Bible Commentaries

The ridicule of Tobiah and Sanballat. - As soon as Sanballat heard that we were building (בּנים,partic., expresses not merely the resolve or desire to build, but also the actof commencing), he was wroth and indignant, and vented his anger byridiculing the Jews, saying before his brethren, i.e., the rulers of his people,and the army of Samaria (חיל, like Esther 1:3; 2 Kings 18:17), - inother words, saying publicly before his associates and subordinates, - “Whatdo these feeble Jews? will they leave it to themselves? will they sacrifice?will they finish it to-day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps thatare burned?” עשׂים מה, not, What will they do?(Bertheau), for the participle is present, and does not stand for the future;but, What are they doing? The form אמלל, withered, powerless,occurs here only. The subject of the four succeeding interrogative sentences must be thesame. And this is enough to render inadmissible the explanation offered byolder expositors of להם היעזבוּ: Will they leave tothem, viz., will the neighbouring nations or the royal prefects allow themto build? Here, as in the case of the following verbs, the subject can onlybe the Jews. Hence Ewald seeks, both here and in Nehemiah 4:8, to give to the verbעזב the meaning to shelter: Will they make a shelter forthemselves, i.e., will they fortify the town? But this is quite arbitrary. Bertheau more correctly compares the passage, Psalm 10:14, אלהים על עזבנוּ, we leave it to God; but incorrectly infersthat here also we must supply אלהים על, and that, Will they leave tothemselves? means, Will they commit the matter to God. This mode ofcompleting the sense, however, can by no means be justified; andBertheau's conjecture, that the Jews now assembling in Jerusalem, beforecommencing the work itself, instituted a devotional solemnity whichSanballat was ridiculing, is incompatible with the correct rendering of theparticiple. עזב construed with ל means to leave, to commit amatter to any one, like Psalm 10:14, and the sense is: Will they leave thebuilding of the fortified walls to themselves? i.e., Do they think they areable with their poor resources to carry out this great work?This is appropriately followed by the next question: Will they sacrifice?i.e., bring sacrifices to obtain God's miraculous assistance? The ridicule liesin the circumstance that Sanballat neither credited the Jews with ability tocarry out the work, nor believed in the overruling providence of the Godwhom the Jews worshipped, and therefore casts scorn by היזבּחוּ both upon the faith of the Jews in their God and upon the livingGod Himself. As these two questions are internally connected, so also arethe two following, by which Sanballat casts a doubt upon the possibilityof the work being executed. Will they finish (the work) on this day, i.e.,to-day, directly? The meaning is: Is this a matter to be as quickly executedas if it were the work of a single day? The last question is: Have they eventhe requisite materials? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps ofrubbish which are burnt? The building-stone of Jerusalem was limestone,which gets softened by fire, losing its durability, and, so to speak, itsvitality. This explains the use of the verb חיּה, to revive,bestow strength and durability upon the softened crumbled stones, to fitthe stones into a new building (Ges. Lex.). The construction שׂרוּפות והמּה is explained by the circumstance that אבנים is by its form masculine, but by its meaning feminine, and thatהמּה agrees with the form אבנים.

Tobiah the Ammonite, standing near Sanballat, and joining in in hisraillery, adds: “Even that which they build, if a fox go up he will breaktheir stone wall;” i.e., even if they build up walls, the light footsteps of thestealthy fox will suffice to tread them down, and to make breaches in theirwork.

When Nehemiah heard of these contemptuous words, he committed thematter to God, entreating Him to hear how they (the Jews) were become ascorn, i.e., a subject of contempt, to turn the reproach of the enemies upontheir own head, and to give them up the plunder in a land of captivity, i.e.,in a land in which they would dwell as captives. He supplicates, moreover,that God would not cover, i.e., forgive (Psalm 85:3), their iniquity, and thattheir sin might not be blotted out from before His face, i.e., might notremain unpunished, “for they have provoked to wrath before the builders,”i.e., openly challenged the wrath of God, by despising Him before thebuilders, so that they heard it. הכעים without an object, spoken ofprovoking the divine wrath by grievous sins; comp. 2 Kings 21:6 with 2 Chronicles 33:6.

