Weekly Bible Reading – Week 39
We have finally made it! For months, we have walked through the story of Israel. We watched God call Abraham out of Ur, rescue his descendants from Egypt, bring them through the wilderness, establish them in the land, give them kings, discipline them through prophets, scatter them among the nations, and finally bring a remnant home. This week, Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem’s walls. Ezra opens the Scriptures and reads God’s Word to the people. The returned exiles confess their sins and renew the covenant. For a moment, it feels like everything might finally be coming back together. But it isn’t.
By the end of Nehemiah, the people are already breaking the promises they just made. Malachi confronts corrupt priests, faithless worship, broken marriages, and people who have grown cynical about serving God. Israel is back in the land, Jerusalem has walls again, and the temple has been rebuilt—but the great problem of the Old Testament has not been solved. Israel did not merely need a better city. They needed new hearts. They did not merely need another priest. They needed a perfect Priest. They did not merely need another prophet calling them back to God. They needed the Lord Himself to come to His people.
And then we turn the page. After Malachi, our chronological reading takes us into the opening chapters of the Gospels. Luke begins announcing miraculous births. John takes us all the way back to the beginning: “In the beginning was the Word.” Matthew introduces us to Jesus as the Son of Abraham and Son of David. Angels sing over Bethlehem. Magi come looking for the King. John the Baptist appears in the wilderness announcing that the kingdom is near. The waiting is over.
Daily Readings
Day 270 – Nehemiah 6-7: The opposition against Nehemiah becomes increasingly desperate as the wall nears completion. Sanballat and Geshem try to lure him away from Jerusalem, false reports are spread about his intentions, and even a supposed prophet attempts to frighten him into compromising his integrity. Nehemiah’s answer is wonderfully simple: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.” Fifty-two days after the work began, the wall is finished, and even Israel’s enemies recognize that this work has been accomplished with the help of God.
But finishing the wall is not the same thing as restoring Jerusalem. Nehemiah now turns his attention from stones to people. The city is large, but its population is small, its houses are not yet rebuilt, and the returned exiles must establish themselves again as the covenant people of God. Chapter 7 therefore gives us another one of those long lists of names that we are tempted to skim. But these names matter. These are families who returned from exile. God did not simply restore a city; He preserved a people. Jerusalem has walls again, but the question hanging over the rest of the story is whether the people inside those walls will be any more faithful than the generations who lived there before.
Day 271 – Nehemiah 8-10: With the wall standing, the attention shifts to the Word of God. The people gather together and ask Ezra to bring out the Book of the Law. From morning until midday, he reads while the people listen. Levites move among the crowd helping them understand what is being read, and as the people begin to comprehend God’s Word, they weep. They are seeing the holiness and faithfulness of God alongside the long history of their own rebellion.
Yet Ezra and Nehemiah tell them not simply to mourn but to rejoice: “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” Their grief leads to worship, celebration, confession, and eventually covenant renewal. Chapter 9 gives us one of Scripture’s great summaries of Israel’s history: God repeatedly shows mercy; Israel repeatedly rebels. Abraham, Egypt, the wilderness, the land, the judges, the kings, and the exile are all interpreted through that pattern. Chapter 10 then sounds wonderfully hopeful as the people recommit themselves to obedience. Surely after everything they have experienced, this generation will finally get it right… Hold onto that hope as you read, because Nehemiah is going to show us just how deeply Israel’s problem runs.
Day 272 – Nehemiah 11-13; Psalm 126: Jerusalem is repopulated, the wall is dedicated, and the city erupts in celebration. Two great choirs march along the wall until their songs of thanksgiving can be heard far away. This is the sort of ending we expect after the long tragedy of exile: God’s people are home, Jerusalem has been rebuilt, worship has been restored, and the people have renewed their covenant with the LORD. Psalm 126 captures the joy beautifully: “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” Then comes Nehemiah 13.
