Nehemiah 4:1-6

TEXT AND VERSE-BY-VERSE COMMENT

D. The enemies try ridicule and rumor to block construction.
1. Their enemies try to block them with ridicule.

TEXT, Nehemiah 4:1-6

1.

Now it came about that when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews.

2.

And he spoke in the presence of his brothers and the wealthy men of Samaria and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? Are they going to restore it for themselves? Can they offer sacrifices? Can they finish in a day? Can they revive the stones from the dusty rubble even the burned ones?

3.

Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said, Even what they are buildingif a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!

4.

Hear, O our God, how we are despised! Return their reproach on their own heads and give them up for plunder in a land of captivity.

5.

Do not forgive their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before Thee, for they have demoralized the builders.

6.

So we built the wall and the whole wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

COMMENT

In Nehemiah 4:1 we read of Sanballat's anger on hearing of progress on construction of the wall. Many times the enemy of the Lord's work exposes himself by this means today. Perhaps he did not want the wall built because it would make it difficult for him to attack and rob the city; his opposition is hard to explain otherwise. Strong defenses at Jerusalem could pose no threat to the safety of Samaria. His first stage of opposition consequently was ridicule; so must the Lord's people be prepared to deal with this tool which the Devil still uses.

Nehemiah 4:2 gives the details of his mockery. See if any of it sounds familiar today. (1) The reference to the Jews as feeble (drooping, languishing) may be a subtle suggestion that if they had been tending their crops instead of working on the walls, they wouldn-'t be as weak from hunger now. What food for his stomach does one get from building walls, or going to church to listen to sermons? (2) The meaning of the next phrase,-' -restore it for themselves, is vague, and translations vary: it contains the ambiguous word from Nehemiah 3:8, which literally means, to cut loose or free, leave. One thing is clear: the emphasis on for themselves. What did they think they could do by themselves, without Sanballat's help? (3) The next two phrases may go together, and imply that the Jews would be foolish to think that by making sacrifices to God they could gain His favor and be able to finish their work quickly, in a day; i.e., worship is futile, and such ideas are nonsense. Or we may see in the phrase, can they offer sacrifices? the implication that since the wall is not needed to enable them to make sacrifices, they must be building it to lead to a rebellion. Then the next phrase, Can they finish it in a day? has the contemptuous idea that the Jews would lose heart and would not stay with the work to its completion. (4) The last remark was an invitation to look at the rocks and rubbish before them; that would be enough to discourage anybody!

Nehemiah 4:3 indicates the close tie between Sanballat of Samaria and Tobiah of Ammon, on opposite sides of the Jordan. The evaluation of the wall, that it would be no match for even a fox, i.e., jackal, was pure caricature and not argument.

The tone of Nehemiah 4:4-5 indicates that all of Nehemiah 4:2-3 were spoken audibly before Jerusalem. Nehemiah's instantaneous reaction was a brief prayer. This characteristic of the man appeared before, at Nehemiah 2:4; it will crop up several more times.

Nehemiah's requests were that God would be conscious of the way they were being ridiculed, and that their enemies be repaid for their evil blocking of God's approved plan. The imprecatory nature of the prayer is similar to that in a few of the Psalms (Psalms 69:27 f, for example). Let us not judge him by a morality which God would reveal through His Son several centuries later; we are bound, as he was not, to pray for our enemies; but it is true that the consequences which he asked are the natural outcome in this world of the kinds of evil being committed by their enemies. It is well for us to be warned, lest we suffer a similar fate.

Nehemiah 4:5 happily records that because the people put their heart into their work (mind is literally heart), the work progressed to the halfway stage. The word height is a conjecture; it is missing in the Hebrew text: we could substitute width or simply say it was half-finished just as accurately. Work was progressing throughout its whole length, according to chapter three. Note also Nehemiah's taking no credit to himself; it was the people who were responsible.