The Jews continued to build without heeding the ridicule of their enemies,”and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof,” i.e., the wallwas so far repaired throughout its whole circumference, that no breach orgap was left up to half its height; “and the people had a heart to work,”i.e., the restoration went on so quickly because the people had a mind towork.

The attempts of the enemies to hinder the work by force, and Nehemiah'sprecautions against them. - When the enemies learnt that therestoration of the wall was evidently getting on, they conspired together tofight against Jerusalem (Nehemiah 4:1 and Nehemiah 4:2). The Jews then prayed to God, andset a watch (Nehemiah 4:3). When the courage of the people began to fail, and theirenemies spread a report of sudden attack being imminent, Nehemiahfurnished the people on the wall with weapons, and encouraged the noblesand rulers to fight boldly for their brethren, their children, and theirpossessions (vv. 4-8). The Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites are hereenumerated as enemies, besides Sanballat and Tobiah (vv. 2, 10, 19). TheArabians were incited to hostilities against the Jews by Geshem (vv. 11, 19),and the Ammonites by Tobiah; the Ashdodites, the inhabitants of the cityand territory of Ashdod, in the coast district of Philistia, were perhapsencouraged to renew their old hatred of Judah by Sanballat the Horonite. When these enemies heard that the walls of Jerusalem were bandaged, i.e.,that the breaches and damages in the wall were repaired, they were filledwith wrath. The biblical expression, to lay on a bandage, here and 2 Chronicles 24:13; Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 30:17; Jeremiah 33:6, is derived from the healing of wounds bymeans of a bandage, and is explained by the sentence following: that thebreaches began to be closed or stopped. The enemies conspired together tomarch against Jerusalem and injure it. לו, because the people ofthe town are meant. תּועה occurs but once more, viz., in Isaiah 32:6,in the sense of error; here it signifies calamities, for, as Aben Ezra wellremarks, qui in angustiis constitutus est, est velut errans, qui nescit quidagat quove se vertat.

The Jews, on the other hand, made preparation by prayer, and by setting awatch (משׁמר, comp. Nehemiah 7:3; Nehemiah 13:30) day and night. We, viz.,Nehemiah and the superintendents of the work, prayed and set a watchעליהם, against them, to ward off a probable attack. מפּניהם, for fear of them, comp. Nehemiah 4:10.

The placing of the watch day and night, and the continuous labour, musthave pressed heavily upon the people; therefore Judah said: “The strengthof the bearers of burdens fails, and there is much rubbish; we are not ableto build the wall.” That is to say, the labour is beyond our power, wecannot continue it.

Their discouragement was increased by the words of their enemies, whosaid: They (the Jews) shall not know nor see, till we come in the midstamong them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease.

When, therefore, the Jews who dwelt near them, i.e., in the neighbourhoodof the adversaries, and heard their words, came to Jerusalem, “and said tous ten times (i.e., again and again), that from all places ye must return tous, then I placed,” etc. Jews came from all places to Jerusalem, andsummoned those who were building there to return home, for adversarieswere surrounding the community on all sides: Sanballat and the Samaritanson the north, the Ammonites on the east, the Arabians on the south, andthe Philistines (Ashdodites) on the west. אשׁר before תּשׁוּבוּ introduces their address, instead of כּי; being thus used, e.g.,before longer speeches, 1 Samuel 15:20; 2 Samuel 1:4; and for כּי generally, throughout the later books, in conformity to Aramaean usage. “Return to us” (על שׁוּב, as in 2 Chronicles 30:9, for אל שׁוּב), said the Jews who came from all quarters to Jerusalem totheir fellow-townsmen, who from Jericho, Gibeon, and Tekoa (comp. Nehemiah 3:2-3, Nehemiah 3:5, Nehemiah 3:7) were working on the wall of Jerusalem. These words expresstheir fear lest those who were left at home, especially the defencelesswomen, children, and aged men, should be left without protection againstthe attacks of enemies, if their able-bodied men remained any longer inJerusalem to take part in the building of the wall.

