Nehemiah 8:10-11

Nehemiah was a Jewish man who worked in the palace of King Artaxerxes in Persia. In all the years he worked for the king, Nehemiah had never looked sad. The one day he did, the king asked him what was wrong. Guess who his Queen was who was sitting next to him!?! QUEEN ESTHER! (See Nehemiah 2:6) Nehemiah knew that Jerusalem had been attacked and the walls around the city, which were for protection, were in ruins. That hurt his heart.

The king was willing to let Nehemiah have time off work to go back to Jerusalem to oversee the rebuilding of the wall. Because of Nehemiah’s organization, the wall was rebuilt in 52 days! In Chapter 8, Ezra the scribe, begins reading the Bible to them. He explained what it meant as well. Starting at verse 9, just before what we wrote, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites told them that this was a sacred day, but the people were crying.

They had been listening to the Bible. I think they were emotional because the wall was rebuilt and hearing God’s Word sometimes makes us cry. It could have been that they felt bad for not living like the Bible said. But it could also be the fact that they were happy.

Let's get to what our topic is, verse 10 says, “the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Being strong and having strength is usually attributed to our physical body. I think this is about our emotions. While we aren’t sure if people were happy or sad, we know that JOY from the LORD can strengthen us either way!