The Book That God Wrote, Nehemiah

Hey hey everyone, I'm back to tell you about all this Bible reading I've been doing. Woooooooo! Wow, um sorry, I'm just excited. Why am I excited you ask? Well, duh, because Nehemiah is freaking awesome that's why. Well, okay, it's really just awesome when compared to the previous book. Not that that's some incredible feat though. But still, I found Nehemiah much more enjoyable, so read on to find out why.

Better Than Ezra:

Okay, so yes, Nehemiah is much better than Ezra. Initially it may be hard to distinguish why that is though. And that's because Nehemiah has the same wonky problems that Ezra has. Let's see, spending most of the book building something? Check. Spending the rest of the book being douchy? Check. Inexplicably switching between first and third person perspective? Big ole check. Seriously, this is almost the same exact book as Ezra, even down to the antisemites trying to stop the Jews from building their shit. Hell, Ezra even shows up out of nowhere half way through to read the Law of Moses. So how in the world is Nehemiah so much better than Ezra? Simply put, Nehemiah is just so much more endearing. Sure it has the same exact flaws that Ezra has, its practically the same book, but the character itself, and what is being built, make the same exact premise so much more engaging.

Okay, so what do I mean by that? First of all, Nehemiah is a far more interesting character than Ezra. Ezra just shows up randomly and starts being a pompous prick. Nehemiah? Nehemiah starts out as King Artaxerxes' cup bearer. Do you know what that is? This cat just carried the king's cup around, and probably had to have an assortment of different wines and sparkly water with him at all times to satisfy his king's every drink whim.

Though I don't think Artaxerxes was a bird.

I imagine him being this little guy just following Antixerxes around with a cup, just waiting for him to call out, "Cup bearer, I thirst!" (Or caw out, harhar, okay I'll stop). I mean that's a shit job. It reminds me of this one job I heard of, it was a friend of my sister's I believe. Anyway, this rich dude had a dish of Reese's cups (or something similar) in every room in his house, and he would just eat them out of the dish and throw the wrappers on the floor. And it was some guy's job to come behind him and pick up the wrappers. Can you imagine having that job? Can you imagine being so rich that you can just hire someone to pick up your candy wrappers off the floor? Anyway, Nehemiah following the bird king around with his poor little cup reminds me of that guy.

So anyway, Nehemiah spends his days happily carrying Notxerxes' cup around the palace in Persia. Though  many Jews, possibly most Jews, had moved back to Israel by this point, Nehemiah is completely content, not having any aspirations or any reason to want to leave. I mean sure, carrying a cup around all day is a boring and pointless job, but it's also easy and low stress. He hasn't dreamed of better, or more, because he hasn't had need to. That is until a relation comes back to Persia from Israel for a visit. The two of them stay up drinking wine and talking. The relation wont shut up about how great Israel is now, what with the new temple and no foreign wives. Nehemiah isn't all that impressed, in fact he's a little bored, and the no foreign wives thing? Well he's had his eye on this Persian girl for some time now, she was the the queen's sandal strapper. Really, there was only one thing Nehemiah was interested in, something he had heard stories about, something that had fascinated him since he was a child.
"So, have you gone to see the wall of Jerusalem?" he asks when there's finally a lull in the conversation.
"Oh God no," says his boring relation, "that wall is in complete ruins, and has been for some time now."

This is what we call a turning point. Nehemiah, a hapless generation x-er (before that was even a thing) with no prospects or even motivation for something better, is overcome with sadness. He becomes obsessed with this wall, honestly he was always fascinated by it, it always called to him, tickled his interest, and hearing that it was in ruins? It destroyed the image he had of his heritage. See, he always believed that even in the Jews' absence that Israel stayed pretty much intact. But if the wall of Jerusalem could fall, arguably the coolest thing in Israel, then the whole country must be in shambles, his whole history in ruins. He felt an intense melancholy over this, and more importantly, for the first time in his life he felt the need to do something about it. He felt called to be the man to repair the wall of Jerusalem.

Surprisingly, King Neoxerxes agrees with Nehemiah and allows him to run off and repair a wall. Or, maybe it's not all that surprising if you believe God is behind all this, which yeah okay, this is the Bible after all. And here we are, the majority of this book is building this wall, and my goodness, what a wall it is. I wasn't just playing when I said that this wall was arguably the coolest thing in Israel. Seriously, it really is. You get the first hint that something is different when Nehemiah first rides out one night to take a look at the it, "By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool (2:13-14)."

