Dear RTB’ers,
If today’s reading seems familiar, go back to Ezra 2 and you’ll see the same listing, almost identical. Why two listing in what was originally one Ezra-Nehemiah text? We don’t know – but what we do know is that the Lord God knew each one of His people by name, by ancestry, by town. A song that we sing at church comes to mind, “He knows my name”:
I have a Maker
Tommy Walker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands
He knows my name
He knows my every thought
And He’s seen each tear that falls
And hears me when I call
Two verses surprised me: The city was wide and large, but the people within it were few, and no houses had been rebuilt. … and all Israel, lived in their towns. And when the seventh month had come, the people of Israel were in their towns. (vv. 4, 73b) Earlier we had seen that Jewish people in the surrounding towns had come to Jerusalem to help rebuild the wall. Now we find out that Jerusalem, itself, is relatively uninhabited. The people would rather live in rural areas (where they could grow their own food?) than have a shut-up feeling in Jerusalem. Took me by surprise… What’s your take? Why would the people rather live in the nearby towns than in the city?
Blessings.
That is surprising Fred. They must’ve felt secure against attack at that time.
Security would be my guess. Maybe a city would have much more to offer in the way of goods, money, food, etc. for an attacking army than a small, rural village.
Thanks for the comments, Dick and Bruce.
So, what’s more secure – inside Jerusalem’s walls with only a few inhabitants to guard against attack or in the rural areas where invading armies might bypass (or destroy!!) ? Good question…!
I think Fred actually answered this question with his parenthetical question in the original post: food. In all of this we need to imagine life in Judah 2,500 years ago without our modern first-world wealth, conveniences, and supply chains. Remember that the entire country, especially Jerusalem, lies utterly devastated and that the population is exceedingly sparse. A city is not sustainable by itself; it needs to draw upon the resources of the surrounding area for food. That food does not just appear out of nowhere at the grocery store; it needs to be produced by someone. Hence, for the people to survive and for any of this to function at all, most of the population simply must reside on farms. In case of violent attack, the people might well seek the shelter of the city’s walls and then hope that the city not come under sustained siege, because a siege would lead to starvation due to limited food supplies within those walls.
Very little of this has to do with one’s preferred “urban vs. rural” lifestyle; it is almost entirely a matter of basic survival.