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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 371. Nehemiah
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Literature
Alford, B. H., Old Testament History and Literature (1910), 204, 215.
Batten, L. W., Ezra and Nehemiah (International Critical Commentary) (1913).
Driver, S. R., Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1909), 516.
Foakes-Jackson, F. J., The Biblical History of the Hebrews (1903), 352.
Hunter, P. H., After the Exile, ii. (1890) 99.
Keil, C. F., Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
Kent, C. F., A History of the Jewish People, i. (1899) 167, 182.
Kent, C. F., The Makers and Teachers of Judaism (1911) 104.
Maclaren, A., Expositions: 2 Kings viii. to Nehemiah (1907), 326.
Milligan, G., in Men of the Old Testament: Solomon to Jonah (1904), 157.
Ottley, R. L., A Short History of the Hebrews (1901), 237.
Peabody, A. P., King's Chapel Sermons (1891), 143.
Ritchie, W., Life for God exemplified in Nehemiah (1861).
Ryle, H. E., Ezra and Nehemiah (Cambridge Bible) (1893).
Sanders, F. K., and Kent, C. F., The Messages of the Later Prophets (1899), 265.
Sayce, A. H., An Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (1885).
Stanley, A. P., Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, iii. (1889) 101.
Wade, G. W., Old Testament History (1901), 479.
Wharton, M. B., Famous Men of the Old Testament (1903), 319.
Whitham, A. R., Old Testament History (1912), 399.
Whyte, A., Bible Characters: Ahithophel to Nehemiah (1899), 231.
Wilkes, H., The Bright and Morning Star (1889), 86.
Wilson, J. M., Rochdale Sermons (1894), 129.
Christian World Pulpit, lxxxiv. (1913) 377 (N. H. Marshall).
Dictionary of the Bible, iii. (1900) 507 (L. W. Batten).
I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.- Neh_6:3.
2. Nehemiah, then, one of the Jewish captives, had risen to the high position of cup-bearer to the Persian monarch, Artaxerxes. To him there came one day, while the Persian court was at its winter residence of Susa, his brother Hanani and certain other Jews, on a pilgrimage from Jerusalem. Nehemiah eagerly questioned them about the condition of the city and of the people who with Ezra had been struggling to rebuild the State. Their report was most depressing to the patriot: “The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach; the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.” When Nehemiah heard the bad news he “sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.” His prayer acknowledges the sins of the Jewish people, but calls upon God to fulfil His promise in view of the repentance of the people, and to “grant his servant mercy before this man,” i.e., the king.
3. This was in the month Chisleu, or November, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. Five months later it was Nehemiah's turn to hand the king his wine, the queen Damaspia sitting by, and Artaxerxes noticed that he looked dejected and distressed. He asked accordingly what was the matter with him, and Nehemiah, after an inward prayer to God, told the reason, and asked permission to visit Jerusalem and rebuild its walls.
At heart the Persian courtier was a Jewish patriot. Patriotism is the most prominent principle in his conduct. Deeper considerations emerge later, especially after he has come under the influence of an enthusiastic religious teacher in the person of Ezra. But at first it is the city of his fathers that moves his heart. He was evidently a favourite with the king and had brilliant prospects, but the ruins of Zion were more attractive to him than the splendours of Shushan, and he willingly flung away his chances of a great career to take his share of “affliction and reproach.” He has never had justice done him in popular estimation. He is not one of the well-known Biblical examples of heroic self-abandonment; but he did just what Moses did, and the eulogium of the Epistle to the Hebrews fits him as well as the lawgiver; for he too chose rather to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy pleasures for a season. Nehemiah stands out in the history of Judaism as the first great layman who freely sacrificed himself in the cause of his religion and his country.
4. The permission was granted. There were probably reasons of State inclining Artaxerxes to favour Nehemiah's project. It would accord with the interests of Persia, which had suffered both in the Egyptian revolt and from the high-handed conduct of Megabyzos, satrap of Syria, to possess a fortress lying between the two disaffected districts. So Nehemiah was granted an escort for the journey, together with letters to the authorities of the Trans-Euphratic province. These gave him the right to take timber out of the king's forest for the wall, for “the castle which appertaineth to the house,” and for the governor's own residence. The arduous journey of fifteen hundred miles over mountains and barren deserts was enough to daunt a man reared in the luxury of an Oriental court, but Nehemiah was inspired by an ideal of service which recognized no obstacles.
