_WISE AS SERPENTS._
NEHEMIAH vi.
Open opposition had totally failed. The watchful garrison had not once
permitted a surprise. In spite of the persistent malignity of his
enemies, Nehemiah had raised the walls all round the city till not a
breach remained anywhere. The doors had yet to be hung at the great
gateways, but the fortification of Jerusalem had proceeded so far that
it was hopeless for the enemy to attempt any longer to hinder it by
violence. Accordingly the leading antagonists changed their tactics.
They turned from force to fraud--a method of strategy which was a
confession of weakness. The antagonism to the Jews was now in a very
different position from that which it had attained before Nehemiah had
appeared on the scene, and when all Syria was moved and Artaxerxes
himself won over to the Samaritan view. It had no support from the
Satrap. It was directly against the policy sanctioned by the king. In
its impotence it was driven to adopt humiliating devices of cunning
and deceit; and even these expedients proved to be ineffectual. It has
been well remarked that the rustic tricksters from Samaria were no
match for a trained courtier. Nehemiah easily detected the clumsy
snares that were set to entrap him. Thus he illustrates that wisdom of
the serpent which our Lord commends to His disciples as a useful
weapon for meeting the temptations and dangers they must be prepared
to encounter. The serpent, repulsive and noxious, the common symbol of
sin, to some the very incarnation of the devil, was credited with a
quality worthy of imitation by One who could see the "soul of goodness
in things evil." The subtlety of the keen-eyed, sinuous beast appeared
to Him in the light of a real excellence, which should be rescued from
its degradation in the crawling reptile and set to a worthy use. He
rejoiced in the revelation made to babes; but it would be an insult to
the children whom He set before us as the typical members of the
kingdom of heaven to mistake this for a benediction of stupidity. The
fact is, dulness is often nothing but the result of indolence; it
often comes from negligence in the cultivation of faculties God has
given to men more generously than they will acknowledge. Surely, true
religion, since it consists in a Divine _life_, must bring vitality to
the whole man, and thus quicken the intellect as well as the heart.
St. James refers to the highest wisdom as a gift which God bestows
liberally and without upbraiding on those who ask for it.[202] Our
plain duty, therefore, is not to permit ourselves to be befooled to
our ruin.
[202] James i. 5.
But when we compare the wisdom of Nehemiah with the cunning of his
enemies we notice a broad distinction between the two qualities.
Sanballat and his fellow-conspirator, the Arab Geshem, condescend to
the meanness of deceit: they try to allure their victim into their
power; they invite him to trust himself to their hospitality while
intending to reward his confidence with treachery; they concoct false
reports to blacken the reputation of the man whom they dare not openly
attack; with diabolical craft one of their agents endeavours to tempt
Nehemiah to an act of cowardice that would involve apparently a
culpable breach of religious propriety, in order that his influence
may be undermined by the destruction of his reputation. From beginning
to end this is all a policy of lies. On the other hand, there is not a
shadow of insincerity in Nehemiah's method of frustrating it. He uses
his keen intelligence in discovering the plots of his foes; he never
degrades it by weaving counterplots. In the game of diplomacy he
outwits his opponents at every stage. If he would lend himself to
their mendacious methods, he might turn them round his finger. But he
will do nothing of the kind. One after another he breaks up the petty
schemes of the dishonest men who continue to worry him with their
devices, and quietly hands them back the fragments, to their bitter
chagrin. His replies are perfectly frank; his policy is clear as the
day. Wise as the serpent, he is harmless as the dove. A man of
astounding discernment, he is nevertheless "an Israelite indeed, in
whom there is no guile."
The first proposal had danger written on the face of it, and the
persistence with which so lame a device was repeated does not do much
credit to the ingenuity of the conspirators. Their very malignity
seems to have blinded them to the fact that they were not deceiving
Nehemiah. Perhaps they thought that he would yield to sheer
importunity. Their suggestion was that he should come out of Jerusalem
and confer with Sanballat and his friends some miles away in the
plain of Sharon.[203] The Jews were known to be hard-pressed, weary,
and famine-stricken, and any overtures that promised an amicable
settlement, or even a temporary truce, might be viewed acceptably by
the anxious governor on whose sole care the social troubles of the
citizens as well as the military protection of the city depended. Very
likely information gleaned from spies within Jerusalem guided the
conspirators in choosing the opportunities for their successive
overtures. These would seem most timely when the social troubles of
the Jews were most serious. In another way the invitation to a parley
might be thought attractive to Nehemiah. It would appeal to his nobler
feelings. A generous man is unwilling to suspect the dishonesty of his
neighbours.
[203] At Ono. This place has not yet been found. It cannot well be
_Beit Unia_, north-west of Jerusalem, near _Beitin_ (Bethel). Its
association with Lod (Lydda) in 1 Chron. viii. 12 and Neh. xi. 35,
points to the neighbourhood of the latter place.
But Nehemiah was not caught by the "confidence trick." He knew the
conspirators intended to do him mischief. Yet as this intention was
not actually proved against them, he put no accusation into his reply.
