In chapter 3 we have a beautiful presentation of the energy of the Spirit of God in the devoted service of His people. Whenever the people of God are active, however, Satan is aroused, and he seeks by every means in his power to raise up hindrances and obstacles. This is illustrated once more in the opening verses of this chapter, which give us the third form of his opposition to the work of God's builders. In chapter 2:10, the enemy was "grieved... exceedingly." Then he tried mockery and scorn (2:19), and now he assumes the weapons of anger and indignation. "It came to pass," we read, "that when Sanballat heard that we builded 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 do these feeble Jews? 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 which are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall." vv. 1-3. The language of both Sanballat and Tobiah was inconsistent with their feelings. It is in verse 1 that we find their real state of mind. It was wrath and indignation that possessed their souls, for they knew full well the significance of the activity of the children of Israel. But when they spoke they concealed their anger with affected contempt. If, however, the "feeble Jews" were working in vain, if the wall they were building were of such a contemptible character, why were Sanballat and Tobiah so angry? It was good for the builders that their leader was on the watch, and, armed at every point against the devices of Satan, knew how to use the shield wherewith to quench his fiery darts. For what was Nehemiah's resource in the presence of this new form of hostility?
He said, "Hear, 0 our God; for we are despised." v. 4. He simply turned to God in the assurance that He cared for His people and that He would be their defense and their shield, engaged as they were in His own service. It is always blessed when we can take all the enemy's revilings to, and leave them with, God. In the energy and impatience of nature, we are too apt to attempt to meet the foe in our own strength, and thus we often rush into the conflict only to encounter defeat and disaster. But faith turns the eye upward and commits all to the Lord. Hezekiah furnishes us with a beautiful illustration of this when he went up into the house of the Lord and spread before Him the letter which he had received from Rabshakeh, who commanded the army of Sennacherib. In like manner Nehemiah cried, "Hear, 0 God." And mark his plea-"for we are despised." God's people are precious in His sight, and to despise them is to despise Him. Nehemiah had entered into this, and thus made his appeal to the heart of God. Having cast himself in this way upon God, and placed himself and the people (for he fully identifies himself with them) under His protection, he gathers strength to pray against the enemy. "Turn," he says, "their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the 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." vv. 4, 5. It may surprise the superficial reader that such a prayer could be offered. Two things should be remembered: first, the dispensation under which the people were, and second, that the enemies of Israel were the enemies of God. Sanballat and Tobiah were deliberately setting themselves in opposition to the work of the Spirit of God. And all may learn from this prayer, as Saul afterward had to learn in another way, what a solemn thing it is to persecute God's people and to hinder His work. Thus the ground on which Nehemiah urges his petition is, "They have provoked Thee to anger before the builders." The cause of these despised children of the captivity was the cause of God, and it was in this confidence that Nehemiah found, as all believers who are in fellowship with the mind of God in their labors may find, encouragement to invoke His aid against their foes.
But if Nehemiah prayed (as we shall see again), it did not interfere with his or the people's labors; we might rather say that his perseverance in his work sprang from his prayers. We say his prayers for these are his individual cries to God, and his cries in secret to God. We are permitted to view the inner life of this devoted servant, as well as his public labors. No ear but God's heard these supplications, though they are recorded to teach us that the secret of all true activity, as well as of courage in the presence of danger, is realized dependence on the Lord. Thus, after Nehemiah records his prayer, he adds, "So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for all the people had a mind to work." v. 6. This is a blessed record, and one which testifies to the energy of the Spirit of God acting through Nehemiah upon the people, and producing unanimity and perseverance. For when it says, "The people had a mind to work," it means that they had God's mind. Sometimes unanimity may be seen and the fact gloried in irrespective of the consideration of whether or not it is according to the mind of God. To be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment (1 Cor. 1:10) as the result of divine power ensures the successful accomplishment of any service to which God calls His people, because with His Spirit ungrieved He is able to work without hindrance in their midst.
This spectacle of united perseverance in the work of God excited the foe to more determined opposition. Having tried many weapons without success to deter the people from building the wall, he now produces another. "It came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against
Jerusalem, and to hinder it." vv. 7, 8. Before, there
were only a few individuals, but now there are numbers. Satan, finding that Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem could not succeed by themselves, draws others to their help—the Arabians, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites-these last being entirely new allies. In fact, he collects an army, as force is the weapon he is now about to try. But what was it that aroused the enemy anew to attempt to hinder the work? It was the report that they had heard, that "the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped." It was now evident that the children of the captivity were in earnest, and that they, under the leadership of Nehemiah, were determined to shut out evil by erecting the wall and stopping the breaches. This never suits Satan, whose desire ever is to break down all distinction between the people of God and the world, and hence it was that he marshaled his forces in order to prevent "these feeble Jews" from accomplishing their purpose.