“The more I advance in life,” says De Tocqueville, “the more I see it in the light which I at one time attributed to the enthusiasm of youth; as a thing in itself of small account, valuable only so far as used in the fulfilment of duty, in the service of mankind, and in taking up one's place in their ranks. In the midst of my greatest troubles I find in these thoughts the spring which lifts up my heart.” In a truly deep-thinking man there is thus the feeling that life is given for a higher end than the culture of the individual (the Goethe idea)-that it is a service. And if a service, then it cannot simply be for humanity in general, for the end that is not in the unit cannot be in the mass. It must be in God.1 [Note: John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 206.]
2. Nehemiah spent three days in Jerusalem without daring to hint at his purpose, or even to arouse suspicions by being seen to examine the defences of the city. He tells us how he made a circuit of the city by night, riding on his mule round the ruined walls; how he found the ravine of the Kidron so entirely choked with masses of rubbish that there was no place for the beast that was under him to pass; how he followed the course of the torrent northwards, surveying the scene of desolation, and finally returned to the gate of the valley, whence he had started. Without delay he appealed to the patriotism of the inhabitants: “Ye see the evil case that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.” The answer to his appeal was immediate: “Let us rise up and build.”
It is impossible to tell how extensive the damage to the walls was. The word used by Nehemiah in Neh_1:3 and Neh_2:13 implies that there were only breaches to repair; but these were evidently of wide extent. Nehemiah's plans for the work bear witness to his sagacity, his skill in organization, and his dexterous management of men. He enlisted all members of the community both within and without Jerusalem. He organized them under their local leaders and set them to the task in which each was most interested. We read of five cases in which men were working at the breaches close by their own dwellings. Thus the heads of the different villages, the elders of the leading families, the guilds of workmen, and even the priests, were all put to work and were inspired by the spirit of natural rivalry as well as common loyalty. Nehemiah himself with his immediate followers directed the work, and instituted a strict military rule which secured both efficiency and protection.
Nehemiah's Memoirs reveal a strong personality, full of piety towards God and his people, with a power both of sincere prayer and the persuading of men. Without Isaiah's vision or Jeremiah's later patience, Nehemiah fulfils the prophetic ideal of the ruler, whose chief signs shall be that he draws breath in the fear of the Lord, that he defends the cause of the poor, that he has gifts of persuasion and inspiration, that he is quick to distinguish between the worthy and the evil, and that he does not spare the evil in their way. Nehemiah is everywhere dependent upon God, and conscious “of the good hand of his God upon him.” He has the strong man's power of keeping things to himself, but when the right moment comes he can (unlike Ezra) persuade and lift the people to their work. He has a keen discernment of character and motive. He is intolerant of the indulgent, the compromising and the lazy, even when they are nobles-who, as he expresses it, “put not their necks to the work of the Lord.” In the preparations for his mission and its first stages at Jerusalem he is thoroughly practical. In his account of his building he proves himself careful and true to detail. As he becomes familiar with the conditions on which he has been called to act, and gradually realizes how much he must do beyond the mere building of walls, the growth of his sense of the grandeur of his work is very beautiful.1 [Note: G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 341.]
3. Some serious difficulties had to be met, however, before all the breaches could be closed. The opposition to Nehemiah's measures, which had been gradually increasing, assumed active shape. The centre of opposition was the same as before-the city of mixed population, Samaria. Its leader was a man with the Assyrian name of Sanballat, and he had attached to himself two others who represented old enemies of Israel-Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian, possibly of the stock of Edom, now settled in the South country. These three “adversaries” at first ridiculed the rising wall as mere “stones out of the heaps of rubbish,” too feeble to resist the push of a night-wandering jackal; but when it had reached half its destined height their attitude changed. Then they gained over the Philistines of Ashdod on the West, so that four allied tribes formed a menacing circle round about Jerusalem. Trouble at the same time came upon Nehemiah from within. Scarcity of provisions and high prices caused the poor to remonstrate. They threatened that, if corn were not given them, they would break open the granaries and take it. Many had pledged their children for debt, and these were sold as slaves. The wealthier classes had taken advantage of the necessity of the poor. Nehemiah was justly angry, and promptly summoned the offenders before a public meeting. He reviewed his own generous course, and appealed to them to be liberal, restoring the mortgaged land, and remitting a part of the debt which the people were unable to pay. It is pleasant to know that his request was responded to cordially; and the people took an oath to execute their pledge.
