Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we finished our 37th and 38th books of the Bible.

When Chapter 11 opens today, we zoom in on some real estate details.

The leaders live in Jerusalem, but they need some other people to live

there too, otherwise who's going to open all the Starbucks on every street corner?

Actually it probably has more to do with keeping a strong military presence in the

city, but soldiers need coffee.

Okay, moving on.

So they have a lottery and 10% of the people are chosen to move to the city while some others

go voluntarily.

All in all, about 3,000 men are counted as living in Jerusalem at this point.

But the total population is probably around two to three times that amount,

since Nehemiah's count doesn't appear to include people who can't serve in the military.

The other 90% of the population lives in the surrounding towns and villages.

After everybody gets unpacked, Nehemiah holds a grand opening ceremony to dedicate the

newly finished wall. The Levites and priests and singers all gather for the huge

event singing and praising God and one of the seemingly insignificant details

listed in this passage recently served a huge purpose. 1237 says at the fountain gate they went up straight before

them by the stairs of the city of David at the ascent of the wall above the house

of David to the water gate on the east. When we read that passage today it's easy to be like

blah blah blah get on to the good stuff. But little things like this that our eyes and ears

fly past have made significant impact on recovering the history of ancient

...