And what had the children of Israel to meet this array of power on the part of the adversary? They had a leader whose confidence was in God, and who had learned the lesson Elisha taught his servant when the king of Syria had sent an army to take him, namely, that "they that be with us are more than they that be with them." Nothing daunted, therefore, by the increasing numbers and rage of the enemy, he says, "Nevertheless we made our prayer unto God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them." He thus combined dependence on God, in whom alone he knew his strength and defense to be, with unceasing vigilance against the "roaring lion." These are the two invisible weapons which God puts into the hands of His people in the presence of the enemy, and these weapons suffice to defeat his most powerful assaults. Thus the Lord, in the prospect of the advancing power of Satan against His disciples, said, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." Matt. 26:41. The Apostle likewise writes, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance," etc. (Eph. 6:18), knowing that unless watchfulness were maintained Satan would soon decoy the soul into forgetfulness and sloth. Nehemiah, therefore, was divinely instructed in his means of defense, which, indeed, placed a rampart between him and his foes, against which, if they dashed, it would be only to encounter certain destruction. And observe that the watchfulness (day and night) was as unceasing as the prayer. In this sense there is no rest for the Christian. Having done all, he is still to stand, for as the enemy is unresting in his attacks, the believer must be unceasing in the use of his means of defense.
A new source of danger is now discovered. Without were fightings, and now within were fears. "And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall." v. 10. As long as "the people had a mind to work," the danger from without, met as it was by watchfulness and prayer, mattered only a little, but the difficulty was great when the people themselves became fainthearted and weary. The cause of Judah's despondency was twofold. First, "The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed." Judah had forgotten that the Lord was the strength of His people, and that if He places a burden of service upon the shoulders of any of His people, He gives also the needful strength for its execution. Second, they said that on account of the quantity of rubbish it was impossible to build the wall. So have many said since Judah's day. The corruptions in the Church have been so many, so much "rubbish" has been imported on every side, that, despairing of carrying out separation from evil according to the Word of God, souls have often been betrayed into acceptance of the very things they deplore. It is impossible, they say, to conform themselves now to the Word of God, to restore the authority of the Scriptures over the conduct and activities of the Church, to give the place of pre-eminence to the Lord in the midst of His gathered people, to draw the line of distinction between those who are His and those who are not, and we must, therefore, accept things as they are. Granted that there is much rubbish, it is yet clear that the Word of God never abates its claims upon His people, and 2 Timothy teaches most distinctly that the responsibility of building the wall is as binding upon the saints when the house of God is in ruins, as was that of maintaining the wall when His house was in order. The fact was, the effect of the display of the enemy's power, and the prospect of incessant warfare had discouraged the heart of Judah, and he sought to find a justification for his state of soul in the condition of the burden-bearers, and in the obstacles to his work. Many of us can understand this, for to labor under constant discouragements and in the presence of active enemies tries the spirit and tempts us to abandon our service, especially when we have ceased to derive our strength and motives to perseverance from communion with the Lord.
Two other dangers are indicated in verses 11 and 12. The adversaries sought to keep the builders in a continual state of alarm by threatening a sudden onslaught, and thus to wear them out, as they had partially done in the case of Judah, by the strain of continual apprehension. The Jews, moreover, that "dwelt by them," those, that is, who were not inhabitants of Jerusalem, but were scattered through the land in the vicinity of their foes, these came, and assured the builders "ten times," that danger was really impending, that their adversaries would certainly execute their threats. To sight, therefore, there was little, if anything, to encourage, but perils of every kind were hemming them in, threatening both the continuation of their work, and even their own lives.
If, however, the enemy was unwearying in his assaults, Nehemiah was even more untiring in his watchfulness and defense, and the rest of the chapter (vv. 13-23) gives us a most interesting and detailed account of the measures he adopted for the security of the people, for the progress of the work, and of the manner in which they builded. In the first place, he arranged for the defense by setting "in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places... the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows." These were both duly ordered and fully armed, for when Satan is in question we are powerless unless we are in the right place and equipped with divine weapons. (Compare Eph. 6:10-17.) Thereupon Nehemiah inspired the nobles, the rulers, and the rest of the people with words of exhortation. He said, "Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses." v. 14. The frequency of the exhortation in the Scriptures, not to be afraid, addressed to God's people, shows how prone we are to yield to fear in the conflicts we are called upon to wage. It is both the first symptom of want of confidence in God, and the sure forerunner of defeat if fear continues to possess our souls. Hence, when Israel went forth to battle in olden days, the proclamation had to be made, as in the case of Gideon's army, "What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart." Deut. 20:8. While, however, Nehemiah urged them not to fear, he supplied the antidote; "Remember the Lord," he says, "which is great and terrible." For he knew that if they once apprehended the character and presence of God, if they brought Him in, by the exercise of faith, and measured the foe by what He was, they would be filled with courage, and be able to say, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" He sought in this way to nerve their arm for the battle, and thus he continued, "and fight for your brethren," etc. The battle was the Lord's, and yet it was for all that was dearest to them in the world that they were to fight.