Nehemiah 4:7-14

2. The Jews faced the menace of an attack.

TEXT, Nehemiah 4:7-14

7

Now it came about when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on, and that the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry.

8

And all of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it.

9

But we prayed to our God, and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night.

10

Thus in Judah it was said,

The strength of the burden bearers is failing,
Yet there is much rubbish;
And we ourselves are unable
To rebuild the wall.

11

And our enemies said, They will not know or see until we come among them, kill them, and put a stop to the work.

12

And it came about when the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times, They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,

13

then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows.

14

When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.

COMMENT

Now begins the second stage of opposition, the threat of actual hostility.

Nehemiah 4:7 spells out the sources of their opposition, from all four directions. To the north was Sanballat, representing the Samaritans. To the northeast was Tobiah and the Ammonites. The Arabs would include Edom, to the south and east; and Ashdod lay to the southwest of Jerusalem, along the coast, among the descendants of the Philistines. This opposition arose before the gaps in the wall had been entirely closed.

In Nehemiah 4:8, their conspiracy was not directed to the military destruction of Jerusalem: they had insufficient armies for that, thanks to Persia's control over all of them; but they could create confusion and stop the work in that manner.

Nehemiah's response in Nehemiah 4:9 was prayer, first of all. But it was combined with works; he posted an around-the-clock guard.

The poetic form of Nehemiah 4:10 shows that it was an oft-repeated saying. If we see discouragement in it, the frustration of long hours already invested and still as many hours of toil lying ahead, there is also hope and confidence in it; it is the kind of song that would encourage them to grit their teeth and continue on. The reference to failing strength may be another clue to the fasting and privation necessitated by their work.

In Nehemiah 4:11, we hear their enemies threaten, perhaps pretending secrecy but intending for the threats to be reported to the Jews, to appear from nowhere and destroy the builders.

Nehemiah 4:12 shows that their message was reported to the Jews. The persons doing the reporting were the workmen who came from outlying towns; people from Tekoa eleven miles south, from Gibeon and Mizpah a comparable distance to the north, and from half a dozen other localities mentioned in chapter three were all helping. The ten times is just a way of saying repeatedly: cf. Genesis 31:7.

Nehemiah 4:13 gives more information on Nehemiah's defense. Since the city lacked a professional army, he stationed people from the various families (clans) at the more vulnerable locations.

We see the reality of the situation in Nehemiah 4:14: the visible fear, and Nehemiah's effort to reassure them and spur them on. His arguments were good ones: (1) remember the power and greatness of God (from which their strength came), and (2) think of the brothers, children, wives, and homes they were fighting to protect (which would give them an immediate, visible incentive),

WORD STUDIES

WEALTHY (Nehemiah 4:2: Chayil): in various contexts, it can mean (1) strength, might, valor; (2) forces, army; (3) ability, wealth; (4) integrity, virtue. It is usually translated army, but wealth in Ruth 2:1, where it describes Boaz.

The two most important letters in the word are the h and 1; these appear in our words heil, hale, heal, health, whole, and even holy: words having the same sense as the Hebrew, in certain contexts. They also occur in a word of very different derivation, but with the same connotations, in our slang (big) wheel; we wonder if this is only a coincidence. Try that expression in Nehemiah 4:2!

TRUMPET (Nehemiah 4:20: Shofar): scratch, scrape, rub, polish. This leads to the idea of brightness, brilliance, and a brilliant tone. The word for scribe (Sepher) is akin to it (cf. Word Studies on Ezra 7: note the resemblance in primary meaning). There seems to be a connection between what a person communicates by writing or speech, and what he conveys by musical tones.