Nehemiah 8:10 · Passage · Joy
The Joy of the LORD Is Your Strength
Nehemiah spoke these words at the Water Gate in Jerusalem, on a holy day after the city's wall had been rebuilt.
A crowd in tears over the reading of Scripture was told by its governor to stop mourning and go home to a feast.
Then Nehemiah told them, “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send out portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
- The passage
- Nehemiah 8:10, Nehemiah 8:1 to 18
- Book
- Nehemiah
- Hold in memory
- Nehemiah 8:10
Summary
Ezra read the Book of the Law to the whole assembly, and the Levites explained it so that the people could understand. The people wept. Nehemiah, Ezra and the Levites told them that the day was holy to the LORD and sent them away to feast, for the joy of the LORD was their strength. The people rejoiced greatly because they understood the words, and on the next day they found the Feast of Tabernacles in the Law and kept it with great rejoicing.
- The Hebrew word for joy in Nehemiah's command, chedvah, occurs only twice in the Old Testament, here and in 1 Chronicles 16:27, where strength and joy fill God's dwelling.
- The word translated strength, ma'oz, means a fortified place, so the verse names the joy of the LORD as the stronghold of God's people.
- Nehemiah forbade grief because the day was holy to the LORD, and the people kept the day by feasting and by sending portions to those who had nothing prepared.
- Nehemiah 8:12 gives the reason for the people's joy: they understood the words that had been made known to them.
- Later that month the same assembly fasted in sackcloth and confessed their sins (Nehemiah 9:1 to 2). Joy on the holy day and mourning for sin each had a day of its own.
The Day at the Water Gate
Nehemiah 8:1 to 12 tells one day in Jerusalem, from the reading of the Law at daybreak to the meal that followed.
The command not to grieve in Nehemiah 8 is one of the Old Testament's chief texts on joy, the gladness in God that Scripture commands of His people. It was spoken to a crowd in tears, and it calls the joy of the LORD the strength of those who hear it. The verse matters to any reader who has been told to rejoice while grieving. It gives a reason for joy that rests on God and on His word, and the chapter shows how the command was kept on the day it was given.
The question this passage answers is why a people who wept at the reading of the Law were told to rejoice, and what Nehemiah meant by calling the joy of the LORD their strength. Below, the day is told in order, its five steps from weeping to rejoicing are drawn as a chain, and the assembly is followed into the Feast of Tabernacles. The Hebrew words of the verse and three teachers who expounded it come after.
At that time all the people gathered together in the square before the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel. On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could listen and understand. So Ezra read it aloud from daybreak until noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate, in front of the men and women and those who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.The reading begins at the request of the crowd, which came eager for the Law before any word of it brought tears.
So they read from the Book of the Law of God, explaining it and giving insight, so that the people could understand what was being read.This verse names the work of the Levites, who made the reading plain to the crowd as it was read.
Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all of them, “This day is holy to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the Law.The leaders turn the people from weeping because the day is holy to the LORD.
The text does not say what moved the people to tears. The leaders answered the weeping with the holiness of the day.
And the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, since today is holy. Do not grieve.”The Levites carry Nehemiah's command through the crowd and add the word to be still.
Nehemiah 8:9, Nehemiah 8:11
Five Steps from Weeping to Rejoicing
The day moves through five steps in Nehemiah 8:3 to 12, from the reading of the Law to the people's great joy.
Nehemiah's command stands between the people's weeping and their rejoicing.
- In the Berean text
- So Ezra read it aloud from daybreak until noon
- Verse
- Nehemiah 8:3
- In the Berean text
- For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the Law.
- Verse
- Nehemiah 8:9
- In the Berean text
- Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
- Verse
- Nehemiah 8:10
- In the Berean text
- Then all the people began to eat and drink, to send out portions
- Verse
- Nehemiah 8:12
- In the Berean text
- to rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that had been made known to them
- Verse
- Nehemiah 8:12
A chain of five links from Nehemiah 8:3 to 12, each with the Berean text of its verse.
The weeping of the second step and the rejoicing of the fifth both come from hearing the Law. The words that first brought tears were explained by the Levites, and verse 12 gives the people's understanding of them as the reason for their joy.
The Feast of Booths Recovered
On the second day the leaders found the command to live in booths, and the assembly kept the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days.
On the second day of the month, the heads of all the families, along with the priests and Levites, gathered around Ezra the scribe to study the words of the Law. And they found written in the Law, which the LORD had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month.A smaller gathering of leaders returns the next day for closer study, and what they find leads to the feast.
The whole assembly who had returned from exile made booths and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated like this. And there was great rejoicing.The verse compares the feast with every celebration since the days of Joshua and calls the rejoicing great.
The Law the assembly found had already joined this feast to joy. Deuteronomy commands Israel to rejoice at the feast for seven days, and Moses commanded that the Law be read to all Israel during the Feast of Tabernacles at the end of every seven years.
