Many of us have heard of the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and we have all pitied the man, alone on a desert island, without a friend, never hearing any voice but his own, being able to exchange thoughts with no one, solitary, desolate.
Yet after all, in one respect, Robinson Crusoe was to be envied, for he was shut off from one of the greatest temptations which beset us in this world, a temptation which comes across the path of each of us, and from which it is by no means easy to escape. Robinson Crusoe was never tempted to keep bad company, for the simple reason that there was no bad company for him to keep.
What curious people hermits are! They are to be found in China, India, Africa, in various parts of Europe, in fact, all over the world. And centuries ago there was many a lonely cave, many a shady retreat on the hillside, which was inhabited by one of these hermits.
Who then were these hermits? They were men who, among other things, were so much afraid of falling into the snare of keeping bad company that they refused to keep any company at all. They were men who so dreaded being led astray by their fellow men, that they shut themselves off from all interaction with the human race.
It was not a right nor a wise thing to do, and these hermits found that sin followed them even to their quiet lonely caves, yet it is scarcely surprising that they dreaded evil companionship and did all they could to avoid it, seeing how much misery it had brought into the world.
For what was the oldest sin? What was the very first sin that entered into this fair earth of ours? Some say it was pride, or selfishness, or unbelief in what God had said. But surely it included also the sin of keeping bad company.
There was Eve in the garden. God had provided her with company. He had given her Adam, and, in fact, God Himself was her friend. In the cool of the day He walked with Eve under the trees of the garden, walked and talked with her as a companion and friend.
But, in spite of this, Eve got into bad company. She talked with and entertained Satan, the great enemy of God. And the consequence was that Eve sinned and was driven out of paradise. We should never have had our weary battle with sin if Eve had not disobeyed God and kept bad company.
Nor was Eve the last of those who have brought trouble on themselves and others by the same sin. If Samson had not gone into bad company he would never have lost his strength, and have had to grind blindly and miserably at the mill. If Solomon had not kept bad company, he might not have been tempted to introduce idolatry which brought about the ruin of Jerusalem. If Rehoboam had not kept bad company the kingdom of Israel would never have been divided through his hardness. Again and again, both in the history of the past and in the story of the present, we see men and women led astray by keeping bad company.
We have already seen Nehemiah taking strong measures to put down three of the great, glaring evils which he found in Jerusalem on his return. We now see him battling with this dreadful curse and snare—bad company. If the other three evils needed strong measures, Nehemiah felt there was an even greater need to take decided steps in this fourth and all-important matter.
What did he find as he walked through the streets of Jerusalem? He discovered that the inhabitants of the Holy City were fast becoming foreigners and heathen. He heard the very children in the street talking a language he could not understand.
So common had marriage with heathen foreigners become, that Nehemiah saw clearly that unless something was done to put a stop to it, the next generation would grow up utterly un-Jewish in language, appearance and dress. Worse still, they would become heathen in their religion, kneeling down to idols of wood and stone, and carrying on in Jerusalem itself all the vile customs and abominations of the heathen.
If the girls are pretty and nice, and if the men like them, why should not they please themselves? So the people of Jerusalem had thought in Nehemiah’s absence. They quite forgot where it was all leading. They shut their eyes to the danger of keeping bad company, and disobeying the Lord in marrying heathen partners. They thought only of what was pleasant and of what they liked, and quite forgot to ask what was right, and what was the will of God.
Nehemiah, as governor of Jerusalem, summoned into his presence and commanded to appear before him in his judicial court, every man in Jerusalem who had married a foreign, heathen wife.
When all were assembled: He contended with them; that is, he rebuked and argued with them, as he had done with the rulers on the question of Sabbath observance.
He cursed them, or, as it is in the margin, “he reviled them.” Probably he pronounced, as governor of Jerusalem, speaking in the name of God, the judgments of God on those who broke His law.
He smote certain of them. That is, he had some of them publicly beaten. Nehemiah called upon the officers of the court to make an example of some of the principal offenders by inflicting corporal punishment upon them.
He plucked off their hair. Literally, he made them bald. The Hebrew word, marat, which is used here, means to make smooth, to polish, to peel. The word hair is not expressed in the original.
We are surely not to suppose that Nehemiah, with his own hands, either struck these men or made them bald. What he did was simply this: He, as the head magistrate, inflicted a judicial punishment upon them, a double punishment.
They were beaten.
They were made bald.
We read in Matthew 27:26 that Pontius Pilate took our Lord and scourged Him. We surely do not imagine that the Roman governor with his own hands inflicted the scourging, but we understand it to mean that he gave the order for the punishment to the Roman soldiers. Just so, Nehemiah the governor commanded these offending Jews to be beaten and made bald by the officers of the court.
The trade of the barber is a very important one in many cities in the Middle East. This may easily be seen by walking through the streets of a Middle Eastern town, and noticing the numerous barbers at work, some in their shops, which are open to the street, and others outside on the doorsteps, or in some shady corner. Especially in the evening many barbers are busy; when the work of the rest of the city is drawing to a close, the barber’s work is at its height. Yet, strange to say, although the barber is so busy, most men in these countries wear a beard and would think it a terrible disgrace if they were obliged to shave off their beards.
The beard is considered a very venerable thing; it is thought a great insult even to touch a man’s beard, and if you want to make any man an object of scorn and ridicule, you cannot do so better than by shaving off his beard. This was the way in which the Ammonites insulted David’s ambassadors (2 Sam. 10:4,5). And we read that they stopped at Jericho till their beards were grown, “because the men were greatly ashamed.”