Wait, what the fuck? This wall had a dung gate? Is that like just a gate that leads to dung? Or is it like a gate that's shaped like a big dookie pile? Or ... gulp ... a gate made out of dung? Yikes. Unfortunately the Bible doesn't go into details. But yeah, Dung Gate, and that's not all, this wall has tons of cool gates and other crazy shit. We've already met the valley, dung, and fountain gates, but there was also a sheep gate (3:1), a fish gate (3:3), a water gate (3:26), a horse gate (3:28), and an inspection gate (3:31), not to mention the boring old directional gates, i.e. the east gate. And not only did this wall have the coolest fucking assortment of gates I've ever heard of, it also had tons of cool shit nearby the wall, or attached to it that needed repairing too. Like the House of Heroes (whatever that is (3:16)), the Tower of the Hundred (not sure what that is either (3:1)), and the Tower of Ovens (3:11). That's right, they had a tower made of fucking ovens, beat that other walls.

I'm serious guys, this is the coolest wall I've ever heard of, Jerusalem is like some badass ancient amusement park. I can see why Nehemiah was so obsessed with it, hell I'm getting pretty damn excited about it myself. In fact, I'm so excited about the Wall of Jerusalem that, submitted for your approval, is an "artist's" rendering (done by yours truly) of this badass wall.

Far too excited (click for embiggening).

Yeah I know ... sorry. Seriously though, Dung Gate.

So, like I said earlier, Nehemiah and his chums repair all this stuff, and just like in Ezra, they're met with opposition by a bunch of antisemitic dickheads that want to keep them from rebuilding the coolest wall in all of creation. Seriously, who wouldn't want this wall built? I just can't understand that. But unlike the pussies back in Ezra, where it was just letters going back and forth, and they stopped building the temple because they were told to, Nehemiah isn't having any of that shit. Nope, some assholes want to stop him from building the greatest wall on earth? Fine, we'll just kill anyone that tries to stop us. So everyone building the wall was given a sword, and guards were positioned around the camps at night. Even when they're rebuilding the wall they're wearing their swords on their belts. This wall is worth killing for, and worth dying for. And that pretty much stopped their opposition in its tracks. When you have to risk your life, or hell, do more than just write a letter to the king, that tends to take the wind out of your dickish sails.

So what else is Nehemiah known for? You know, other than building the greatest wall known to man. Well, he proves he's a friend of the little man while he's at it. See, he learns that the governor types around Judah are over taxing the rest of the Israelites, basically stealing all their gold and cattle and whatnot, all in the name of greed. Again, Nehemiah isn't going to have any of this, he calls all the governors in, sits them down, and by the time they leave they're all teary eyed, saying how wrong they were and how happy they'd be to give back all the ill-gotten taxes they basically stole. I imagine Nehemiah's friend Bruce had something to do with it.

Say "Hello" Bruce.

Wouldn't you agree? So let's see what else happens in Nehemiah? Well he puts a stop to people selling things on Sundays. Aw great, so I have you to blame for that shit huh? All I wanted was some damn Cick-fil-a on a Sunday, but nooo, you've gotta be closed on the Sabbath. Thanks Nehemiah. Thanks.

Oh, also, Ezra shows up and reads the book of the law, and they dedicate the temple and whatnot, which sounds familiar. Hm, do Ezra and Nehemiah happen at about the same time? Interesting question, now I imagine the two getting together over dinner to discuss their projects. "Oh yeah, that temple sounds real cute Ezra, but yesterday I put the finishing touches on the Dung Gate. That's right Ezra, I said Dung Gate." Speaking of Ezra, like I said before, Nehemiah is a much much better book, and yet, as you can probably tell, is very similar (Which I also said before, but hey, now you know for sure). I feel like these two books could be read side by side in a fiction class to exemplify how practically the same story can improve tenfold with just some minor changes. Hell, even with the same wonky flaws, Nehemiah is a vast improvement over Ezra. I guess when your main character has a semblance of back story, and the thing he's building is badass, your story automatically improves. It makes sense, and I suppose Nehemiah has the luck of being read immediately after (and thus is immediately compared to) Ezra. Is it very difficult to be better than Ezra? Nah, but it's certainly a move in the right direction. Until next time dear readers.

Dung gate.