Nehemiah 6

6 : 1 Now it came to pass, when it was reported to Sanballat and Tobiah, and to Geshem the Arabian, and unto the rest of our enemies, that I had builded the wall, and that there was no breach left therein ; (though even unto that time I had not set up the doors in the gates ;) that Sanballat and Geshem sent unto me, saying, Come, let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me mischief. And I sent messengers unto them, saying, 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? And they sent unto me four times after this sort ; and I answered them after the same manner. Then sent Sanballat his servant unto me in like manner the fifth time with an open letter in his hand ; wherein was written, It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel ; for which cause thou buildest the wall : and thou wouldest be their king, according to these words. And thou hast also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah : and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together. Then I sent unto him, saying, There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. For they all would have made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. But now, O God, strengthen thou my hands. And I went unto the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabel, who was shut up ; and he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple : for they will come to slay thee ; yea, in the night will they come to slay thee. And I said, 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. And I discerned, and, lo, God had not sent him : but he pronounced this prophecy against me : and Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. For this cause was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me. Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works, and also the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, that would have put me in fear. So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days. And it came to pass, when all our enemies heard thereof, that all the heathen that were about us feared, and were much cast down in their own eyes : for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God. Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came unto them. For there were many in Judah sworn unto him, because he was the son in law of Shecaniah the son of Arah ; and his son Jehohanan had taken the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah to wife. Also they spake of his good deeds before me, and reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear.

7 : 1 Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the 2 porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed, that I gave my brother Hanani, and Hananiah the governor of the castle, charge over Jerusalem : for he was a faithful man, and 3 feared God above many. And I said unto them, Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun be hot ; and while they stand on guard, let them shut the doors, and bar ye them : and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, every one in his watch, and 4 every one to be over against his house. Now the city was wide and large : but the people 5 were few therein, and the houses were not builded. And my God put into my heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found the book of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and I found written therein :

Verses 6-73 omitted because nearly identical with Ezra 2 : 1-70. Points of variation noted in place.

6 : 1-19. Secret proceedings of Sanballat and his friends to hinder the building of the wall, and their failure. The wall completed.

6 : 1-9. When it was found that Nehemiah’s arrangements for guarding the wall (chap. 4 : 13-23) were such that success was not likely to attend the employment of force by the confederates, and the idea of an assault was therefore given up, recourse was had to artifice and intrigue. First of all, Sanballat sent to propose a meeting between himself, Geshem and Nehemiah in the open country about Ono, twenty-five or thirty miles from Jerusalem, hoping thus to draw him to a distance from his supporters, and intending to “do him a mischief” (verse 2). Nehemiah, who perceived the snare, declined ; but Sanballat persisted, and made four other proposals for conferences, probably varying the place, but all without avail. On the fifth and last occasion the letter sent to Nehemiah was an open one, and taxed him with an intention to rebel and make himself king, an intention which was sure to come to the ears of Artaxerxes, and would bring the Jews into trouble. Nehemiah, however, was not to be intimidated or diverted from his purpose. He protested that the charge made against him was a pure calumny, invented by Sanballat himself, and still declined a conference (verse 8). Hereupon intrigues began between Sanballat and Tobiah, on the one hand, and some of Nehemiah’s subjects, on the other. P. C.

Sanballat and his friends offer a good text from which to preach a sermon on the successive stages in which a feeling of opposition to God’s work develops itself. When Nehemiah came to attempt something for Israel, they disliked it exceedingly. When it was decided to build, they mocked and slandered the builders (2 : 19). When the work was actually begun, they ridiculed it without measure (4 : 1-3).

When it had reached a decided stage of progress, they made serious fight against it (4 : 8). After they failed in this, they continued to work against it by treachery and intrigue (Neh. 6). W. J. B.