The inference from it was clear enough. But the message itself could
not be construed into any indication of discourtesy. Nehemiah was
doing a great work. Therefore he could not come down. This was a
perfectly genuine answer. For the governor to have left Jerusalem at
the present crisis would have been disastrous to the city. The
conspirators then tried another plan for getting Nehemiah to meet them
outside Jerusalem. They pretended that it was reported that his work
in fortifying the city was carried on with the object of rebelling
against the Persian government, and that this report had gone so far
as to convey the impression that he had induced prophets to preach his
kingship. Some such suspicion had been hinted at before, at the time
of Nehemiah's coming up to Jerusalem,[204] but then its own absurdity
had prevented it from taking root. Now the actual appearance of the
walls round the once ruinous city, and the rising reputation of
Nehemiah as a man of resource and energy, might give some colour to
the calumny. The point of the conspirators' device, however, is not to
be found in the actual spreading of the dangerous rumour, but in the
alarm to be suggested to Nehemiah by the thought that it was being
spread. Nehemiah would know very well how much mischief is wrought by
idle and quite groundless talk. The libel may be totally false, and
yet it may be impossible for its victim to follow it up and clear his
character in every nook and cranny to which it penetrates. A lie, like
a weed, if it is not nipped in the bud, sheds seeds which every wind
of gossip will spread far and wide, so that it soon becomes impossible
to stamp it out.
[204] Neh. ii. 19.
In their effort to frighten Nehemiah the conspirators suggested that
the rumour would reach the king. They as much as hinted that they
would undertake the business of reporting it themselves if he would
not come to terms with them. This was an attempt at extracting
blackmail. Having failed in their appeal to his generous instincts,
the conspirators tried to work on his fears. For any one of less
heroic mind than Nehemiah their diabolical threat would have been
overwhelmingly powerful. Even he could not but feel the force of it.
It calls to mind the last word of the Jews that determined Pilate to
surrender Jesus to the death he knew was not merited: "If thou let
this Man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." The suspicion that always
haunts the mind of an autocratic sovereign gives undue weight to any
charges of treason. Artaxerxes was not a Tiberius. But the
good-natured monarch was liable to persuasion. Nehemiah must have had
occasion to witness many instances of the fatal consequences of royal
displeasure. Could he rely on the continuance of his master's favour
now he was far from the court, while lying tongues were trying to
poison the ears of the king? Before first speaking of his project for
helping his people, he had trembled at the risk he was about to incur;
how then could he now learn with equanimity that a cruelly mendacious
representation of it was being made to Artaxerxes? His sense of the
gravity of the situation is seen in the way in which he met it.
Nehemiah indignantly repudiated the charge. He boldly asserted that it
had been invented by the conspirators. To them he showed an unwavering
front. But we are able to look behind the scenes. It is one advantage
of this autobiographical sketch of Nehemiah's that in it the writer
repeatedly lifts the veil and reveals to us the secret of his
thoughts. Heroic in the world, before men, he still knew his real
human weakness. But he knew too that his strength was in God. Such
heroism as his is not like the stolidity of the lifeless rock. It
resembles the strength of the living oak, which grows more massive
just in proportion as it is supplied with fresh sap. According to his
custom in every critical moment of his life, Nehemiah resorted to
prayer, and thus again we come upon one of those brief ejaculations
uttered in the midst of the stress and strain of a busy life that
light up the pages of his narrative from time to time. The point of
his prayer is simple and definite. It is just that _his hands may be
strengthened_. This would have a twofold bearing. In the first place,
it would certainly seek a revival of inward energy. Nehemiah waits on
the Lord that He may renew his strength. He knows that God helps him
through his own exercise of energy, so that if he is to be protected
he must be made strong. But the prayer means more than this. For the
hands to be strengthened is for their work to prosper. Nehemiah craves
the aid of God that all may go right in spite of the terrible danger
from lying calumnies with which he is confronted; and his prayer was
answered. The second device was frustrated.
The third was managed very differently. This time Nehemiah was
attacked within the city, for it was now apparent that no attempts to
lure him outside the walls could succeed. A curious characteristic of
the new incident is that Nehemiah himself paid a visit to the man who
was the treacherous instrument of his enemies' devices. He went in
person to the house of Shemaiah the prophet--a most mysterious
proceeding. We have no explanation of his reason for going. Had the
prophet sent for Nehemiah? or is it possible that in the dread
perplexity of the crisis, amid the snares that surrounded him,
oppressed with the loneliness of his position of supreme
responsibility, Nehemiah hungered for a Divine message from an
inspired oracle? It is plain from this chapter that the common,
every-day prophets--so much below the great messengers of Jehovah
whose writings represent Hebrew prophecy to us to-day--had survived
the captivity, and were still practising divination much after the
manner of heathen soothsayers, as their fathers had done before them
from the time when a young farmer's son was sent to Samuel to learn
the whereabouts of a lost team of asses. If Nehemiah had resorted to
the prophet of his own accord, his danger was indeed serious. In this
case it would be the more to his credit that he did not permit himself
to be duped.
