The First Example of Expository Preaching

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

“They read from the book, from the law of God, explaining and giving insight, and they provided understanding of the reading.”(Nehemiah 8:8)

This text is the heart of a powerful passage in which the devout priest Ezra leads his Jerusalem congregation of returned exiles in the reading and explaining some important passages from the Hebrew Torah. The previous book, which goes by the name of this great man, describes Ezra as follows. “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of Yahweh and to practice it, and to teach His statute and judgment in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10 LSB). He taught what he had first lived, and what he lived, he first learned from the Scriptures. He deliberately put study, conduct, and teaching in the proper order. His study was saved from unreality, his conduct was rescued from uncertainty, and his teaching avoided insincerity and shallowness. So now, in the Nehemiah passage, we see Ezra doing what he had previously set his heart to, that is, to teach the Torah to his beloved “congregation” in the open air of Jerusalem. 

But what did his assisting priests do with the Word that was read?

In the original text quoted from Nehemiah 8:8, the key verb is the Hebrew word parash, which means “explain” or “give understanding.” Here, our translation differs from some versions, which render the verb as “translate.” Thus, this chapter has sometimes been viewed as an example of the Levites translating the Biblical Hebrew into the popular Aramaic language so the common people could understand the meaning. However, there is reason to question the idea that these Levites were translating. That is because another verb that occurs in the “sister” book to Nehemiah. In Ezra 4:7, the verb for “translate” is tirgem, which appears there to refer to a letter translated from Aramaic into Persian. The prominent later word “Targum” refers to the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic and is derived from that verb.

One should also note that the two ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint and the Vulgate, also render the verb as “explain” and not as “translate.” They understood the difference between translation and explanation. There is also a note in the NET Bible defending the words as describing an explanation, not a translation.

So what does this dramatic scene set inside ancient Jerusalem (Nehemiah 8:1) convey to us about the ministry of preaching in our modern “church world?” 

Derek Kidner reminds us: “The whole occasion emphasizes the clarity and candour of God’s dealings with his people, and, not least, the contrast drawn elsewhere between his ministers and ‘the mediums and the wizards who chirp and mutter’ (cf. Isa. 8:19f.).” 

This vivid drama in Nehemiah 8 is a beautiful example of Biblical texts being publicly read and carefully explained to the eager hearers. There are examples of the public reading of the Torah in earlier Biblical texts, such as Exodus 24, Deuteronomy 32, and Joshua 24. This event, however, is the first clear example of a Torah reading accompanied by an explanation. Thus, it appears to be the first example in the Bible of what today we call “expository preaching.”

Dear ministers of the Word, we do not have to be modern incarnations of a Charles Spurgeon or a Martyn Lloyd-Jones. We do not know how powerful were the elocutionary skills of Ezra, but rather, it appears to me that the sense of the passage in Nehemiah was not about his amazing elocution but his faithful exposition. May we, like Ezra, faithfully teach God’s statutes and judgments in our modern “Jerusalems.”

©2023, 2025 William Varner. Used with permission.