168 | Reading of the Law (Nehemiah 8)

The year is roughly 445 BCE. Jerusalem's walls have just been rebuilt after sitting in rubble for about 140 years. The Babylonians destroyed the city in 586 BCE and took most of the population into exile. Under the Persian king Artaxerxes I, Jewish exiles were allowed to return home. The walls are up. The city is repopulated. But a whole generation has grown up under Persian rule, speaking Aramaic as their daily language, with little connection to the religious texts their ancestors knew. This is a community trying to work out who it is. That's the situation Nehemiah 8 opens on.Source:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OrpfPBo0gZVcdIWrckiz4WyUiowsym2L/view?usp=sharing