Bible Commentaries

Nehemiah 1:1)], in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes [it is generally agreed that the Artaxerxes intended is Longimanus, who reigned from b.c465 to b.c425] the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king" ( Nehemiah 2:1).

The Result of Hanani's Message

The urn which held the ashes of Artaxerxes is in the British Museum, so that those who have any curiosity about the urn which held the ashes of the king can easily satisfy that curiosity. In the month of Nisan Nehemiah had his chance. He received the message about the month of December, and for some three months, more or less, he had been turning over this message in his mind, wondering what to do with it, eagerly looking for the gate being set ajar, that he might push it back a little farther and go through it, and do the work upon which his heart was set. For three months the gate seemed not to be opened at all, but in the month Nisan the opportunity came. Whether Artaxerxes took a little more wine than usual is not stated in the Scripture: we simply know that, whilst Artaxerxes had the wine in his hand and was enjoying his goblet, a certain conversation took place between him and his cupbearer which ended in very important consequences.

For three months Nehemiah was steady to his vow. How long are you going to keep that best vow you ever made in your life dumb in your heart? How long are you going to allow it to lie unredeemed, unrealised? The king's gate stands ajar: on it is written "Welcome,"—on it is written, "Knock and it shall be opened;" still further, "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation!" Speak the word, it will be a sound in thine ear for ever: repeat the oath, and say thou wilt fulfil it to the letter; and the very utterance of the oath and the very repetition of the desire to be better will themselves be elements in your education, and will help you onward a step or two heavenward, Godward.

Let us follow the history and see what its modern applications may possibly be.

"Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid" ( Nehemiah 2:1-2).

How beautifully, how exquisitely human and true is this! You have been waiting for your chance: the chance suddenly comes, and you who were on tiptoe of expectation for it, seeing it as it were face to face, fall back, and feel the chill of a great fear in your half-misgiving heart It is so with all great crises in life. Little things may happen, and we may say we expected these—they may come as mere matters of course—we have been looking for them, and now they have come we care next to nothing for them. But the great messages that make the soul new, that inspire the life with a new determination, the great gospels, the infinite evangels that regenerate and sanctify the soul, these, though waited for long, always awaken inexpressible surprise, and in not a few cases they first create a great fear before bringing in their complete and final joy. For three months Nehemiah said, "O that he would speak to me! I would be so glad." Artaxerxes spoke to him and he was sore afraid. Is that a contradiction? Only to a wooden life and to a dullard, not to a living soul, not to a sympathetic spirit, not to a man who has lived everywhere and through all time, who by the variety of his experience has been the contemporary of all ages. Do you know what is meant by waiting for a great opportunity—having a great opportunity set before you, and then falling back from it out of the fear of a great surprise? Such was Nehemiah's experience on that memorable day when Artaxerxes read the writing of sorrow on the face of his faithful cupbearer.

"And I said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad,. when the city, the place of my fathers" sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?" ( Nehemiah 2:3).

Here is the beautifulness of an unselfish sorrow; here is an individual magnifying himself into a nation; here is one poor heart taking upon itself the sorrows of a kingdom. Do you know what such suffering is? You say your own burden is heavy enough, without taking any additional weight upon you. Then you can never enter into the meaning of the experience of Nehemiah. But you who do know what it is to have every orphan to keep, every poor soul to help, every blind man to lead over a corner in our streets—you who by the vastness and tenderness of your sympathy have every poor creature to take care of, will enter into Nehemiah's feeling when he assumed to represent the condition of the whole Jewish people under the circumstances narrated in the text. How could he be glad when his fathers" sepulchres were torn to pieces and the gates of his fathers" city were consumed? He entered into other people's feelings—he was more than a mere unit in the great aggregate, he was human; he took upon himself the sufferings of others, and when he did Nehemiah 2:4).

But he had been praying for three months. Yes. Why then did he pray to the God of heaven now? Because you must always have just a little supplementary prayer, if you are a true man. Did you ever finish a prayer? For three months Nehemiah had been opening his window and looking Godward, and pouring out his poor afflicted soul on account of what Hanani had told him, and now, when the king says, "What is thy request?" he stood and prayed to the God of heaven—one word more, gathering up all the three months" prayer in one final cry. Sometimes we have to gather up the prayers of a whole lifetime in one poignant, keenly accentuated petition; sometimes the prayers of a whole lifetime escape us in one deep heartfelt sigh, which the fool standing near, of unsympathetic heart, can never understand. He calls it but a sigh; yet that sigh has blood in it, and life and agony, and that sigh will move the almightiness of God. He knows what it costs. He knows how much heart goes up in that yearning pang to him. "So I stood and prayed to the God of heaven." For three months he had been kneeling, morning, noon, and night, and more frequently still, and now he stands and prays. Is it right to stand and pray? Certainly. Is it right to kneel and pray? Unquestionably. Is it right to pray in a crowd? Yes. Is it right to go into sandy places, and desert paths, and empty, dreary solitudes, and there to pray? Indisputably so. Pray always—pray without ceasing. Nothing depends on the mere form or the mere phrase. Stand and pray—kneel and pray—think and pray—speak and pray. Many a time we have prayed to God without ever saying a word—just the lifting of a speechless heart, and a lifting that is never without peculiar blessing.

This was what is called ejaculatory prayer. We need not change the word ejaculatory. There is a great deal of Latin in it, no doubt, but still it seems now to belong to the English tongue. It signifies thrown out—darted forth. It implies suddenness, terseness, earnestness. It was not a literary prayer; it was not artistically divided into sections; it was like an arm suddenly thrown out and thrown up. You can pray Ezra 7:6, Ezra 7:9, Ezra 7:28; Ezra 8:22] ( Nehemiah 2:8).

