Nehemiah 4:4














Not the first nor the last instance was this one here recorded of -

I. DEVOTION ASSAILED BY DERISION (vers. 1-3). Sanballat and Tobiah were contemptuously angry when they heard that the Jews had actually begun to build: they "took great indignation, and mocked the Jews" (ver. 1). "What do these feeble Jews?" said Sanballat (ver. 2). "If a fox go up, he shall break down their stone wall," said Tobiah (ver. 3), using the strongest language of derision. Here was

(1) misplaced contempt. A very ridiculous thing it must have seemed to Noah's contemporaries for him to be building a great ship so far from the sea; but the hour came when, as the waters rose, the scorners who had laughed at him knew that he was the one wise man, and they the fools. A pitiably ruinous thing the ministers of Pharaoh's court must have thought it in Moses to sacrifice his princely position in Egypt, and choose to "suffer affliction with the people of God" (Hebrews 11:25). We know now how wise he was. Many others beside Festus thought Paul mad to relinquish everything dear to man that he might be a leader of the despised sect, "everywhere spoken against." We understand what he did for the world, and what a "crown of righteousness" he was winning for himself. To the shallow judgment of the Samaritans, Nehemiah and his workmen seemed to be engaged in a work that would come to nought - they would "have their labour for their pains;" but their contempt was wholly misplaced. These men were earnest and devout workmen, guided by a resolute, high-minded leader, who had a plan in his head as well as a hope in his heart; they were to be congratulated, and not despised. So now

(a) fleshly strength, a thing of muscle and nerve, may despise the mind with which it competes; or

(b) material force (money, muskets, arms) the spiritual strength against which it is arrayed; or

(c) mere numbers, without truth and without God, the feeble band which is in a small minority, but which has truth, righteousness, God on its side. Very misplaced contempt, as time will soon show. Sanballat and Tobiah, in their superciliousness, used

(2) an easily-forged weapon - ridicule. Nothing is easier than to turn good things, even the very best things, into ridicule. It is the favourite weapon of wrong in its weakness. When men can do nothing else, they can laugh at goodness and virtue. Any simpleton may make filial piety seem ridiculous by a sneering allusion to a "mother's apron-string." The weakest-minded man can raise a laugh by speaking of death or of devotion in terms of flippancy. There was but the very smallest speck of cleverness in Sanballat's idea of turning ashes into stones (ver. 2), or in Tobiah's reference to the fox breaking down the wall (ver. 3), but it probably excited the derisive laughter of "the brethren and the army of Samaria" (ver. 2). Let those who adopt the role of the mocker remember that it is the weapon of the fool which they are wielding. But though easily forged, this weapon of ridicule is

(3) a blade that cuts deeply. Nehemiah felt it keenly. "Hear, O our God; for we are despised" (ver. 4). And the imprecation (ver. 6) that follows shows very deep and intense feeling. Derision may be easily produced, but it is very hard to bear. It is but a shallow philosophy that says "hard words break no bones:" they do not break bones, but they bruise tender hearts. They crush sensitive spirits, which is more, and worse. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" (Proverbs 18:14). The full force of a human soul's contempt directed against a sensitive spirit, the brutal trampling of heartless malignity on the most sacred and cherished convictions of the soul, this is one of the worst sufferings we can be called to endure. But we have -

II. DEVOTION BETAKING ITSELF TO ITS REFUGE (vers. 4, 5). Nehemiah, as his habit was, betook himself to God. He could not make light of the reproaches, but, smarting under them, he appealed to the Divine Comforter. "Hear, O our God," etc. (ver. 4). In all time of our distress from persecution we should

(1) carry our burden to our God; especially remembering "him who endured such contradiction of sinners" (Hebrews 12:3), and appealing to him who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15), having been himself tried on this point even as we are.

(2) Ask his interposition with our enemies; only, as we have learned of Christ, asking not for retaliation (ver. 5), but for the victory of love, for their conversion to a better mind.

III. DEVOTION DRIVEN TO DO ITS BEST (ver. 6). Under the inspiration of an attack from without, Nehemiah and his brethren went on with their work

(1) with redoubled speed. "So built we the wall unto the half thereof." It grew rapidly under their busy hands, nerved and stimulated as they were to do their best.

(2) With perfect co-operation. "All the wall was joined together." There was no part left undone by any idlers or malcontents: each man did the work appointed him. The reproaches of them that are without knits together as one man those that are within.

(3) With heartiness. "The people had a mind to work." No instru- ments, however cunningly devised and well-made, will do much without the "mind to work;" but with our mind in the work we can do almost anything with such weapons as we have at hand. Pray for, cherish "the willing mind" (2 Corinthians 8:12) in the work of the Lord, and then the busy hand will quickly "build the wall." - C.

None of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.
Some people waste all their energy in putting off and on their clothes: their whole life is a question of clothes; they cannot do anything until their clothes are right. Nehemiah showed how he distinguished between the necessary and the unnecessary. We must attend to health if we are to attend to successful toil. Time is not wasted that is spent in obeying the laws of life.

(J. Parker, D. D.).

People
Ammonites, Arabians, Ashdodites, Sanballat, Tobiah, Tobijah
Places
Jerusalem, Samaria, Sheep Gate
Topics
Captives, Captivity, Despised, Ear, Heads, Insults, O, Plunder, Plundered, Prey, Prisoners, Reproach, Return, Shame, Spoil, Spoiling, Taunt, Themselves, Turn, Wasting
Outline
1. While the enemies scoff, Nehemiah prays and continues the work
7. Understanding the wrath and secrets of the enemy, he sets a watch
13. He arms the laborers
19. and gives military precepts

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Nehemiah 4:4

     5157   head
     5246   captivity
     5888   inferiority
     8787   opposition, to God

Nehemiah 4:1-4

     5775   abuse
     8800   prejudice

Nehemiah 4:1-5

     5893   insults

Nehemiah 4:4-5

     5350   injustice, hated by God

Library
Discouragements and Courage
'Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them. 10. And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall. 11. And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease. 12. And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Two Guards, Praying and Watching
"Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them."--Nehemiah 4:9. Nehemiah, and the Jews with him, were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Sanballat and others were angry with them, and tried to stop the work. They determined to pounce upon the people on a sudden, and slay them, and so to put an end to what they were doing. Our text tells us what Nehemiah and his companions did in this emergency: "Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 38: 1892

Centenary Commemoration of the Consecration of Bishop Seabury. 1884.
THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. WAS CONSECRATED FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT AT ABERDEEN, NOVEMBER 14, 1784. The Diocesan Convention of 1884 met on the tenth day of June in St. James's Church, New London. Morning Prayer was read at 9 o'clock by the Rev. William B. Buckingham, Rector of the Parish, the Rev. Samuel H. Giesy, D.D., Rector of Christ Church, Norwich, and the Rev. Storrs O. Seymour, Rector of Trinity Church, Hartford. At 10-1/2 o'clock, after the singing of the 138th Hymn, the service
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary

Letter xxxiv. To Marcella.
In reply to a request from Marcella for information concerning two phrases in Ps. cxxvii. ("bread of sorrow," v. 2, and "children of the shaken off," A.V. "of the youth," v. 4). Jerome, after lamenting that Origen's notes on the psalm are no longer extant, gives the following explanations: The Hebrew phrase "bread of sorrow" is rendered by the LXX. "bread of idols"; by Aquila, "bread of troubles"; by Symmachus, "bread of misery." Theodotion follows the LXX. So does Origen's Fifth Version. The Sixth
St. Jerome—The Principal Works of St. Jerome

"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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