Nehemiah himself was undaunted and untiring; he prayed to God, and appealed to patriotism; he also set well-armed sentinels who watched in relays to prevent desertion and to repel attack. Even when the immediate fear was over, he had every one of his workmen furnished with a sword, while he himself went the rounds attended by a trumpeter to call to arms in case of alarm. His instructions were that none should lodge outside the gates, and none go without his weapon to the water; neither he nor any one of his retinue put off his clothes at night. Such vigilance met with its reward. The allies dared not attack openly, but, baffled, they tried what deceit could do. Their various attempts to hinder the work, or to remove Nehemiah, are described by him in a manner that is almost amusing. They withdrew to the plain of Ono, nearly thirty miles distant from Jerusalem, and five times endeavoured to entice him to meet them there, alleging that a report was being spread that he had hired prophets to proclaim him king, and that it would be advisable for the Jewish governor to confer with his Samaritan colleague as to the best means of contradicting it. To each message Nehemiah returned the memorable answer: “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down; why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?”
On the fifth occasion, finding that his former messages were unheeded, Sanballat sent an open letter, the contents of which would necessarily be generally known, while Tobiah corresponded with “the nobles of Judah,” with whom he was allied by marriage, and the prophetess Noadiah, like some of the other prophets, and a certain Shemaiah, were “hired” to put Nehemiah in fear. Shemaiah urged the governor to take refuge in the Temple, as his life was in danger. To have done this would have effectually injured Nehemiah's influence. He saw through the plot, and gave a dignified reply-“Should such a man as I flee? and who is there, that, being such as I, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.”
Proof against treachery and fear, the stout-hearted ruler of the Jews persevered, until after fifty-two days of continuous effort Jerusalem stood safe within her new defences. That he succeeded in the face of all these obstacles in rebuilding the walls in this incredibly short period is explained only by his superlative skill, devotion, and energy.
The completion of the circuit of the walls of Jerusalem testifies to the admirable organizing power of Nehemiah, his tact in putting the right men in the right places-the most important and difficult duty of a leader of men-and his perseverance in overcoming the obstacles and objections that must have been thrust in his path-all of them what people call secular qualities, yet all sustained and perfected by a noble zeal and by that transparent unselfishness which is the most powerful solvent of the selfishness of other people. There are more moral qualities involved in the art of organization than they would suppose who regard it as a hard, mechanical contrivance in which human beings are treated like parts of a machine. The highest form of organization is never attained in that brutal manner. Directly we approach men as persons endowed with rights, convictions, and feelings, an element of sympathy is called for which makes the organizing process a much more delicate concern.1 [Note: W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, 214.]
4. Apparently Nehemiah's original leave of absence was for but a short period. He accordingly placed his kinsman Hanani, who had headed the original deputation to Susa, and a certain Hananiah in charge of the city. To protect it against sudden attack its gates were closed at night and not opened until the middle of the following forenoon. Effective measures were also instituted to increase its population.
The completion of the walls was celebrated with a great dedication service. Walls and gates and people were purified, and two processions were formed to move around the circuit of the walls in opposite directions, Ezra at the head of one company, and Nehemiah of the other, until they met near the Temple, where the ceremonies of thanksgiving and dedication culminated in sacrifices and rejoicings. Appointments were also made for the proper observance of the Temple rites. These things being completed, Jerusalem being once more a city without reproach, social and religious order being well established, and Nehemiah's leave of absence expiring, he returned to the court of Persia.
He had reorganized the Judæan community, rebuilt their walls, and inspired them with a new sense of self-respect; thus he made possible that genuine revival of the Judæan State which took place during the succeeding centuries. Like Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah, and the II Isaiah, Nehemiah was indeed one of the makers of Judaism. Ben Sira with true insight declared:
“The memorial of Nehemiah is great,
Who raised up for us the walls that were fallen,
And set up the gates and bars,
And raised up our homes again.”
