_NEHEMIAH THE PATRIOT._
NEHEMIAH i. 1-3.
The Book of Nehemiah is the last part of the chronicler's narrative.
Although it was not originally a separate work, we can easily see why
the editor, who broke up the original volume into distinct books,
divided it just where he did. An interval of twelve or thirteen years
comes between Ezra's reformation and the events recorded in the
opening of "Nehemiah." Still a much longer period was passed over in
silence in the middle of "Ezra."[126] A more important reason for the
division of the narrative may be found in the introduction of a new
character. The book which now bears his name is largely devoted to the
actions of Nehemiah; and it commences with an autobiographical
narrative, which occupies the first six chapters and part of the
seventh.
[126] At Ezra vii. 1.
Nehemiah plunges suddenly into his story, without giving us any hints
of his previous history. His father, Hacaliah, is only a name to us.
It was necessary to state this name in order to distinguish the writer
from other men named Nehemiah.[127] There is no reason to think that
his privileged position at court indicates high family connections.
The conjecture of Ewald that he owed his important and lucrative
office to his personal beauty and youthful attractions is enough to
account for it. His appointment to the office formerly held by
Zerubbabel is no proof that he belonged to the Jewish royal family. At
the despotic Persian court the king's kindness towards a favourite
servant would override all claims of princely rank. Besides, it is
most improbable that we should have no hint of the Davidic descent if
this had been one ground of the appointment. Eusebius and Jerome both
describe Nehemiah as of the tribe of Judah. Jerome is notoriously
inaccurate; Eusebius is a cautious historian, but it is not likely
that in his late age--as long after Nehemiah as our age is after
Thomas à Becket--he could have any trustworthy evidence beyond that of
the Scriptures. The statement that the city of Jerusalem was the place
of the sepulchres of his ancestors[128] lends some plausibility to the
suggestion that Nehemiah belonged to the tribe of Judah. With this we
must be content.
[127] _E.g._, the Nehemiah of Ezra ii. 2, who is certainly another
person.
[128] Neh. ii. 3.
It is more to the point to notice that, like Ezra, the younger man,
whose practical energy and high authority were to further the reforms
of the somewhat doctrinaire scribe, was a Jew of the exile. Once more
it is in the East, far away from Jerusalem, that the impulse is found
for furthering the cause of the Jews. Thus we are again reminded that
wave after wave sweeps up from the Babylonian plains to give life and
strength to the religious and civic restoration.
The peculiar circumstances of Nehemiah deepen our interest in his
patriotic and religious work. In his case it was not the hardships of
captivity that fostered the aspirations of the spiritual life, for he
was in a position of personal ease and prosperity. We can scarcely
think of a lot less likely to encourage the principles of patriotism
and religion than that of a favourite upper servant in a foreign,
heathen court. The office held by Nehemiah was not one of political
rank. He was a palace slave, not a minister of state like Joseph or
Daniel. But among the household servants he would take a high
position. The cup-bearers had a special privilege of admission to the
august presence of their sovereign in his most private seclusion. The
king's life was in their hands; and the wealthy enemies of a despotic
sovereign would be ready enough to bribe them to poison the king, if
only they proved to be corruptible. The requirement that they should
first pour some wine into their own hands, and drink the sample before
the King, is an indication that fear of treachery haunted the mind of
an Oriental monarch, as it does the mind of a Russian czar to-day.
Even with this rough safeguard it was necessary to select men who
could be relied upon. Thus the cup-bearers would become "favourites."
At all events, it is plain that Nehemiah was regarded with peculiar
favour by the king he served. No doubt he was a faithful servant, and
his fidelity in his position of trust at court was a guarantee of
similar fidelity in a more responsible and far more trying office.
Nehemiah opens his story by telling us that he was in "the
palace,"[129] or rather "the fortress," at Susa, the winter abode of
the Persian monarchs--an Elamite city, the stupendous remains of
which astonish the traveller in the present day--eighty miles east of
the Tigris and within sight of the Bakhtiyari Mountains. Here was the
great nail of audience, the counterpart of another at Persepolis.
These two were perhaps the largest rooms in the ancient world next to
that at Karnak. Thirty-six fluted columns, distributed as six rows of
six columns each, slender and widely spaced, supported a roof
extending two hundred feet each way. The month Chislev, in which the
occurrence Nehemiah proceeds to relate happened, corresponds to parts
of our November and December. The name is an Assyrian and Babylonian
one, and so are all the names of the months used by the Jews. Further,
Nehemiah speaks of what he here narrates as happening in the twentieth
year of Artaxerxes, and in the next chapter he mentions a subsequent
event as occurring in the month Nisan[130] in the same year. This
shows that he did not reckon the year to begin at Nisan, as the Jews
were accustomed to reckon it. He must have followed the general
Asiatic custom, which begins the year in the autumn, or else he must
have regulated his dates according to the time of the king's
accession. In either case we see how thoroughly un-Jewish the setting
of his narrative is--unless a third explanation is adopted, viz., that
the Jewish year, beginning in the spring, only counts from the
adoption of Ezra's edition of The Law. Be this as it may, other
indications of Orientalism, derived from his court surroundings, will
attract our attention in our consideration of his language later on.
