Nehemiah’s register of all those who returned to Israel updates the one previously prepared by Zerubabbel and Ezra. The land was resettled in three phases over about 50+ years. The three phases are represented by the three groups who returned from Babylon. The group with Zerubabbel came to rebuild the temple. The group with Ezra came to rebuild the city. The group and Nehemiah came to rebuild the wall and the people. The people of all three returns and those born in the process were few. After his final census, Nehemiah says, “The whole assembly together was 42,360.” If you counted all the slaves and servants, there were still less than 50,000.
This is out of millions of Jews who were exiled to Babylon and other spots around the known world. No wonder this is referred to as the “remnant.” Like the more recent resettlement of the Jewish people in their land in 1948, the remnants of Nehemiah’s day were moved by piety, patriotism, and passion to live as independent, free people under the hand of their God. However, most Jewish-born individuals worldwide did not share Nehemiah’s characteristics of piety, patriotism, and passion in Nehemiah’s time or our time. These characteristics are essential because of the opposition that they would face. All the peoples of the land in Nehemiah’s day stood against the reforms of Nehemiah’s Jewish state. So, too, was the case in the latest resettlement. Someone estimated that today, Israel “is a country of 3.8 million in a sea “of 100 million enemies.” This has remained the same for thousands of years. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been at war with their enemies. The world wants peace in the Mideast, but Israel knows that any peace that allows the existence of their enemies will end up with another terroristic attack on Israel’s remnant living in the land.
Israel’s God brings judgment to a people; he never destroys the faithful with the wicked. He always leaves a “remnant.” The concept of a remnant stands for “that part of a population who remained steadfast even though most people rejected the ways of God. The existence of a remnant is always attributed to the goodness of God. You might say, by definition, the remnants are the real people of God. The New Testament calls the universal body of the Church the “remnant chosen by God’s grace” (Roman” 11:5).
As remnants in the land, we should also be characterized by piety, patriotism, and passion for our God.