3. “The God of heaven, He will prosper us ; therefore we His servants will arise and build,” was the sentiment with which he girded himself to his task ; and it was in this mighty confidence that he prosecuted the work, undismayed by threats, unembarrassed by plots, in nowise disheartened by difficulties or disappointments. His noble steadfastness of resolution was manifest throughout his career. He had counted the cost, he had made up his mind ; his decision was unwavering, and he carried it out with unfaltering energy. There is a surpassing moral grandeur in the reply which he sent to Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of his enemies, when they said to him, “Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono.” He transmitted to them this magnanimous message, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down ; why should the work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you?” It needs only that you should study his history, to perceive how this sublime determination of spirit pervaded the whole of his course. Whatever his hand found to do, he did it with his might ; whatever he resolved to win, he never ceased till he had won it ; whatever he determined to encounter, he never failed to overcome Stowell.

It is a poor eye that does not see something greater than pleasure in the horizon of life. Conscience, duty, righteousness are far loftier things than success, prosperity, pleasure. He who keeps his eye steadily on the prize of his high calling will not easily be seduced by the siren sisters and their enchanting music. It was a splendid answer Nehemiah gave to Sanballat and his people when they would have had him meet them in the plain of Ono: “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.” Let us ever keep in mind the great work of the Christian life, and refuse every solicitation from within as well as from without that would make us let it alone, or be slack in performing it. Enjoyment will come to us in the very act of fulfilling the purpose of life; and when, as is quite legitimate, we “drink of the brook by the way,” the effect will not be to enfeeble and paralyze us, but to brace us for more activity and bring to us the greater success. W. G. B.

6. Sanballat’s servant comes now, the fifth time, with an opened letter importing dangerous intimations, wherein is written, “It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that the Jews think to rebel; for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king.” “It is reported:” and what falsehood may not plead this warrant? What can be more lying than report? “Among the heathen:” and who is more ethnic than Sanballat? What pagan can be worse than a mongrel idolater? “And Gashmu saith it:” “Ask my fellow else.” This Arabian was one of those three heads of all the hostile combination against Jerusalem, against Nehemiah. It would be wide with innocence if enemies might be allowed to accuse. “That the Jews think to rebel:” a stale suggestion, but once powerful. Malice hath learned to miscall all actions. Where the hands cannot be taxed, very thoughts are prejudged: “For which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king.” He was never true Israelite, that hath not passed spiteful slanders and misconstructions. Bp. II.

8,9. They were, no doubt, prepared for his indignant reply to Sanballat—“There are no such things done as thou sayest; but thou feignest them out of thine own heart” (verse 8). But they calculated that the charge which they had made in an open letter would be bruited abroad, would alarm many of Nehemiah’s own adherents, would “weaken his hands” (verse 9), perhaps shake his resolution, and, above all, would raise suspicions with respect to his fidelity in the breast of the Great King. G. R.

9. In the midst of his complaint of their malice, in endeavoring to frighten him, and so weaken his hands, he lifts up his heart to heaven in this short prayer, Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands. It is the great support and relief of good people, that in all their straits and difficulties they have a good God to go to, from whom, by faith and prayer, they may fetch in grace to silence their fears and strengthen their hands, when their enemies are endeavoring to fill them with fears and weaken their hands. When, in our Christian work and warfare, we are entering upon any particular services or conflicts, this is a good prayer for us to put up, “I have such a duty to do, such a temptation to grapple with; now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands.” Christian fortitude will be sharpened by opposition. Every temptation to draw us from our duty should quicken us so much the more to duty and to prayer. H.

10-13. They next resolved to work upon his fears by the instrumentality of his own professed and seeming friends. There was a certain Shemaiah, who claimed to be a Jehovistic prophet, and was allied with other members of the prophetic order, and particularly with a prophetess of repute named Noadiah (verse 14). Sanballat and Tobiah bribed this person (verse 12), and induced him to become their tool and instrument. They bade him assure Nehemiah that a plot existed to assassinate him, and deliver him a solemn message, as from God, that there was one way only by which he could save his life—he must withdraw himself from the work in which he was engaged and secretly take refuge in the Temple building, where alone he could be safe. Shemaiah was probably a priest, and therefore had access to the sacred edifice—he proposed to meet Nehemiah there (verse 10), and suggested that they should close the doors against intruders, and remain in hiding till the danger was past. Noadiah and the other soi-disant prophets made similar representations (verse 14). But again Nehemiah’s constancy and courage withstood the strain to which they were put. Plot or no plot, he would not take the course recommended; he felt that it would be unworthy of him. “Should such a man,” he said, “as I flee?” (verse 11). Can I, the governor, the head of the state, to whom all look for direction, take to flight, leave my post, hide myself? Assuredly not—not even to save my life. And would my life be saved, if I followed the advice tendered me? Would it not rather be forfeited? “Who is there, that, being as I” (i.e., a layman), “would go into the Temple to save his life?” or, “could go into the Temple and live?” Any “stranger,” not of the seed of Aaron, who entered the sanctuary, was by the Law (Num. 18: 7) to be put to death. Thus once more Nehemiah, trusting little to advisers, but much to his own sense of right, by following the plain path of duty avoided the trap set for him. G. R.