If any young minister should be ordained, like Nehemiah, over such a congregation as Jerusalem was in that day; if he finds the gates thereof burned with fire, and the walls laid waste, and the whole house of God in reproach round about; let him read the Book of Nehemiah till he has it by heart. Let him view the wreck and ruin on his arrival as the young cup-bearer did. Let him say nothing to any man. Only let him rise up in the King's name and build. Let him come to the King's quarries for stone, and to the King's forests for timber. The good hand of his God being upon him, let him preach his very best to his long-starved people every Sabbath morning; and better and better every year he lives. Let him visit his long-neglected people night and day. Let him be like Samuel Rutherford in as small a church as was in Scotland in that day, and now and for ever as famous. Let him be his people's boast. Let him be always in his study, always at their sickbeds, always preaching, always praying.1 [Note: A. Whyte.]
It is highly probable that the report of these evils impelled Nehemiah's return. When he arrived he set about the necessary reforms with characteristic vigour. Tobiah's belongings were cast out of the Temple chamber, and it was restored to its sacred uses. The people were compelled to pay the tithe for the support of the Levites and other Temple officers. The city gates were ordered to be closed during the whole of the Sabbath; the vendors who then set up their stalls outside of the gates were threatened so that they were afraid to renew the offence. The men with foreign wives suffered disgrace and punishment, and the people were put under oath to discontinue this violation of the Law. The arch-offender, Eliashib's grandson, was banished from Jerusalem.
If sometimes his loneliness made Nehemiah too suspicious of his opponents or of his own people, this was but the defect of his qualities or inevitable in the atmosphere of intrigue that he had to breathe. To be able to criticise the personal violence which he confesses, “his smiting of some” of those who had married foreign wives, and “his plucking of their hair,” we would need to have stood by him through all his troubles. The surmise is reasonable that such extreme measures may have been best for the lax and self-indulgent among his contemporaries; with Orientals, treatment of this kind from a man whom they trust or fear oftener enhances respect than induces resentment. By the followers of Him who in that same desecrated city overturned the tables of the money-changers, and scourged with a scourge of cords, much may be forgiven to an anger which is not roused by selfish disappointments or the sense of weakness, but by sins against national ideals, and which means expense to him who displays it. Anger is often selfish, but may also be one of the purest and most costly forms of self-sacrifice. The disciples, who saw the exhaustion to which it put our Lord, said of Him, “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” Had we been present with this lonely governor, aware of the poorness of the best of the material he had to work with, and conscious, as we are to-day, of the age-long issues of his action, we might be ready to accord to his passion the same character of devotion and self-sacrifice. Such an “Apologia pro Nehemiâ” is necessary in face of recent criticisms on his conduct, all the materials for which have been supplied by his own candour. One of not the least faults of a merely academic criticism is that it never appeals to Christian standards except when it would disparage the men of the Old Testament, who at least understood as we cannot the practical conditions and ethical issues of the situations on which God set them to Act_1:1-26 [Note: G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 342.]
2. With the prayer, “Remember me, O my God, for good,” Nehemiah's record ceases, and he himself disappears, a man of singular honesty and directness of purpose, of high courage and simple piety. The value of his bits of autobiography lies chiefly in what he reveals of the workings of his own heart. He is a man very much like ourselves. He is obviously anxious that God shall be good to him. Quite humanly he sets down in his journal, after the account of any successful piece of work that he has done, the naïve prayer that God will reward him and punish his enemies. He is a man with very obvious failings alongside of his unusual devotion and ability. But the thing that strikes us most of all is his habit of constant prayer and of consulting God about every part of his business life. He lived in an age when religion was very formal. There were people specially trained to pray, whose peculiar privilege it was to go directly into the presence of God-the priests. But Nehemiah never waited for the priests. He offered his own prayers. He was a business man whose whole life was steeped in prayer.
