Nehemiah 8:10
“Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Don’t be grieved; for the joy of Yahweh is your strength.””
Where this sits
The exiles have returned, the wall is rebuilt, and Ezra has read the law aloud for the first time in generations. The people are weeping, and this is said to stop them.
Reflection
The setting explains the sentence. These people had just heard the law read properly for the first time in living memory, and they had understood it, and they were weeping — because understanding it meant seeing clearly how far they had fallen short of it.
That is not an irrational response. It is arguably the correct one. And it is exactly what the leaders tell them to stop doing.
What they are told to do instead is startlingly physical. Eat rich food. Drink something sweet. Send portions to people who have nothing prepared. There is no instruction here to think differently or feel differently. There is an instruction to have a good meal and make sure your neighbour has one too.
Then the reason: the joy of Yahweh is your strength. Read the grammar carefully — it is more likely God's own joy than your joy in him. What holds them up is not their emotional state about God. It is his about them. On a day when they could see their record plainly, the thing they were told to lean on was the disposition of the one who had every right to be disappointed.
And note that the joy is called strength, not comfort. It is what enables you to do the next thing. Grief was going to leave them sitting down; they had a city to finish.
- Theme:
- Strength
- Book:
- Nehemiah