And you shall rejoice in your feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you. For seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the LORD your God in the place He will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that your joy will be complete.This command stands behind the feast the leaders recovered, and it names gladness as the aim for every household.
Then Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of remission of debt, during the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes before the LORD your God at the place He will choose, you are to read this law in the hearing of all Israel. Assemble the people—men, women, children, and the foreigners within your gates—so that they may listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and to follow carefully all the words of this law.Moses orders the Law read at the Feast of Tabernacles to men, women, children and foreigners, much as men, women and all who could understand gathered at the Water Gate.
Nehemiah's order in verse 10 to send portions to those who had nothing prepared carries the same care for the needy into the day of the reading.
Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the Book of the Law of God. The Israelites kept the feast for seven days, and on the eighth day they held an assembly, according to the ordinance.Ezra read from the Law on every day of the feast, so the reading that began at the Water Gate went on through all seven days.
Deuteronomy 16:14 to 15, Deuteronomy 31:10 to 12, Nehemiah 8:18
Weeping and Joy in the Return from Exile
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record weeping and joy together, from the laying of the temple's foundation to the dedication of the wall.
The assembly at the Water Gate was made up of exiles who had come back to Jerusalem. Nehemiah first heard that the wall of the city was broken down and its gates burned (Nehemiah 1:3). The wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth of Elul (Nehemiah 6:15). The reading of the Law came on the first day of the seventh month (Nehemiah 8:2).
But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully. The people could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people were making so much noise. And the sound was heard from afar.The return began with tears and shouts mixed together, the same two sounds that met at the Water Gate.
Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.The dedication of the rebuilt temple was kept with joy, and the Aramaic word for joy in this verse is the twin of Nehemiah's Hebrew word for joy.
The Hebrew Words of the Verse
Three Hebrew words carry the command and its reason: a verb for grief, a rare noun for joy and a noun for a stronghold.
Atsab, to grieve
17 uses in the canon
The verb atsab (Strong's H6087) stands in the verse as the command not to grieve. The lexicon gives its sense as to worry, pain or anger and counts 17 uses.
Chedvah, joy
2 uses in the canon
The noun chedvah (H2304) means joy or rejoicing. It occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible, in Nehemiah's verse and in the song of thanksgiving David committed to Asaph in 1 Chronicles 16.
Ma'oz, a stronghold
36 uses in the canon
The noun ma'oz (H4581) means a fortified place, and the King James Version renders it fortress, rock, strength and strong hold. The lexicon counts 36 uses.
Word for word, the last line of the verse reads in Hebrew chedvat YHWH hi ma'uzzekhem, the joy of the LORD, it is your refuge. The word for strength is the word for a fortified place, so the verse names the joy of the LORD as the place where the people are kept safe.
The phrase the joy of the LORD is a Hebrew construct, and the grammar allows three senses: the joy the LORD gives, the joy the LORD Himself has, and joy in the LORD. Nehemiah 12:43 says that God had given them great joy, and the other verse with chedvah says that strength and joy fill His dwelling. John Wesley's note on the verse reads the phrase as rejoicing in God.
How the Verse Has Been Taught
Two commentators of the eighteenth century and a preacher of the nineteenth expounded the verse and its setting.
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), finds the ground of the people's joy in verse 12. He writes that they made mirth "not because they had the fat to eat and the sweet to drink". They rejoiced, he says, "because they had understood the words that were declared to them". He draws the lesson for his readers: "To have the holy scriptures with us, and helps to understand them, is a very great mercy, which we have abundant reason to rejoice in".
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), explains the word strength in the verse. His note reads: "Rejoicing in God in serving him with chearfulness, and thankfulness, which is your duty always, but now especially, will give you that strength both of mind and body, which you greatly need". He names two uses for that strength, "to perform all the duties required of you, and to oppose all the designs of your enemies".
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon preached on the verse at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on the morning of 31 December 1871, in Sermon No. 1027, The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People. He set beside it a second text, Nehemiah 12:42 to 43, the singing and the joy at the dedication of the wall.
Joy Heard from Afar
On that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard from afar.At the dedication of the wall the joy commanded at the Water Gate is heard far beyond the city, and the verse says that God gave it.
At the foundation of the temple the shouts of joy could not be told apart from the weeping (Ezra 3:13). At the dedication of the wall it was the joy of Jerusalem that carried. Nehemiah 8 shows the way between the two. The word of God was read and understood, and the holy day was kept with feasting and gifts to the needy. The joy belonged to the LORD and kept His people as a stronghold keeps a city.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Hebrew text of Nehemiah 8:10 and 1 Chronicles 16:27, with Strong's numbers h2304, h4581 and h6087 and their morphology.
- STEP Bible TBESH (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0), entries h2304, h2305, h4581 and h6087.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Nehemiah 8:12.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), on Nehemiah 8:10.
- C. H. Spurgeon, The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People, Sermon No. 1027, delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on 31 December 1871.
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