Nehemiah rendered a great service to his people, and its effect was more enduring than that of Ezra. He had this great advantage over Ezra, that his powers were purely secular, and exactly defined. The title of Chief Judge was ambiguous; it might mean anything or nothing. The title of Pekhah was perfectly clear. As civil governor, Nehemiah could go about his work without stirring up the embers of controversy or invading the privileges of caste. He could appeal to public spirit without raising sectional animosities. And he had this further and very decided advantage over Ezra, that he was a man of the world, accustomed to deal with men; deeply pious, but no bigot; very much in earnest, but no pedant; one who understood the art of conciliation, who had the fine tact, the savoir faire, the sympathetic and persuasive power, from the want of which Ezra's difficulties had in no small measure arisen.
Sometimes men of great strength of will and purpose possess also in a high degree the gift of tact; and when this is combined with soundness of judgment it usually leads to a success in life out of all proportion to their purely intellectual qualities. In nearly all administrative posts, in all the many fields of labour where the task of man is to govern, manage, or influence others, to adjust or harmonize antagonisms of race or interests or prejudices, to carry through difficult business without friction and by skilful co-operation, this combination of gifts is supremely valuable. It is much more valuable than brilliancy, eloquence, or originality. I remember the comment of a good judge of men on the administration of a great governor who was pre-eminently remarkable for this combination. “He always seemed to gain his point, yet he never appeared to be in antagonism with anyone.” The steady pressure of a firm and consistent will was scarcely felt when it was accompanied by the ready recognition of everything that was good in the argument of another, and by a charm of manner and of temper which seldom failed to disarm opposition and win personal affection.1 [Note: W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life (ed. 1901), 318.]
3. But Nehemiah had done a greater thing than he dreamt of at the time, a greater thing than his rebuilding of the walls, when he brought his illustrious contemporary out of retirement and forced inaction, and lent him all the support of his official authority and personal popularity. The honour shown to Ezra in the proceedings of the dedication day was indeed significant. When Nehemiah first came to Judæa as its governor, he had taken up a neutral position, identifying himself with no party, and striving to reconcile all jealousies and antipathies in a common effort for the commonweal. In this he had only partially succeeded; and the obstacles thrown in his way by the priestly-patrician oligarchy, which had leagued itself with the foreign enemy, had naturally made a deep impression on his mind. This, together with Ezra's influence, had drawn him more and more towards the Puritan party. The dedication day made final and public the breach between Nehemiah and the Zadokite faction. The high priest Eliashib and his partisans took no part in the ceremonial; and that place in the procession which of right belonged to the high priest was given to his rival the scribe. Henceforward Nehemiah was found among the Puritans, in fullest sympathy with their views, and lending them his powerful assistance in the attempt to work out their theory of reform.
4. The combined work of Ezra and Nehemiah constituted a movement which marked a turning-point of deep interest in Jewish history. It laid the foundation-stone of Judaism; it definitely transformed the nation into a congregation or church; it made the Law not merely the basis of civic and social life, but the common possession of each individual Israelite. It was the work of Ezra and Nehemiah to establish and organize a Church, on such principles as would guard Israel's distinctness from the heathen world and preserve its national unity. In the broad fact that the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe the reorganization of the Temple worship and the endeavour of the Jewish leaders to secure a more general faithfulness to the conditions of the Divine covenant, we are to discern the element which gives them a place in the Hagiographa. The instruments whom God raised up to carry His purpose to fulfilment were men who were themselves penetrated by the thought of the blessedness of covenant fellowship with God.
Nehemiah perceived that God's mercy and His covenant go together, that the covenant does not dispense with the need of mercy any more than it forecloses the action of mercy. When the covenant people fall into sin, they cannot claim forgiveness as a right; nor can they ever demand deliverance from trouble on the ground of their pact with God. God does not bargain with His children. A Divine covenant is not a business arrangement, the terms of which can be interpreted like those of a deed of partnership, and put into force by the determinate will of either party. The covenant is, from the first, a gracious Divine promise and dispensation, conditioned by certain requirements to be observed on man's side. Its very existence is a fruit of God's mercy, not an outcome of man's haggling, and its operation is just through the continuance of that mercy. It is true a promise, a sort of pledge, goes with the covenant; but that is a promise of mercy, a pledge of grace. It does not dispense with the mercy of God by converting what would otherwise be an act of pure grace on His part into a right which we possess and act upon of our own sole will. What it does is to afford a channel for the mercy of God, and to assure us of His mercy, which, however, remains mercy throughout.1 [Note: W. F. Adeney, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, 178.]