Nehemiah 8:10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

The last line of this verse has been made into a very well-known chorus, but for most people today, the question remains of why the people were weeping in the first place. I think that for the majority of the people gathered that day, this was the first time they had ever heard the Torah read to them. We forget that this was thousands of years before the printing press, and books were hand-copied, rare, and valuable. To this point they had been told things, but this was the first time they had heard the actual words recorded by Moses. To top it off, the Torah is in Hebrew, and most of the people only spoke Aramaic. That’s why the Levites had to “give the sense.” (verse 8) They were interpreting into Aramaic. All in all, the experience was overwhelming. Most of the people had been born in exile, but God had brought them back to the land of their forefathers, so they knew He was real, but they had very little knowledge of Him personally. In some ways I think they were like many Americans today: cultural Christians who probably have a Bible or two in their home but who have never really read it, particularly as applying to them. What a huge, and dangerous, waste! Getting God’s Word into us, to put it into practice, is the greatest privilege and the greatest protection we could ask for. James famously said, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) But how do you submit to God if you don’t know what He said? And if we aren’t submitted to Him, trying to resist the devil in our own strength is laughable. Today we have almost countless translations of the Bible, available not only in print form but also electronically, and even in audio form for those with vision problems. The devil likes nothing better than to blind us to such riches so that he can deceive us and tear us down. If we would really take the Word in to make it part of us, then God’s joy would fill and strengthen us more than we can now imagine.

I was raised in a home that was steeped in the Bible to a remarkable degree. My father had gotten his Master’s degree in Hebrew and his PhD in Biblical Greek, and he taught those languages in a Japanese seminary. He was well aware of translation difficulties, and we always had multiple translations available. After I was baptized at 7 I was given my first full Bible, and my father chose the RSV translation as the most accurate and understandable at that point – and I read it through by the time I was 10. Since then I have lost count of how many times I have read through the Bible in various translations, so you could say I’m marinated in it. However, the question always remains of whether I’m acting on it, putting it into practice. I think I’ve grown in that over the years, but I’m certainly no more perfect than Paul was. (Philippians 3:12-14) That said, I do have the joy of knowing my Lord and hearing Him daily, and that makes me strong indeed.

Father, thank You for this reminder, and for Your Word. Thank You for Your incredible grace toward me, to have blessed me like this. Help me not take it lightly, but apply Your Word consistently, in every area of my life, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!