Shemaiah’s real design appears to have been not only to disgrace Nehemiah and dishearten the people, when they saw the cowardice of their governor (verse 13), but also to prepare the way for an assault of the enemy on the city when there was no leader to oppose them. Stackhouse.—His design was not to serve but to ensnare Nehemiah; to shake his strong confidence in the protection of God, and beguile him into doubtful and dastardly expedients; that so the hands of the workmen might be weakened in their work, and the enemies of Israel have occasion to reproach the leader of the people, as having been entangled like a bird in the snare of the fowler. But holy courage has always heavenly wisdom for her companion. Nehemiah, therefore, penetrating the hypocrisy of the tempter, and lending no fond ear to the whispers of a faithless expediency, answered with sublime serenity, “Should such a man as I flee? and who is there that, being as I am, would go into the Temple to save his life? I will not go in.” Stowell.

And what if Nehemiah had hearkened to this counsel? Sin and shame had followed. That holy place was for none but persons sacred—such as were privileged by blood and function; others should presume and offend in entering. And now what would the people say? “What shall become of us while our governor hides his head for fear? Where shall we find a temple to secure us? What do we depending upon a cowardly leader?” Well did Nehemiah forecast these circumstances, both of act and event; and therefore, resolving to distrust a prophet that persuaded him to the violation of a law, he rejects the motion with scorn: “Should such a man as I flee? Should I go into the Temple to save my life? I will not go.” Bp. II.

Nehemiah was engaged in a great work; his God was with him and gave him success; friends and enemies united against him; by base insinuation, craft and stratagem they strove to dishearten and deter him from going on with God’s work. Opposition is the Christian’s lot; courage his honor; perseverance his jewel. Look at this man of God: he boldly repels all fear. Instead of fleeing from his work as advised, he flees to his God, and cries, “O God, strengthen my hands” (verse 9). Faith inspires prayer; prayer brings courage to the heart; then he boldly demands, Should such a man as I flee? A man so greatly favored, so highly honored as to be employed by God to work for Him? No; I disdain such mean cowardice; I will work on; it is God’s cause; let

Him order the event; I fear it not. Christian, your calling is to work for God; expect opposition from within and without. This may call up fear and dismay; but consider your dignity; maintain and assert it. “Should such a man as I flee?” A man called by the grace of Jesus to resist the devil, to face carnal men, to vanquish sin, to overcome the world, to obtain victory over death and to receive a crown of righteousness in endless glory—shall I flee? What, I who am called to be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus? O my soul, put on Christ and put off fear; put up prayer and put down dread! W. Mason.

14. He does not revengefully imprecate any particular judgment upon his enemies, but refers the matter to God. “Thou knowest their hearts, and art the avenger of falsehood and wrong; take cognizance of this cause, judge between me and them, and take what way and time Thou pleasest to call them to an account for it.” Whatever injuries are done us, we must not avenge ourselves, but commit our cause to Him that judgeth righteously. H.

15. Nehemiah’s vigilance anticipated every difficulty, his prudent measures defeated every obstruction, and with astonishing rapidity Jerusalem was made again “a city fortified.” Jamieson.—The work on the city walls was at length finished joyfully, having occupied fifty-two days—pushed with untiring diligence and the energy of a noble enthusiasm. We shall meet a somewhat extended account of the joyous dedication of these walls below (chap. 12: 27-43). H. C.