How very seldom we have the prayer and the answer on the same page! We have now and then just to keep our courage up. For years together we seem to have no literal proof of the existence and nearness of God to our life, and then, just when we can bear it no longer, when the little sand-glass—so little!—o our poor faith" is nearly run out, he meets us in burning bush, or in dream wherein the ladder is revealed, or in vision of the night, or in Bethlehem's leading star—somehow—and in that one moment we recover our years" experience, our years" loss, and become young and strong again. But these specialties are granted only now and then. A daily miracle would be a daily commonplace. Let him come as he will—but from the particular argue the universal, from the one instance of prayer answered argue the readiness of the Almighty to answer every prayer that he himself has inspired.

The arrangements were then made. Nehemiah went upon his journey—came to the governors beyond the river and gave them the king's letters. And now we read—

"When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel" ( Nehemiah 2:10).

Sanballat and Tobiah are everywhere. There was a great vocalist singing recently—a great master of the divine art. And there was an encore. And a person who was there said, "That is not genuine, you know: that encore is got up by somebody just for the purpose of increasing her reputation or her popularity." It was some man who had come up from some village in some extra-rural district, who sat himself down in the great assembly and knew exactly how the encores were manufactured. Distressing man that—very sad to live with a person so acute—a dreadful martyrdom to have to sit near a person who can chatter such idiocy. But there are always a few people who understand everything—see through it—mark it: saw it just in time to observe how it was and to explain it to the infinite satisfaction of their own folly. Let us not be disagreeable with anybody, but pleasant and sympathetic—even with a preacher.

Nehemiah arrived on the scene of operation, and then he says—"I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well... and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire." Was there ever a picture touched with so delicate a hand? Ruins seen at night-time—think of that solemn picture, think of that scene that might have made the reputation of a Royal Academician—the ruins of the most famous city in the world, seen at night by a lonely man. He took with him some few men; the fewer the better, but probably he left even these at a distance. At a certain point he went out himself: he took his own measure of the situation—ruins—ruins softened by moonlight, ruins aggravated by shadows, ruins seen by a lonely Nehemiah 2:19).

Nehemiah and a handful of men, come to rebuild Jerusalem! and Sanballat nudged Tobiah, and Tobiah nodded to Geshem, and the three drank wine together, and laughed uproariously and with derisive accent, because the instrument was so little adapted to the end that was proposed to be accomplished. "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?"—"It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.... The foolishness of God is wiser than men.... God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty... and things that are not, to bring to nought things that are." The instrument which God has chosen is evidently out of all proportion to the end he seeks to accomplish. He will give to his Son the heathen for an inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession; and the men going out in twos and threes, with cheap Bibles under their arms, and with the Cross to talk about—with this instrumentality they are going to convert the world! And to-day Sanballat has had his laugh, and Tobiah his rude merriment, and Geshem has declared that he never heard of anything so unreasonable—and from a human point of view they are quite right. But "if God be for us, who can be against us?"—"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble"—"It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth?" It is God who says, "Go ye into all the world and rebuild the waste places, and call the wanderers home, and tell the story of the Cross;" and he who sent us has said, "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: for it shall not return unto me void." If this be a merely human arrangement, nothing so preposterous was ever conceived in the world, but because of the very preposterousness of the conception from an earthly and temporal point of view, is our faith in the divinity of its inspiration, and in the perfectness of its ultimate success.

What is true of great public movements—building city walls, restoring city gates, converting heathen nations—is also true of the building of character. To men of shattered character we say, Arise and build. To men all broken down, utterly dismantled and distressed, we say, Arise and build. Have you a withered hand? Put it out. But you cannot, except at God's bidding: if he had not bid thee put it out, thou couldst not, but his bidding, his telling thee to put it out is the first pledge that he means to make thee a whole man. God's promises are God's fulfilment.

Prayer

Almighty God, teach us that all men are builders, that there is one foundation laid, a stone that is elect, precious, tried, infinite in value, and let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon. Some are building gold and silver and precious stones, upon which the fire shall have no mischievous effect, and some are building wood, and hay, and stubble—which the fire will utterly burn up; nevertheless, the builders themselves may be saved, the foundation upon which they are building is God. Teach us that thou wilt try every man's work of what sort it is, and that thou wilt give to every man according to his work; may we, therefore, labour by day and by night with both hands earnestly—never thinking of ourselves, always thinking of the good work that is to be done, and labouring at it with toil that is itself its own reward. If we have built anything that is strong and beautiful in life, behold thou didst show us where to build—thou didst teach our hands how to put things together: not unto us, therefore, not unto us, but unto thy name be the whole praise. Thou dost teach men how to get wealth—thou dost show them the way out of difficult places, and when they do bring themselves into entanglements and thickets, out of which there is no human deliverance, it is the divine hand that brings them forth into straight lines again, and into wide open spaces of liberty. We thank thee for a thousand deliverances. Behold our feet had slipped and our steps had gone, but thou didst find us in our ruin, and rebuild us, and because the good hand of our God has been upon us we are spared until this hour. Thou knowest what histories we represent, what broken hearts, what shattered fortunes, what unfulfilled vows, what secret cares, what fretful, vexatious anxieties, what prosperity, joy, honour, delight—what presumption, self-boasting, self-enclosure, defiance, challenge, and what modesty, humility, timidity resting upon the Eternal and yearning after the Infinite. According to our diversified experience do thou command thy blessing to rest upon us. Bring us all to Christ, Son of man, Son of God, God the Son. He loved us and gave himself for us, and he is in heaven now on our behalf—his the Mediator's seat—his the Intercessor's cry: O hear that blessed Saviour as he takes up our poor words and repronounces them with the emphasis of his own love. Amen.