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Tyrians might believe anything they chose, and use the day of rest as they thought proper, so long as they did not sell fish on it. We do not interfere with religious convictions when we enjoin Sunday observance. Nehemiah's argument has sometimes to be used, even about such a matter: 'If ye do so again, I will lay hands on you.
How does he reply to this cruel ridicule, these sharp, cutting, insolent words, that provoking laughter? If we study Nehemiah's character, we shall find that he was a man of quick feelings and of a sensitive nature. He was not one of those men who are so thick-skinned that hard speeches are not felt by them. He was moreover a man of great power and spirit.
These, and countless other objections, might have been raised, had the meeting been called in our lukewarm days. But the Jerusalem committee did not act thus, they did not fill Nehemiah's way with difficulties and his soul with discouragement. A plain bit of work lay before him and before them; he was ready to lead, and they were ready to follow. 'Let us rise and build, they cry.
After the rough life he has led during the last thirteen years, after the perils he has undergone, and the difficulties he has surmounted, he may surely retire, now that his work has been so happily accomplished, and spend the remainder of his life in peace and comfort. But no; Nehemiah's heart was in Jerusalem, he preferred Jerusalem above his chief joy.
Sanballat and Tobiah soon tire of laughter and mockery, when they see it is of no avail; they move off discomfited, and the work goes on as before. Satan, the great enemy of souls, is the same to-day as he was in Nehemiah's time.
This alien glow it was thought had betrayed the place to the raiders, and Nehemiah's instrumentality was never discovered. The post-office appointment was bestowed upon his rival for the position, and it was thought somewhat strange that he should endure the defeat with such exemplary resignation. No one seemed to connect his candidacy with his bootless search for his nephew.
This stirred up Nehemiah's enemies, and they began to ridicule. is a mighty weapon. "What do these feeble Jews?" said Sanballat. "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 the rubbish which are burned?"
Their first care is to provide for their safety, and the first step is to know the exact extent of their defencelessness. So we have the account of Nehemiah's midnight ride amongst the ruins of the broken walls. And then we read of the co-operation of all classes in the work of reconstruction.
They divided the wall amongst all the men in Jerusalem, holding each man responsible for the safety of that part of the wall which lay nearest to his own house. Then, by Nehemiah's orders, they saw that the guards took care that the gates were not only carefully closed every night, but that they were kept closed till the sun was hot, that is, till some hours after sunrise.
After a time, so many mistakes were made by means of these false signals, that the Jews were compelled to give up the system of beacon-fires altogether, and to depend on the slower course of sending messengers. We have now come to the end of Nehemiah's story, and we have, at the very same time, come to the end of the history of the Old Testament.
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