Fifty-two days from July 25th would bring him to September 15th, which corresponds, as nearly as may be, to the 25th of Elul. There is no difficulty in supposing that the wall could have been repaired in this space. The materials were ready at hand; the working parties were numerous; the workmen full of zeal. If we estimate the circumference of the wall at four miles, which is probably beyond the truth, and the working parties at forty-two (Ewald), it will follow that each party had, on the average, to repair one hundred and eighty-six yards, or at the rate of between three and four yards a day. There was probably no work done on the Sabbaths, and there may have been one or two days of interruption, when attack seemed imminent (chap. 4: 13-15); but otherwise the work was carried on without pause from early dawn to dark. P. C.

Nehemiah’s narrative is thoroughly consistent with itself, and contains in it nothing that is improbable. He represents the walls as everywhere existing at the time that he commenced his task, and as only needing repairs. He states that the work was partitioned among at least thirty-seven working parties, who labored simultaneously. He shows that the material for repairs was ready at hand in the débris of the walls which lay at their base (2:14; 4:2). He explains how, notwithstanding all menaces, the workmen labored uninterruptedly. There can be no doubt that a dismantled fortress as large as Jerusalem—i.e., less than four miles in circumference, has often been put into a state of defence in a shorter time than fifty-two days.

16. They perceived that this work was wrought of our God. The hand of God was traceable (1) in the favorable disposition of Artaxerxes toward a work on which he might naturally have looked with jealousy (see chap. 1:11; 2:4); and (2) in the failure of all attempts to intimidate or deceive Nehemiah. B. C.

17. During all this time, Nehemiah adds, the stratagems of our professed enemies were not so dangerous as the treachery and baseness of many of our own citizens. Some of these having married into Tobiah’s family (chap. 13:4-9), espoused his interests both secretly and openly, and informed him of all we said and did; so that well might that haughty heathen threaten me with his letters when he knew there were people within our own walls who would second him in all his designs. Pyle.

7:1-69. The entire work being at length accomplished, it devolved upon him to make the necessary arrangements for the security of what had now become a first-rate fortress. Accordingly, he seems himself to have assigned the guard of the gates to certain bodies of Levites (verse 1), as being experienced in the business of keeping watch; after which he committed the task of appointing other guards to his brother Hanani and to a certain Hananiah, already the commandant of the Birah, or Temple tower (verse 2). They devised a system by which the adult male inhabitants were made to partition the watch of the wall among themselves, each on the part which was nearest to his own house (verse 3). At the same time, it was ordered, for greater precaution, that all the gates should be closed at night, and none of them opened “until the sun was hot” (ibid.)—i.e., until some hours after sunrise. The city was thus made as secure as the circumstances admitted; but in the course of the arrangements it became clear, at any rate to Nehemiah, that the population of the city was too scanty for its size (verse 4), and that some steps ought to be taken to augment the number of inhabitants. As a first step, a necessary preliminary before he could lay any definite proposal before the “rulers,” the governor thought it necessary to make a census of the entire people (verse 5). It seems to have been in the course of his preparations for this purpose that he “found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first.” The list in verses 7-69 has been regarded as the result of his own census; but it would seem to be most probable that we have the actual result of Nehemiah’s census, so far as he thought fit to give it to us, in chap. 11:3-36. P. C.

1-3. No sooner were the walls finished, the gate-towers completed and the gates hung in them, than he proceeded to create an organization for the continual defence of the gates and walls by a guard or garrison. To the Levites generally, together with the Temple porters and singers, the special duty of keeping watch and ward continually was assigned (Neh. 7:1); and further, the citizens were required to organize a civil guard, which should come on duty at nightfall, should see the town-gates shut and barred, watch the walls over against their houses, and in the morning see that the gates were not opened too early. In the East it is usual to make sunrise the time for opening; Nehemiah required that the gates of Jerusalem should be kept shut “till the sun was hot” (ibid., verse 3)—i.e., till eight or nine o’clock. This was an extraordinary precaution, intended probably to meet attempts at surprise on the part of Sanballat and his friends, who were regarded as capable of any act, however treacherous, which might seem likely to serve their purpose. Finally, that there might be persons whose duty it should be to see that the system of defence thus inaugurated should be constantly kept up, and not allowed to fall into desuetude, Nehemiah appointed two military commandants to take charge of the town. These were his brother Hanani, who had returned from Susa (Neh. 1:1, 2) to Jerusalem, and a certain Hananiah—“a faithful man, and one who feared God above many” (7:2), who had hitherto been governor of the fortress. G. R.

