Nehemiah 13

After Nehemiah’s 12 year governorship he went back to Susa to serve King Artaxerxes. When Nehemiah departed for Susa everything was in good order. Yet, with the passage of time, the record of Nehemiah 13 shows a very different church situation than what Nehemiah had left behind. Here in Nehemiah 13 we see an Ammonite living in the temple precincts, the Levites living in the fields, the tithes slowing to a trickle, the Sabbath being desecrated, and the citizens marrying foreign wives. In short, the church was in a state of deformation. Nehemiah 13 is the story of the church being reformed by Nehemiah according to the word.