Nehemiah 4:1

BITTER ENEMIES OF ISRAEL OPPOSE REBUILDING THE WALL

Two false interpretations of Nehemiah thus far must be rejected. One we have already noted, namely, the allegation that Nehemiah 3 was not written by Nehemiah and that it was "injected" into Nehemiah's narrative. The other is the inaccurate allegation that Nehemiah 3:3-6 "suggest the completion of the wall."[1] No such suggestion is found in Nehemiah 3. Oh yes, it says various workers "repaired!" this or that section of the wall; but that only designates the different assignments to the forty different companies of workers; and there's not a word in the whole chapter that even hints that the walls were completed. If Nehemiah had intended this third chapter to indicate the completion of the wall, the dedication of it would have followed at once.

This chapter records the hostility and bitterness of Israel's neighbors when they became aware of Nehemiah's rebuilding the city's fortifications. "Sanballat in Samaria on the north, Tobiah and the Ammonites on the east, Geshem and his Arabs to the south, and the Ashdodites and all the Philistines who had hated Israel from the times of Saul and David,"[2] - all of these surrounding neighbors were outraged and disgusted with the prospect of Jerusalem's restoration; and they opposed it in every way possible.

THE ENEMIES BEGIN THEIR ATTACK WITH RIDICULE AND MOCKERY

"But it came to pass that, when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they are building, if a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall. Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn back their reproach upon their own head, and give them up for a spoil in a land of captivity; and cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee; for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders. So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto half the height thereof: for the people had a mind to work."

This was only the first phase of Sanballat's efforts to stop the fortification of Jerusalem. When this failed, he would try other measures. However, except for the remarkable ability and skill of Nehemiah, this initial opposition of laughter, ridicule and insults might have proved successful. "Nothing makes the enemies of the Lord's work any more indignant than the success of God's people."[3]

The nature of the insults heaped upon the Jews here was calculated to discourage them. They were called, "feeble Jews"; "will they fortify themselves"? was asked in a tone of unbelief. "The very idea that these people would contemplate such a thing." "Will they sacrifice"? was a way of asking, "Do they expect their God to do this for them'? "Will they revive the stones ... seeing they are burned"? "The effect of fire is to crack and weaken stone";[4] and this insult was merely a charge that the Jews did not have the material to rebuild the walls. Insults hurt, even if they are untrue. This one was only true in a very limited frame of reference. The stones from the vast majority of the ruined walls were in excellent condition. Only those ruined by the burned wooden gates would have been affected.

"If a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall" (Nehemiah 4:3). "Foxes were mentioned, perhaps, from their having been known in large numbers to infest the ruined walls of Jerusalem, as recorded in Lamentations 5:18)."[5] This insult was that of Tobiah.

"Hear, O our God, for we are despised ..." (Nehemiah 4:4,5). This writer agrees with Jamieson that, "This prayer is not marked by hatred, vengeance, nor any other sinful passion, and that it exhibits a pious and patriotic zeal for the glory of God and the success of his cause."[6] As we noted in our discussion of the so-called imprecatory Psalms, many of the things that current scholars are saying about such prayers evidences a claim of superior righteousness that we believe is unjustified.

Rawlinson wrote that, "Before men were taught to love their enemies and to bless them that cursed them (Matthew 5:44), they gave vent to their natural feelings of anger and indignation by the utterance of maledictions in their prayers."[7] "The violence of Nehemiah's imprecations here (Nehemiah 4:4) grates harshly on modern ears; but it should be remembered that such vehemence against enemies appears repeatedly in the Psalms (Psalms 79:4-12; 123:3-4, and Psalms 137:7-9)."[8] (We have discussed this fully under those references in our Commentary on The Psalms.)

Christians should remember that when they pray for God's will to be done, for righteouness and truth to prevail, and for the righteous to be protected and blessed, that there is most certainly a corollary to such a prayer; and that is that falsehood shall be repudiated, the wicked defeated, frustrated, and checkmated, and that the wicked shall indeed be cast into hell. There was nothing in Nehemiah's prayer that is not contained embryonically in every prayer of a Christian today.

"Nehemiah's short prayer here is parenthetical; and such prayers form one of the most striking characteristics of Nehemiah's history. This is the first one, and others are in Nehemiah 5:19; 6:9,14; and Nehemiah 13:14,22,29,31."[9]

"So we built the wall ... unto half the height thereof" (Nehemiah 4:6). "This means that the entire continuous wall had been constructed up to one half the contemplated height."[10] The taunting ridicule and mockery of the neighboring enemies had not succeeded in stopping construction.