4-73. This genealogical table of the first company of returning Jews (substantially the same as in Ezra 2) may be brought out here in connection with measures for filling up the city—its population being entirely too sparse for the best interest of the entire colony. We shall see more on this subject in chaps, 11 and

12. H. C.—The increase of the population of the city was a matter of pressing importance; for the ample space within the walls was very sparsely occupied with houses, and thinly inhabited. Before resolving, however, on the steps to be taken, it occurred to Nehemiah (and he regarded the suggestion as from God) to call a general assembly, that he might make a census of the population, as a basis for further measures. The result does not appear until chap. 11. P. C.

5. My God put into mine heart.** As Nehemiah contemplated the vast empty spaces within the city walls, and considered with himself how they might best be peopled, the thought came to him—and he hailed it as a Divine inspiration—that by taking a census of the people he might pave the way for some transfer of the inhabitants of the country districts into the capital, which would at any rate strengthen the latter, and lessen the desolate appearance of its streets and squares, which had so pained him. The census would show what proportion the country and town populations bore to each other, and would point out which were the places in the country districts that could best afford to lose a portion of their inhabitants. A census therefore was resolved upon, and, according to ordinary Jewish usage (Num. 1: 17–47; 1 Chron. 21: 5, 6; Ezra 2: 3–62), it was genealogical.

6–73. The register of those who returned under Zerubbabel, with the number of their slaves, beasts and oblations. It is no doubt a curious circumstance that this list should occur twice, with no important differences, in the two books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The double record enables us to make out a more perfect catalogue than we could have obtained from either separately, since there are corruptions in each which may be corrected by means of the other. P. C.—This section is identical with Ezra 2: 1–3: 1, word for word, and letter for letter, except in two points—viz., the numbers repeatedly vary; and there is a difference in the account of the offerings made by the governor, the nobles and the people. The heading, the contents, the narrative about the sons of Barzillai, the fact of the offerings, the dwelling in their cities, the coming of the seventh month, the gathering of all the people to Jerusalem as one man, are in words and in sense the very self-same passage. The idea that the very same words, extending to seventy verses, describe different events, is simply absurd and irrational. The numbers, therefore, must originally have been the same in both books. But when we examine the varying numbers, we see the following particular proofs that the variations are corruptions of the original text. Though the items vary, the sum total, 42,360, is the same (Ezra 2: 64; Neh. 7: 66). In like manner the totals of the servants, the singing men and women, the horses, mules and asses, are all the same, except that Ezra has two hundred instead of two hundred and forty-five singing men and women. The numbers of the priests and the Levites are the same in both, except that the singers, the sons of Asaph, are one hundred and twenty-eight in Ezra, against one hundred and forty-eight in Nehemiah, and the porters one hundred and thirty-nine against one hundred and thirty-eight. Then in each particular case, when the numbers differ, we see plainly that the difference might arise from a copyist’s error. Dic. B.

Bishop Kennicott’s theory, that the three lists—that of Ezra, that of Nehemiah, and that in the first of Esdras—had all one original, and that the existing differences proceed entirely from mistakes of the copyists, is the only tenable one. It is especially remarkable that the differences in the numbers of the three lists consist chiefly in a single unit, a single ten, or a single hundred—or in a five; less often in two units, or two tens, or two hundreds, or in a six—differences probably arising from the obliteration of one or two signs in a notation resembling the Roman or the Egyptian, where there are special signs for a thousand, a hundred, ten, five, and the unit, complex numbers being expressed by repetition of these, as 3438 in Latin inscriptions by MMMCCCCXXXVIII. Any fading of a sign in such a notation as this causes a copyist to diminish the amount by one, five, ten, a hundred, a thousand, etc. A fading of two signs may produce a diminution of two thousand, two hundred, twenty, two; or again of eleven hundred, one hundred and ten, one hundred and five, fifteen, eleven, six, and the like. P. C.