After being away from Jerusalem for a time, Nehemiah returns and discovers that the people have already begun slipping back into the very sins they promised to abandon. Tobiah has been given a room in the temple courts. The Levites have been neglected. The Sabbath is being violated. The people are again marrying among the surrounding nations. Nehemiah cleanses, confronts, rebukes, and reforms, but the book ends with him still trying to hold everything together. The walls have been repaired, but the human heart has not. The exile is technically over, yet Israel is still waiting for the deeper restoration promised by the prophets.
Day 273 – Malachi 1-4: Malachi gives us the final prophetic word of the Old Testament, and the spiritual condition of the people is sobering. The temple is standing and sacrifices are being offered, but the priests bring God animals they would be embarrassed to offer a human governor. Marriages are treated faithlessly. The people question God’s justice and wonder aloud whether serving Him is even worthwhile. They have returned from Babylon, but returning to the land has not automatically produced wholehearted love for God.
However, Malachi does not end in despair. God promises that He Himself is coming. “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple,” but before His arrival a messenger will prepare the way. Malachi closes with an even more specific promise: before the great and awesome day of the LORD, God will send “Elijah the prophet.” That is where our Old Testament ends, with everyone looking… Someone is coming before the Lord, and then the Lord Himself will come. And then the prophetic voice goes quiet.
Bonus Resource – The Intertestamental Period: Our Bible moves directly from Malachi to Matthew, but centuries of history pass between those pages. Empires rise and fall. Alexander the Great transforms the Mediterranean world. Greek language and culture spread throughout the region. The Jewish people endure persecution under the Seleucids, revolt under the Maccabees, experience a period of Jewish independence, and eventually come under Roman rule. By the time Jesus is born, synagogues, Pharisees, Sadducees, Herod, Rome, and a Greek-speaking Mediterranean world are all waiting for us.
I recorded this special episode walking through that story and showing how the world of Malachi became the world we encounter in the Gospels. If you have time this week, listen to this bonus episode before beginning our New Testament readings.
Day 274 – Luke 1 and John 1: After Malachi’s promise that Elijah would come, Luke introduces us to an elderly priest named Zechariah and his barren wife, Elizabeth. While Zechariah is serving in the temple, Gabriel appears and announces that they will have a son. Listen carefully to how Gabriel describes him: John will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” The thread we dropped at the end of Malachi is immediately picked up again. God has not forgotten His promise. The messenger is coming because the King is close behind.
Then Gabriel goes to Nazareth and announces something even greater to Mary. She will bear the Son of David whose kingdom will never end. Elizabeth’s barren womb and Mary’s virgin womb both testify that salvation will not come through human strength. God is acting. Zechariah finally sings that God has “visited and redeemed his people,” and his newborn son will “go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” John’s Gospel then pulls the camera back even farther. The One coming after John did not begin in Bethlehem. He was with God in the beginning, He was God, and all things were made through Him. The Word through whom creation came into existence has become flesh and come to dwell among us.
Day 275 – Matthew 1 and Luke 2: Matthew begins with a genealogy, but it is anything but filler. Jesus is introduced as the Son of David and the Son of Abraham. The promises we have been following throughout the entire Old Testament are converging on Him. God promised Abraham that through his offspring the nations would be blessed, and He promised David that a son would sit upon his throne. Matthew is telling us before Jesus even speaks a word: this is the One we have been waiting for.
Luke brings us to Bethlehem, the city of David, where Caesar Augustus unknowingly moves the pieces of history so that the promised Son of David will be born exactly where the prophets said He would be. The announcement does not first go to kings or priests but to shepherds keeping watch at night: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Later Simeon takes the infant Jesus into his arms and realizes that he is holding the consolation of Israel: the salvation God has prepared not only for Israel but as a light for the Gentiles. The promises are no longer merely written on scrolls. Simeon is holding them in his arms.
Day 276 – Matthew 2: The arrival of Israel’s King immediately shakes the world around Him. Magi from the east arrive in Jerusalem asking where the King of the Jews has been born. Herod, who wears a crown but has no legitimate claim to David’s throne, is terrified by a Child who does. The religious leaders know enough Scripture to point toward Bethlehem, yet outsiders travel across nations to bow before Jesus. Already Matthew is showing us that this King has come for more than one nation.
