166 | Social reforms (Nehemiah 5)

We're in Jerusalem around 445 to 444 BCE. The walls of the city have been in ruin for over a century and a half — ever since the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The Second Temple had been rebuilt decades before Nehemiah arrives, and the city was inhabited, but the walls were still rubble and the city was still exposed to attack. Then Nehemiah arrives. He's a Jewish official serving as cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I — a position of high trust and direct access to the king, but one he shared with other senior officials, not the sole confidant. He gets permission and funding to go back and rebuild the walls. And for the first four chapters of this book, that's what he does — organizing the people, dealing with hostile neighbors, keeping the work going under threat of attack.Source:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cChSMMrBpNSFbsMRPCNmse_Ne2z6TDV5/view