the Torah. At first sight, the topic of the Torah seems irrelevant to Nehemiah’s practical measures. In fact this material develops chapter 1, where Nehemiah’s prayer traced Judah’s plight and Jerusalem’s sorry state back to breaking the Torah, its “commands, decrees and laws” (1:7). So his mission, sincere and inspired though it was, was just a Band-Aid. Judah needed to learn the Torah in order to avoid its curses, enjoy its promises, and reclaim Jerusalem for the people of God.

We saw in the discussion of Ezra 9, above, that Neh…