Day 270 – Reading – Nehemiah 6 – 7
Nehemiah 6.
THIRD OPPOSITION: When those three conspirators – Sanballat, Tobiah, the Ammonite, and Geshem, the Arab – saw that the wall was built (but still had no gates), they invited Nehemiah to lunch. HA! Our boy knew they meant to harm him and declined. “I’m working and can’t stop.”
FOUR TIMES they sent him this invite and four times he declined. (Seems they should have gotten the message.)
Next, Sanballat sent an open letter via his servant accusing Nehemiah and the Jews of rebellion, saying they planned to make him King, in opposition to the one in Persia. Then Artaxerxes will come and make war.
Nehemiah’s response was stinging. “Seriously?? You are inventing things to frighten us, thinking we will drop the work and not finish! Go you way, I’m not frightened!”
Nehemiah didn’t stew about this threat, he prayed. “But now, O God, strengthen my hands.”
FOURTH OPPOSITION: Next they hired a false prophet, to try and lure Nehemiah into the Temple and escape a murder threat. “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the Temple. Let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you by night.”
Nehemiah held up his hand to halt the fellow. “Should such a man as I run away? And what man such as I (not a priest) could go into the temple and live? i will NOT go in.” With that, Nehemiah understood that this was not a prophet of God, but a man from Tobiah and Sanballat.
And again Nehemiah prayed, “Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to theses things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.” (Ezekiel 13:17-18)
And so, despite all the opposition, the wall was finished. It took 52 days under Nehemiah’s stead leadership and resistance to opposition … and prayer. “And when all our enemies heard of it, all nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem, for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.”
However, Tobiah continued to send letters to try to make Nehemiah afraid. (What a jerk!)
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Nehemiah 7.
When Nehemiah had finally finished the doors, and the gatekeepers, singers, and Levites had been appointed, he gave his brother Hanani, and Hananiah, the governor of the castle,** charge over Jerusalem, for the governor was “a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.”
**The “castle” was the “Tower of Hananel” set on the NW corner of the wall. It was used as protection for the Temple. (See the map of gates in yesterday’s post.) When Herod rebuilt the temple area, he made this “fortress,” the Antonia, where the Roman guard was housed in Jesus’ time.
Nehemiah’s instructions to Hananiah and his brother were to “Let not the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. And while they are still standing guard, let them shut and bar the doors.” Nehemiah called for this to prevent looting and sabotage by their enemies, for “Jerusalem was wide and large, but the people within it were few. None of the houses had been rebuilt.” (Such a smart leader!)
Then God put it in Nehemiah’s heart to enroll the nobles, officials, and people by genealogy. He found the original book of the people who had returned in the first wave under Zerubbabel. In that book, it was written,
“These were the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of those exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried into exile. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his town. They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua…. etc.”
Nehemiah updated this record.
Morning Meditations 