The chapter is also saturated with echoes of Israel’s history. Jesus goes down into Egypt and is called back out. A murderous king kills children while God preserves His chosen Son. Rachel is pictured weeping for her children. Matthew wants us to see that the story of Israel is somehow being replayed and gathered up in Jesus. He is the Son, the King, the true Israel, and the fulfillment toward which the old story has been moving. We have crossed into the New Testament, but we have not started a different story. The God who made promises to Abraham, Israel, and David is now keeping those promises in His Son.
Deep Dive – Where is Elijah?
There may be no better way to experience the transition from the Old Testament to the New than simply to read the last few verses of Malachi and then immediately begin Luke. Malachi ends with a promise: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” Then the Old Testament ends.
Imagine living inside that promise. Israel has returned from exile, but the glorious restoration promised by prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel does not seem to have arrived in its fullness. David’s throne is empty. Foreign empires still dominate God’s people. The temple has been rebuilt, but there is no return to the glory days of Solomon. Sin remains. Death remains. The nations have not streamed to Zion. The knowledge of the LORD has not yet covered the earth as the waters cover the sea. So Malachi tells Israel to wait… Before the day of the LORD, Elijah is coming.
That does not necessarily mean Elijah himself must descend from heaven and resume his old ministry. The angel Gabriel explains the promise for us. When he announces John’s birth to Zechariah, he says that John will go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” John will stand in the prophetic tradition of Elijah: confronting sin, calling Israel to repentance, turning hearts back toward God, and preparing a people to meet their King. That makes the location of John’s ministry especially significant. He is not comfortably teaching in Jerusalem. He appears in the wilderness.
The wilderness is where Israel was formed as a people after the exodus. It is the place where God led them, tested them, fed them, and entered covenant with them. The prophets had also used wilderness and exodus language to describe the restoration that God would one day bring. Isaiah had announced, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” Now there is a voice in the wilderness.
John is telling Israel, in effect, that they need another exodus. Being descended from Abraham is not enough. Having Jerusalem is not enough. Having a temple is not enough. Israel itself must repent and prepare to meet the Lord. And this is where the connection becomes astonishing. Malachi does not merely say that Elijah is coming. He says Elijah comes before the day of the LORD. Earlier in the book, God says, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.” Then John appears preparing the way for Jesus. The messenger who prepares the way for Yahweh prepares the way for Jesus. That is an enormous claim about who has arrived.
This is why the opening of Mark will later stitch Malachi and Isaiah together and apply both passages directly to John and Jesus. John is the voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” And the Lord whose way John prepares is Jesus of Nazareth. The long-awaited visitation of Israel’s God has begun. This also helps us understand why John’s message sounds so severe. Christmas cards usually skip over John the Baptist. He does not fit very well beside shepherds, stars, angels, and a baby in a manger. He wears camel’s hair, eats locusts, calls people to repent, and warns that the axe is already laid at the root of the trees.
But if the Lord Himself is coming, preparation matters. John refuses to let Israel greet the Messiah with sentimental excitement while remaining unchanged. The coming of Jesus is wonderful news, but it is not trivial news. The King has arrived. God’s kingdom is breaking into the world. Sin must be confronted. Pride must be abandoned. The people must prepare themselves to receive Him.
And yet John knows that even his ministry cannot accomplish what Israel ultimately needs. “I baptize you with water,” he says, but Someone greater is coming. John can call people to repentance, but Jesus can give them life. John can put people beneath the waters of the Jordan, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. John can point toward the Lamb, but Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
That is the beautiful hinge between our Testaments. The Old Testament does not end because God has finished His work. It ends with a finger pointing forward. Someone is coming… Then John appears, and his whole life becomes another finger pointing beyond himself: There He is.
The story we have spent 273 days reading has been moving toward Jesus all along. The promises to Abraham, the exodus from Egypt, the kingdom of David, the temple, the sacrifices, the prophets, the exile, the return, and even the centuries of waiting have brought us here. The messenger has arrived. Prepare the way of the Lord.