Last time around we were talking about some brilliant payoffs in the book of Nehemiah.

Both the guy and the book named after him are really, really good at this.

Just some great stuff at the end of the story part the narrative

part of the Old Testament is happening here where there are points of tension that

the reader who just went through the whole Bible is going to be feeling as you get to the end of this chunk

and Nehemiah is doing a great job of coming back to several of those points and being like, hey,

if you remember that this was hanging out there here's a payoff on that and if you

contrast this thing right here with this thing that happened back here a little

ways it's gonna feel a lot more complete like we've got more direction now here with this payoff

that we're getting. And I'm being a little bit coy about it because I want to explain the whole

thing here in just a minute. So if you haven't listened to the last episode that's the first half of this conversation,

maybe go catch that or maybe don't because it's the internet and do whatever you want.

And then we're just gonna jump in with where we left off last time around right now.

I'll have my buddy Jeff play some music and we'll get after it. So we see that hint of it way back there, but then we see that nodded to again in

Nehemiah Chapter 8 when the reading of the law occurs again a direct echo of

Joshua chapter 8 that says okay they're gathered they're around the water gate

he read it allowed Nehemia 83 from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the watergate in the presence of the men.

Okay, obviously, it's an ancient document. Of course the men are going to be mentioned, but also women and others who could understand.

And all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

The text goes out of the way to say that women and presumably the children and really anybody who was old enough or capable of understanding the language,

was there, and they were a part of the thing, and it mattered.

The end of this reading of the law, passage in Nehemia 8, verse 8.

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