Nehemiah 4:13

Nehemiah 4:7 is hardly intelligible. We translate it: Then I placed at the lowestplaces behind the wall, at the dried-up places, I (even) placed the people,after their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. למּקום מתּחתּיּות is a stronger expression forלמּקום מתּחת when used to indicate position, andמן points out the direction. The sense is: at the lowest placesfrom behind the wall. בּצּחחים gives the nature of the placeswhere the people were placed with arms. צחיח and צחיחה mean a dry or bare place exposed to the heat of the sun: bare,uncovered, or empty places, perhaps bare hills, whence approaching foesmight be discerned at a distance. The second ואעמיד is but a reiterationof the verb, for the sake of combining it with its object, from which theואעמיד at the beginning of the verse was too far removed bythe circumstantial description of the locality.

(Note: Bertheau considers the text corrupt, regarding the wordמתּחתּיּות as the object of אעמיד, and alters it intoמחשׁבות or חשּׁבנות, engines for hurling missiles (2 Chronicles 26:15), or into מטחיּות (a word of this owninvention), instruments for hurling. But not only is this conjecturecritically inadmissible, it also offers no appropriate sense. The lxxreads the text as we do, and merely renders בצחחיים conjecturallyby ἐν τοῖς σκεπεινοῖς . Besides, it is not easy to see how חשׁבנות could have arisen from a false reading of מתחתיות; and it should beremembered that מחשׁבות does not mean a machine forhurling, while מטחתייות is a mere fabrication. To this must be added,that such machines are indeed placed upon the walls of a fortress tohurl down stones and projectiles upon assaulting foes, and not behindthe walls, where they could only be used to demolish the walls, and sofacilitate the taking of the town by the enemy.)

“And I looked, and rose up, and said.” These words can only mean: WhenI saw the people thus placed with their weapons, I went to them, and saidto the nobles, etc., “Be not afraid of them (the enemies); remember theLord, the great and the terrible,” who will fight for you against yourenemies (Deuteronomy 3:22; Deuteronomy 20:3, and Deuteronomy 31:6), “and fight ye for your brethren, yoursons and your daughters, your wives and your houses,” whom the enemieswould destroy.

Thus was the design of the enemy circumvented, and the Jews returned totheir work on the wall, which they had forsaken to betake themselves totheir weapons. The manner in which they resumed their building workwas, that one half held weapons, and the other half laboured with weaponsin hand.

Nehemiah 4:15

When our enemies heard that it (their intention) was known tous, and (that) God had brought their counsel to nought (through themeasures with which we had met it), we returned all of us to the wall,every one to his work. The conclusion does not begin till ונּשׁוב, האל ויּפר belonging to the premiss, in continuation of נודא כּי.