No writer of the Bible reflects the influence of alien culture more
clearly than Nehemiah. Outwardly, he is the most foreign Jew we meet
with in Scripture. Yet in his and character he is the very ideal of a
Jewish patriot. His patriotism shines all the more splendidly because
it bursts out of a foreign environment. Thus Nehemiah shows how little
his dialect and the manners he exhibits can be taken as the gauge of a
man's true life.
[129] Neh. i. 1.
[130] Neh. ii. 1.
Nehemiah states that, while he was thus at Susa, in winter residence
with the court, one of his brethren, named Hanani, together with
certain men of Judah, came to him.[131] The language here used will
admit of our regarding Hanani as only a more or less distant relative
of the cup-bearer; but a later reference to him at Jerusalem as "my
brother Hanani"[132] shows that his own brother is meant.
[131] Neh. i. 2.
[132] Neh. vii. 2.
Josephus has an especially graphic account of the incident. We have no
means of discovering whether he drew it from an authentic source, but
its picturesqueness may justify the insertion of it here: "Now there
was one of those Jews who had been carried captive, who was cup-bearer
to King Xerxes; his name was Nehemiah. As this man was walking before
Susa, the metropolis of the Persians, he heard some strangers that
were entering the city, after a long journey, speaking to one another
in the Hebrew tongue; so he went to them and asked from whence they
came; and when their answer was, that they came from Judæa, he began
to inquire of them again in what state the multitude was, and in what
condition Jerusalem was: and when they replied that they were in a bad
state, for that their walls were thrown down to the ground, and that
the neighbouring nations did a great deal of mischief to the Jews,
while in the day-time they over-ran the country and pillaged it, and
in the night did them mischief, insomuch that not a few were led away
captive out of the country, and out of Jerusalem itself, and that the
roads were in the day-time found full of dead men. Hereupon Nehemiah
shed tears, out of commiseration of the calamities of his countrymen;
and, looking up to heaven, he said, 'How long, O Lord, wilt thou
overlook our nation, while it suffers so great miseries, and while we
are made the prey and the spoil of all men?' And while he staid at the
gate, and lamented thus, one told him that the king was going to sit
down to supper; so he made haste, and went as he was, without washing
himself, to minister to the king in his office of cup-bearer,"
etc.[133]
[133] Josephus, _Ant._, XI. v. 6.
Evidently Nehemiah was expressly sought out. His influence would
naturally be valued. There was a large Jewish community at Susa, and
Nehemiah must have enjoyed a good reputation among his people;
otherwise it would have been vain for the travellers to obtain an
interview with him. The eyes of these Jews were turned to the royal
servant as the fellow-countryman of greatest influence at court. But
Nehemiah anticipated their message and relieved them of all difficulty
by questioning them about the city of their fathers. Jerusalem was
hundreds of miles away across the desert; no regular methods of
communication kept the Babylonian colony informed of the condition of
the advance guard at the ancient capital; therefore scraps of news
brought by chance travellers were eagerly devoured by those who were
anxious for the rare information. Plainly Nehemiah shared this
anxiety. His question was quite spontaneous, and it suggests that
amid the distractions of his court life his thoughts had often
reverted to the ancient home of his people. If he had not been truly
patriotic, he could have used some device, which his palace experience
would have readily suggested, so as to divert the course of this
conversation with a group of simple men from the country, and keep the
painful subject in the background. He must have seen clearly that for
one in his position of influence to make inquiries about a poor and
distressed community was to raise expectations of assistance. But his
questions were earnest and eager, because his interest was genuine.
The answers to Nehemiah's inquiries struck him with surprise as well
as grief. The shock with which he received them reminds us of Ezra's
startled horror when the lax practices of the Jewish leaders were
reported to him, although the trained court official did not display
the abandonment of emotion which was seen in the student suddenly
plunged into the vortex of public life and unprepared for one of those
dread surprises which men of the world drill themselves to face with
comparative calmness.
We must now examine the news that surprised and distressed Nehemiah.
His brother and the other travellers from Jerusalem inform him that
the descendants of the returned captives, the residents of Jerusalem,
"are in great affliction and reproach"; and also that the city walls
have been broken down and the gates burnt. The description of the
defenceless and dishonoured state of the city is what most strikes
Nehemiah. Now the question is to what calamities does this report
refer? According to the usual understanding, it is a description of
the state of Jerusalem which resulted from the sieges of
Nebuchadnezzar. But there are serious difficulties in the way of this
view. Nehemiah must have known all about the tremendous events, one of
the results of which was seen in the very existence of the Jewish
colony of which he was a member. The inevitable consequences of that
notorious disaster could not have come before him unexpectedly and as
startling news. Besides, the present distress of the inhabitants is
closely associated with the account of the ruin of the defences, and
is even mentioned first. Is it possible that one sentence should
include what was happening now, and what took place a century earner,
in a single picture of the city's misery? The language seems to point
to the action of breaking through me walls rather than to such a
general demolition of them as took place when the whole city was razed
to the ground by the Babylonian invaders. Lastly, the action of
Nehemiah cannot be accounted for on this hypothesis. He is plunged
into grief by the dreadful news, and at first he can only mourn and
fast and pray. But before long, as soon as he obtains permission from
his royal master, he sets out for Jerusalem, and there his first great
work is to restore the ruined walls. The connection of events shows
that it is the information brought to him by Hanani and the other Jews
from Jerusalem that rouses him to proceed to the city. All this points
to some very recent troubles, which were previously unknown to
Nehemiah. Can we find any indication of those troubles elsewhere?