What then is the barber’s work? If the men in Middle Eastern countries wear beards, what is it that keeps him so busy? Barbers in these areas shave, not the man’s chin, but his head. It is a very natural custom in hot, dusty climates, where the head is always kept covered, both indoors and out. It is also a very ancient custom, for even in ancient Egyptian art we find pictures of barbers shaving men’s heads. We also find, even in recent times, that in some cultures it is still the custom for men to shave their heads. But there is one great exception to this rule. A barber would find no work in a purely Jewish city, for not only do the Jews wear beards, but they also never shave their heads as their Eastern neighbors do. The only ones among the Jews who were allowed to have shaven heads were the poor outcast lepers. Hence, the shaven head was to them a sign or symbol of uncleanness and of excommunication. Thus it came to pass that “bald head” became a common term of reproach and insult. Elisha the prophet went up the hill wearing a thick turban to protect his head from the sun. Out came a troop of wicked, mocking children. Elisha was not bald, for he was a Jew, nor, even if he had been bald, could these children have seen it, since his head was covered. But they wished to annoy and to insult the holy man, so they cried after him, “Go up, thou bald head; go up.”
They simply used a common term of reproach. To have a bald head was, among the Jews, a sign that a man was cut off from his nation, and that he was counted as a Gentile and an outsider. Therefore, to call a man a “bald head” was equivalent to calling him a Gentile dog or an outcast.
Now Nehemiah inflicted this very punishment on these Jews who had married heathen wives. He commanded them to be made bald, as a sign of shame and disgrace. It was a very significant and appropriate punishment. They had thrown in their lot with the heathen Gentiles. Let them then become Gentiles; let them be branded with their mark. Let them, by being made bald, be stamped as those who are no longer citizens of Jerusalem, but who had become outcasts and foreigners.
Then, when this was done, Nehemiah called them to him, and made them take a solemn oath before God, that from that time forth they would never again fall into the same sin.
“I made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.”
Then he reminded them how dreadful the consequences of the same sin had been to no less a person than their great and glorious King Solomon, the wisest of men and beloved of his God. Even Solomon had been drawn aside into sin by his love of heathen foreigners, or outlandish women, as Nehemiah calls them, women living outside his own land. If he, the wisest of men, beloved of his God, fell and was led astray, was it likely that they could walk into the very same trap, and escape being caught and ensnared by it?
“Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?”
Did Nehemiah then break up the marriages which had already taken place, and send the wives away? We are not told that he did. Probably he only insisted, and insisted very strongly, that no more such marriages should take place. For he knew that, if the custom were continued, it would lead to ruin, shame and disgrace, and he was therefore perfectly right to take strong measures to put a stop to it.
He saw fit to make an example of one man in a still more decided way-one offender he felt must be cut off. This was Manasseh, the grandson of the high priest, the very one who had been the cause of Tobiah’s entrance into the temple, and of the friendly feeling that existed between Eliashib and the Samaritans.
Here was Manasseh, a priest, living in the temple itself, dressed in the white robe, and taking part in the service of God, yet all the time having a heathen wife, and allowing heathen ways in his household. Manasseh’s wife was actually Sanballat’s daughter, and as long as he and she remained in the temple precincts, Nehemiah felt they would never be free from Sanballat’s influence. Accordingly we read: “I chased him from me.” Nehemiah banished him from the temple and from Jerusalem, and Manasseh went away with his wife to her father’s grand home in Samaria.
No doubt Nehemiah was far from popular in Jerusalem that night. There were probably many who thought he had been too severe, too narrow, too particular. And there were may have been many who, if they had dared, would have rebelled against his decision. But Nehemiah had done everything, and had taken all these strong measures, not to please men, but to please God. If the Master praised him, he did not care what others might say of him. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” was the constant prayer of Nehemiah’s heart, and though the work was oftentimes unpopular and disagreeable, Nehemiah did it both boldly and fearlessly.
The wheel of time goes around, and history, which always works in a circle, constantly repeats itself. So also does sin. The sin of Nehemiah’s days is still to be seen today. The same temptations, which troubled the Jews in Jerusalem in Nehemiah’s day, still trouble us today.
We all love company. There is in us a natural shrinking from being alone and desolate. That feeling is born in us; we inherit it from our first father Adam. “It is not good that the man should be alone,” said the Lord in His tenderness and His pity.
But a choice lies before us: a choice of friends. Our relatives are given us by God. No man can choose who his father or mother or brother or sister will be. But our friends are of our own choosing, and we do not sufficiently consider that that choice may affect us for all eternity. Heaven with all its brightness, or hell with all its darkness and misery—which shall it be for me? The answer may hang, it often does hang, on the choice of a friend.
For there are only two divisions in this world of ours, only two companies, only two flocks. There are the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, the Lord’s people and those who are none of His, the sheep and the goats. From which division, from which company, from which flock shall I choose my friends?
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
We should be especially careful in that nearest and dearest of friendships, in the choice of the one who is to be our partner for life. Would we be made one, would we link ourselves by that firm and lifelong tie, while knowing all the time that the one who is to be dearer to us than life itself is outside the fold? No blessing can possibly rest on such a marriage. Jesus cannot be an invited guest at that marriage feast. For clear and unmistakable is the trumpet call of the great Captain of our salvation: “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”