I. EZRA says: “I was ashamed to require of the king. . . to help us against the enemy in the way, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him. So we fasted and besought our God for this, and He was entreated of us” (Ezra 8:22). “Him that honoureth Me I will honour” (1 Sam. 2:30).
II. Nehemiah says: “Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen?” (Neh. 5:9). “I came unto the house of Shemaiah . . 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 as I am, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in. And lo! I perceived that God had not sent him: but that . . . Sanballat had hired him . . . that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin: and that they might have an evil report that they might reproach me” (Neh. 6:10-13).
“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”
“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (Ps. 118:9).
Nehemiah would not take bread from the governor of Judah “because of the fear of the Lord” (Neh. 5:14, 15), Who says, “The world is mine, and the fulness thereof” (Ps. 50:12).
E. A. H.