The opening scene in the patriotic career of Nehemiah exactly fit in
with the events which came under our consideration in the previous
chapter. There we saw that the opposition to the Jews which is
recorded as early as Ezra iv., but attributed to the reign of an
"Artaxerxes," must have been carried into effect under Artaxerxes
Longimanus--Nehemiah's master. This must have been subsequent to the
mission of Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, as Ezra makes no
mention of its distressful consequences. The news reached Nehemiah in
the twentieth year of the same reign. Therefore the mischief must have
been wrought some time during the intervening thirteen years. We have
no history of that period. But the glimpse of its most gloomy
experiences afforded by the detached paragraph in Ezra iv. exactly
fits in with the description of the resulting condition of Jerusalem
in the Book of Nehemiah. This will fully account for Nehemiah's
surprise and grief; it will also throw a flood of light on his
character and subsequent action. If he had only been roused to repair
the ravages of the old Babylonian invasions, there would have been
nothing very courageous in his undertaking. Babylon itself had been
overthrown, and the enemy of Babylon was now in power. Anything
tending to obliterate the destructive glory of the old fallen empire
might be accepted with favour by the Persian ruler. But the case is
quite altered when we think of the more recent events. The very work
Nehemiah was to undertake had been attempted but a few years before,
and it had failed miserably. The rebuilding of the walls had then
excited the jealousy of neighbouring peoples, and their gross
misrepresentations had resulted in an official prohibition of the
work. This prohibition, however, had only been executed by acts of
violence, sanctioned by the government. Worse than all else, it was
from the very Artaxerxes whom Nehemiah served that the sanction had
been obtained. He was an easy-going sovereign, readily accessible to
the advice of his ministers; in the earlier part of his reign he
showed remarkable favour towards the Jews, when he equipped and
despatched Ezra on his great expedition, and it is likely enough that
in the pressure of his multitudinous affairs the King would soon
forgot his unfavourable despatch. Nevertheless he was an absolute
monarch, and the lives of his subjects were in his hands. For a
personal attendant of such a sovereign to show sympathy with a city
that had come under his disapproval was a very risky thing. Nehemiah
may have felt this while he was hiding his grief from Artaxerxes. But
if so, his frank confession at the first opportunity reflects all the
more credit on his patriotism and the courage with which he supported
it.
Patriotism is the most prominent principle in Nehemiah's conduct.
Deeper considerations emerge later, especially after he has come under
the influence of an enthusiastic religious teacher in the person of
Ezra. But at first it is the city of his fathers that moves his heart.
He is particularly distressed at its desolate condition, because the
burial-place of is ancestors is there. The great anxiety of the Jews
about the bodies of their dead, and their horror of the exposure of a
corpse, made them look with peculiar concern on the tombs of their
people. In sharing the sentiments that spring out of the habits of his
people in this respect, Nehemiah gives a specific turn to his
patriotism. He longs to guard and honour the last resting-place of his
people; he would hear of any outrage on the city where their
sepulchres are with the greatest distress. Thus filial piety mingles
with patriotism, and the patriotism itself is localised, like that of
the Greeks, and directed to the interests of a single city. Nehemiah
here represents a different attitude from that of Mordecai. It is not
the Jew that he thinks of in the first instance, but Jerusalem; and
Jerusalem is dear to him primarily, not because of his kinsmen who are
living there, but because it is the city of his fathers' sepulchres,
the city of the great past. Still the strongest feelings are always
personal. Patriotism loves the very soil of the fatherland; but the
depth and strength of the passion spring from association with an
affection for the people that inhabit it. Without this patriotism
degenerates into a flimsy sentiment. At Jerusalem Nehemiah develops a
deep personal interest in the citizens. Even on the Susa acropolis,
where the very names of these people are unknown to him, the thought
of his ancestry gives a sanctity to the far-off city. Such a thought
is enlarging and purifying. It lifts a man out of petty personal
concerns; it gives him unselfish sympathies; it prepares demands for
sacrifice and service. Thus, while the mock patriotism which cares
only for glory and national aggrandisement is nothing but a vulgar
product of enlarged selfishness, the true patriotism that awakens
large human sympathies is profoundly unselfish, and shows itself to be
a part of the very religion of a devoted man.