It is after an interval of twelve years from the time of Ezra's action that Nehemiah appears. He was a captive still in Babylon (or Persia, the same thing in principle), while Ezra was doing good service to the Lord at Jerusalem. But, connected as he was with the palace of the Persian king, he may not have been free to take part with the movement or revival in Ezra's day-or, it may be, he was not then quickened by the Spirit, so as to do so.
He represents a fresh revival; and all is in increased weakness. He was not a prince of the house of David, like Zerubbabel; nor a priest of the family of Aaron, like Ezra. He is, as we speak, a layman: cup-bearer to the king.
There is something, however, in all this, that magnifies the grace that was in him. The burdens of his brethren have power to detach him from the Persian palace, as they had once separated Moses from the Egyptian. No miracle distinguishes these days of returned captives, but there are many witnesses of fine moral energy among them.
Ezra had been a scribe, as well as a priest. He was a meditative, worshipping student of God's word; for he found the springs and the guide of his energy in that word. Nehemiah was not that.
He was a practical man, a man in the business of everyday life, amid the circumstances and relations which make up human history. But he was of an earnest spirit, like Ezra, and he took what he heard, as Ezra had taken what he read, and dealt with it in the presence of God, He had heard of the desolations of Jerusalem, and he weeps over them before God; as Ezra had seen the sins of Jerusalem, and wept over them before God. But here, we may ask, how was it that these desolations had not moved Ezra? He was all this time at Jerusalem, while Nehemiah was in the Persian palace, and could only hear of them by occasional reports. Was it that the energy had declined in Ezra? and that he himself now needed to be revived, though some years since he had been the instrument for reviving others? Such things are, and have been. Peter led his brethren on, in Acts 1:1515And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) (Acts 1:15); but he had need himself to be pulled up, corrected, and led on, in Gal. 2 A younger Paul reanimates his elder brother Peter who had been serving the Lord for years, while he was blaspheming Him. And here, it would seem, a younger Nehemiah, a layman too, has to revive the venerable scribe who had crossed over to Jerusalem to serve God there, years and years before him.
If it were not this, it may show us, that the Lord has one business for one servant, another for another; one purpose by this revival, another by that. Zerubbabel had looked to the Temple, Ezra to the reformation of the religion; and Nehemiah is now raised up to look to the city-walls, and the civil condition of Jerusalem. It may have been thus; for such things, again I say, are and have been. Of old, there was the Gershonite, the Merarite, and the Kohathite service. And it has been surely thus, in a series of revivals, century after century, in the course of Christendom, since the Reformation, which was a kind of return from Babylon.
I say not in which of these ways we are to account for Ezra apparently remaining unmoved, though the ruined walls of the city were before his eyes day after day for years. However, he is honorable, highly so, in the recollections of the people of God, as Nehemiah is.
Nehemiah was a simple man of very earnest affections. His book gives us, I may say, the only piece of autobiography which we get in Scripture. It is this dear man of God writing his own history, in the simple style that suits truth-telling. He lets us learn, how he turned to God again and again, in the spirit of a trustful, confiding child, as he went on with his work. His style reminds me of a word which I met, I believe, in some old writer, " let Christ be second to every thought." That. is, let the soul quickly turn to the Lord in the midst of occupations, be habitually before Him; not however by effort, or watching, but by an easy, happy, natural, exercise of soul.
And, together with this exercise of his spirit towards God, Nehemiah's heart was alive to his brethren. In deep affection, and in that eloquence that comes fresh from the heart and its suggestions, he calls Jerusalem, " the city of his fathers' sepulchers." And all this presents to us a very attractive person. We love him, and do not grudge him his virtues, or envy him because of his excellences. We trace him with affectionate admiration.
The exercise of his spirit, ere he got his royal master's leave to visit Jerusalem, is very beautiful. From the month Chisleu to the month Nisan, that is, from the third to the seventh month, he was mourning before God on account of the city. At length he comes before the king, and leave is given him, and a given time is set him, to take his journey and pay his visit-a captain and horsemen, are also appointed to guide and guard him on the road. He had been much alone in all this: revivals commonly begin with some individual; and when he reaches Jerusalem, he is still, at first, alone. By night he inspects the city walls, acquainting himself with the nature of the work that now lay Before him. He proves what he is about to publish. Very right—it is the way of Spirit-led servants, " We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." Nor is he a patron but yokefellow, a fellow-laborer, like Paul, or like Paul's divine Master, Who, while He was Lord of the harvest, served in the harvest-field also.
