4 Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not built.
5 Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first in which I found the following record:
Nehemiah 7:4-5 (NASB)
Ghost town
Yes, the wall was now re-built and the temple was there, but, “The city was not yet rebuilt, only a row of houses in the inside of the wall all round.” (Clarke’s commentary) David Guzik suggests that: “Nehemiah wanted Jerusalem to grow and prosper. But before that could happen he must first know who he had [to work with]. Just as when he toured the broken-down walls in Nehemiah 2:11-16, he needed to know the problem well. So, he took a census and looked at the registry first written by Ezra in Ezra 2:1-70.” (enduringword.com) We will look at the census tomorrow.
God put it into my heart
What grabs my attention in these verses is, “God put it into my heart”. Have you experienced this? You are up against a challenge, you don’t know what to do, you pray and seek the Lord. Or you see a situation and desire to see it changed.
An idea comes to your mind. It may not be an audible voice. It’s not a dream. But you get this idea. NLT actually translates v4 as, “So my God gave me the idea”.
Does God speak to His people?
Does God speak to His people directly, audibly? Surely he does. We see many examples in the Bible. (Exodus 3:14; Joshua 1:1; Judges 6:18; 1 Samuel 3:11; 2 Samuel 2:1; Job 40:1; Isaiah 7:3; Jeremiah 1:7; Acts 8:26; 9:15)
Does He still speak to us today? As gotquestion.org notes in this article, God speaking directly to His people audibly in the Bible is the exception, not the rule. It might be natural to assume this continues to today.
So how does He speak to us? His Word. Let me say it again, His word. The Bible is God’s word to us, it’s His way to speak to us. When we read the Bible, this is God speaking to us. In fact, in the original language, it’s verbatim – His word. Yet He does direct our steps and even guide our thoughts as we seek Him in faith and through His word with a pure heart. He will give us ideas, as with Nehemiah today.
