Sometimes you don’t realize the good you have until it’s gone.
After a 12-year stint as governor of Judah, Nehemiah returned to Persian King Artaxerxes in Babylon, most likely fulfilling a promise he had made to him, which would be consistent with his character.. He had set things in order in his home country and felt comfortable enough to return. It is possible but speculative that he put his brother Hananiah, or Hanani for short, in charge in his absence (Nehemiah 7:2). As the saying goes, “the cemetery is full of indispensable people.”
Remember me for this, O my God, and do not blot out my loyal deeds which I have performed for the house of my God and its services. (Nehemiah 13:14)
To a degree, with the cat away, the mice did play. In key areas that Nehemiah thought he had buttoned down by way of oaths and signed agreements, there was significant slippage, and the former governor, fit to be tied, dramatically reasserted himself. He took these failures personally, thinking he might have lost favor with God, or at least the credit he’d earned setting things right. Perhaps it was wrong to be so concerned about his own reputation before God and man, but when you consider the man, his self flagellation to a degree was understandable.
But it’s these types of men who get back into the game to right the ship. A true hero pulls himself up by his bootstraps and reengages with even more fervor than before. If there ever was such a man, other than Jesus with the money changers, to mete out righteous indignation, it was Nehemiah.
He had to fix three initial problems, allowing Ammonites and Moabites into the temple to worship (strictly forbidden In Deuteronomy 23:3-5), the forfeiture of a treasury room “in the courts of the house of God” to his old nemesis Tobiah ((Nehemiah 13:7), and the failure of the people to contribute tithes and offerings to the temple to the point that “the Levites and the singers who performed vital services had gone away, each to his own field.” (Nehemiah 13:10)
As for the Ammonite and Moabite problem, the fix was easy. He quoted scripture.
So when they heard the law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel. (Nehemiah 13:3)
As for Tobiah, who likely fled, the ‘very displeased” Nehemiah “threw all of Tobiah’s household goods out of the room.” (Nehemiah 13:8)
The withholding of tithes and offerings and the Levites exodus was not so much on the people but on their leaders, and Nehemiah lit into them.
I reprimanded the officials and said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” Then I gathered the Levites and the singers together and restored them to their posts. (Nehemiah 13:11)
From there he went on to tackle the people’s failure to keep the Sabbath day holy (an endemic problem) by working the wine presses, for example, and the insidious issue of foreign marriages. The soiling of the Sabbath was fueled by the parasitical presence of merchants and “men of Tyre” with their odorous fish and merchandise for sale outside the gates, venturing at times inside them, (These days there’d be food trucks parked there). It was impressive to watch Nehemiah fix this problem. He admonished the people actively producing wine and hawking goods outside the wall. He reprimanded the nobles for promoting this activity, and finally, he shut the gates and threatened those encamped outside with bodily harm if they did not leave. Holiness is an affair of the heart, but sometimes you need to clean house first.
As for the mixed marriages that the leader found on his return trip to Jerusalem, he moved on from warnings, reprimands, and threats and took matters into his own hands.
So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves. (Nehemiah 13:25)
He used the example of Solomon who fell from grace by succumbing to the charms of foreign women. So bad was it, the son of the high priest had married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite, his chief antagonist! Nehemiah ran him out of his presence “on a rail.”
30 Thus I purified them from everything foreign and appointed duties for the priests and the Levites, each in his task, 31 and I arranged for the supply of wood at appointed times and for the first fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good. (Nehemiah 13:30–31)
This is Nehemiah’s final comment, as if he wipes his hands clean yet again, but not before he was assured that the altar fires kept burning (10:34) and the “first fruits” were again flowing into the temple storehouses.
Leave a Reply