Nehemiah 4:16-18

From that day the half of my servants wrought at the work,and the other half of them held the spears and shields, the bows and thearmour, i.e., carried the arms. The servants of Nehemiah are his personalretinue, Nehemiah 4:17, Nehemiah 5:10, Nehemiah 5:16, namely, Jews placed at his disposal as Pechahfor official purposes. The ו before הרמחים was probablyplaced before this word, instead of before the המּגנּים following, by a clerical error; for if it stood before the latter also, it mightbe taken in the sense of et - et. מצזיקים, instead of beingconstrued with בּ, is in the accusative, as also in Nehemiah 4:11, and even in Jeremiah 6:23 and Isaiah 41:9, Isaiah 41:13. Unnecessary and unsuitable is the conjecture of Bertheau,that the word בּרמחים originally stood after מצזיקים, and that a fresh sentence begins with והרמחים: andthe other half held the spears; and the spears, the shields, and the bows,and the armour, and the rulers, were behind the whole house of Judah, - astrange combination, which places the weapons and rulers behind thehouse of Judah. Besides, of the circumstance of the weapons being placedbehind the builders, so that they might at any moment seize them, we notonly read nothing in the text; but in Nehemiah 4:11 and Nehemiah 4:12 just the contrary, viz.,that the builders wrought with one hand, and with the other held aweapon. “The rulers were behind all the house of Judah,” i.e., each was behind hisown people who were employed on the work, to encourage them in theirlabour, and, in case of attack, to lead them against the enemy. - In Nehemiah 4:11 בּחומה הבּונים is prefixed after the manner of atitle. With respect to those who built the wall, both the bearers of burdenswere lading with the one hand of each workman, and holding a weaponwith the other, and the builders were building each with his sword girt onhis side. The ו prefixed to הנּשׂאים and הבּנים meansboth; and בסּבל נשׂא, bearers of burdens, who clearedaway the rubbish, and worked as labourers. These, at all events, could dotheir work with one hand, which would suffice for emptying rubbish intobaskets, and for carrying material in handle baskets. ידו בּעחת, literally, with the one (namely) of his hands that was doingthe work. The suffix of ידו points to the genitive following. ואחת אחת, the one and the other hand. השּׁלח,not a missile, but a weapon that was stretched out, held forth, usually asword or some defensive weapon: see rem. on Joshua 2:8; 2 Chronicles 32:5. Thebuilders, on the contrary, needed both hands for their work: hence theyhad swords girt to their sides. “And he that sounded the trumpet wasbeside me.” Nehemiah, as superintendent of the work, stood at the head ofhis servants, ready to ward off any attack; hence the trumpeter was besidehim, to be able to give to those employed on the wall the signal for speedymuster in case danger should threaten.

Nehemiah 4:19-21

Hence he said to the nobles, the rulers, and the rest of thepeople, i.e., all employed in building, “The work is much (great) and wide,and we are separated upon the wall one far from another; in what place yehear the sound of the trumpet, assemble yourselves to me: our God willfight for us.” - In Nehemiah 4:15 the whole is summed up, and for this purpose thematter of Nehemiah 4:10 is briefly repeated, to unite with it the further statementthat they so laboured from early morning till late in the evening. “We(Nehemiah and his servants) laboured in the work, and half of them (of theservants) held the spears from the grey of dawn till the stars appeared.”

Nehemiah 4:22

He took moreover, a further precaution: he said to the people(i.e., to the labourers on the wall, and not merely to the warriors of thecommunity, as Bertheau supposes): Let every one with his servant lodgewithin Jerusalem, i.e., to remain together during the night also, and not bescattered through the surrounding district, “that they may be guardianshipfor us by night and labour by day.” The abstracts, guardianship andlabour, stand for the concretes, guards and labourers. As לנוּ, tous, refers to the whole community separated on the walls, so is ונערו אישׁ to be understood of all the workers, and not of thefighting men only. From ונערו אישׁ it only appearsthat the fathers of families and master builders had servants with them aslabourers.

Nehemiah 4:23

Nehemiah, moreover, and his brethren (his kinsmen and themembers of his house), and his servants, and the men of the guard in hisretinue, were constantly in their clothes (“not putting off our clothes” torest). The last words, המּים שׁלחו אישׁ arevery obscure, and give no tolerable sense, whether we explain המּים of water for drinking or washing. Luther translates, Every one leftoff washing; but the words, Every one's weapon was water, can never bearthis sense. Roediger, in Gesen. Thes. s.v. שׁלח, seeks to alterהמים into בידו, to which Böttcher (N. krit. Aehrenl. iii. p. 219) rightly objects: “how could בידו have been alteredinto המּים, or המּים have got into the text at all, ifsome portion of it had not been originally there? What this בידו expresses, would be far more definitely given with the very slightcorrection of changing the closing ם of המּים, and readingהמינו = המינוּ (comp. 2 Samuel 14:19); thus each had taken hismissile on the right (in his right hand), naturally that he might be ready todischarge it in case of a hostile attack.” This conjecture seems to us ahappy emendation of the unmeaning text, since נוּ might easily havebeen changed into ם; and we only differ in this matter from Böttcher, bytaking שׁלח in its only legitimate meaning of weapon, andtranslating the words: And each laid his weapon on the right, viz., when helaid himself down at night to rest in his clothes, to be ready for fighting atthe first signal from the watch.