And, indeed, these are always the forms after which the Spirit prepares the servants of Christ. They prove what they teach, and they labor in the principle of service and not of patronage. They are not lords of the heritage, but ensamples of the flock; they affect no dominion over the faith, but they are helpers of the joy.
Then, as we go on to chapter iii., and look at his companions in the work, we see much to instruct us, and much that tells us of our own day and our own circumstances.
All are working people together-the nobles and the common folk. The service of God's city had put them all on a level. The rich are made low, the poor are exalted: a beautiful sight in its time and place. Then, some are distinguished: Baruch, the son of Zabbai, works " earnestly," ver. 20; the " daughters " of Shallum work with their father, ver. 12; some of the priests " sanctified " their work in their part of the city-walls, while others of them worked after a common manner, vs. 1:22, 28. And painful to have to add to all this, the nobles of the Tekoites " put not their necks to the work of their Lord," ver. 5.
There have always been such distinctions as these, and there are the same abundantly in this our day, In raising the Tabernacle in the wilderness, in fighting the battles of Canaan, in accompanying David in the days of his exile, as here in the building of the wall of Jerusalem, and afterward among the yoke-fellows of Paul, we see these distinctions. And surely, like the daughters of Shallum, or like the wife of Aquila, females in this our day, are doing good work in the gospel, and in the service of Jerusalem. But we may remember, and it has its profit to do so, every man shall receive his own reward according to his own work (1 Cor. 3); though we have also to remember, that the Lord weighs the quality as well as the quantity of what is rendered to Him (Matt. 20:1-161For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. 2And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. 5Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. 6And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? 7They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. 8So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. 9And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. 10But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. 11And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, 12Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. 13But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? 14Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. 15Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? 16So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20:1‑16)).
Thus we may surely be instructed in the details of this sweet story. As we pass through chap. 4. we find the builders have become fighters as well as builders. Their work is continued in the face of enemies, and in spite of " cruel mockings," as chap. 11. of Hebrews speaks. And in this combination of the sword and the trowel, we see the symbols of our own calling. There is that which we have to withstand, and there is that which we have to cultivate. We are to cherish and advance, like builders, what is of the Spirit in us; we are to resist and mortify what is of the flesh. We are builders and fighters.
As to the enemies, they are the same Samaritans as at the first. The Zerubbabel generation of them was represented in Rehum and Shimshai, or in Tatnai, and Shethar-boznai; and now the generation of them in this day of Nehemiah is represented in Sanballat and Tobiah. They were not heathen men, but a seed of corruption, who might appear to be the circumcision in the eyes of flesh and blood. And by this time they seem to have become more corrupt, for Edomites, Arabians, Philistines and Ammonites appear to be joined with them, or to have become one with them.
And still more serious, and more for our personal, immediate warning, we see a company of Jews dwelling near these Samaritans. And they were in the secrets of the Samaritans (ver. 2.)—a bad symptom. They were borderers. They may remind us of Lot in Sodom, and of Obadiah in the house of Ahab. Surely they were not Samaritans; they were Jews, and had some love and care for their serving, toiling brethren in Jerusalem. But they dwelt near the Samaritans, and were in their secrets: again, I say, a bad moral symptom.
They were, I presume, some of the old stock, left behind in the land, in the day when Judah was taken captive. They had never shared in the revival virtues of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Their scent was in them, they had not been emptied from vessel to vessel, as Jeremiah speaks of Moab (Jer. 48).
Different from such, widely different, was the trumpeter, whom Nehemiah here sets close to his own person; for if these Jews were in the secret of the Samaritans, this trumpeter was in the secret of God. That is what the holders and blowers of trumpets always represent: whether we see them as priests, doing their occasional and varied work in Num. 10; or their annual work on the first day of the seventh month, as in Lev. 23.; or as gifted ministers in God's assembly, teaching and exhorting, according to 1. Cor. 12:8, 9.
Humbling to some of us to trace these beauties in the servants of Christ, in the Nehemiahs, and in the trumpeters on the walls of the city!
(Continued from page 80.)
( To be continued, D. V..