Another feature of the strange incident is not very clear to us.
Nehemiah tells us that the prophet was "shut up."[205] What does this
mean? Was the man ceremonially unclean? or ill? or in custody under
some accusation? None of these three explanations can be accepted,
because Shemaiah proposed to proceed at once to the temple with
Nehemiah, and thus confessed his seclusion to be voluntary. Can we
give a metaphorical interpretation to the expression, and understand
the prophet to be representing himself as under a Divine compulsion,
the thought of which may give the more urgency to the advice he
tenders to Nehemiah? In this case we should look for a more explicit
statement, for the whole force of his message would depend upon the
authority thus attributed to it. A simpler interpretation, to which
the language of Shemaiah points, and one in accordance with all the
wretched, scheming policy of the enemies of Nehemiah, is that the
prophet pretended that he was himself in personal danger as a friend
and supporter of the governor, and that therefore he found it
necessary to keep himself in seclusion. Thus by his own attitude he
would try to work on the fears of Nehemiah.
[205] Neh. vi. 10.
The proposal that the prophet should accompany Nehemiah to the
shelter of the temple, even into the "Holy Place," was temptingly
plausible. The heathen regarded the shrines of their gods as
sanctuaries, and similar notions seem to have attached themselves to
the Jewish altar. Moreover, the massive structure of the temple was
itself a defence--the temple of Herod was the last fortress to be
taken in the great final siege. In the temple, too, Nehemiah might
hope to be safe from the surprise of a street _émeute_ among the
disaffected sections of the population. Above all, the presence and
counsel of a prophet would seem to sanction and authorise the course
indicated. Yet it was all a cruel snare. This time the purpose was to
discredit Nehemiah in the eyes of the Jews, inasmuch as his influence
depended largely on his reputation. But again Nehemiah could see
through the tricks of his enemies. He was neither blinded by
self-interest nor overawed by prophetic authority. The use of that
authority was the last arrow in the quiver of his foes. They would
attack him through his religious faith. Their mistake was that they
took too low a view of that faith. This is the common mistake of the
irreligious in their treatment of truly devout men. Nehemiah knew that
a prophet could err. Had there not been lying prophets in the days of
Jeremiah? It is a proof of his true spiritual insight that he could
discern one in his pretended protector. The test is clear to a man
with so true a conscience as we see in Nehemiah. If the prophet says
what we know to be morally wrong, he cannot be speaking from God. It
is not the teaching of the Bible--not the teaching of the Old
Testament any more than that of the New--that revelation supersedes
conscience, that we are ever to take on authority what our moral
nature abhors. The humility that would lay conscience under the heel
of authority is false and degrading, and it is utterly contrary to the
whole tenor of Scripture. One great sign of the worth of a prophecy is
its character. Thus the devout man is to try the spirits, whether they
be of God.[206] Nehemiah has the clear, serene conscience that detects
sin when it appears in the guise of sanctity. He sees at a glance that
it would be wrong for him to follow Shemaiah's advice. It would
involve a cowardly desertion of his post. It would also involve a
desecration of the sacred temple enclosure. How could he, being such
as he was--_i.e._, a layman--go into the temple, even to save his
life?[207] But did not our Lord excuse David for an analogous action
in eating the shewbread? True. But Nehemiah did not enjoy the
primitive freedom of David, nor the later enlightened liberty of
Christ. In his intermediate position, in his age of nascent
ceremonialism, it was impossible for him to see that simple human
necessities could ever override the claims of ritual. His duty was
shaped to him by his beliefs. So is it with every man. To him that
esteemeth anything sin it is sin.[208]
[206] 1 John iv. 1.
[207] Neh. vi. 11.
[208] Rom. xiv. 14.
Nehemiah's answer to the proposal of the wily prophet is very
blunt--"I will not go in." Bluntness is the best reply to sophistry.
The whole scheme was open to Nehemiah. He perceived that God had not
sent the prophet, that this man was but a tool in the hands of the
Samaritan conspirators. In solemnly committing the leaders of the vile
conspiracy to the judgment of Heaven, Nehemiah includes a prophetess,
Noadiah--degenerate successor of the patriotic Deborah!--and the whole
gang of corrupt, traitorous prophets. Thus the wrongness of Shemaiah's
proposal not only discredited his mission; it also revealed the
secret of his whole undertaking and that of his unworthy coadjutors.
While Nehemiah detected the character of the false prophecy by means
of his clear perceptions of right and wrong, those perceptions helped
him to discover the hidden hand of his foe. He was not to be sheltered
in the temple, as Shemaiah suggested; but he was saved through the
keenness of his own conscience. In this case the wisdom of the serpent
in him was the direct outcome of his high moral nature and the care
with which he kept "conscience as the noontide clear."
Nehemiah adds two items by way of postscripts to his account of the
building of the walls.
The first is the completion of the work, with its effect on the
jealous enemies of the Jews. It was finished in fifty-two days--an
almost incredibly short time, especially when the hindrances of
internal troubles and external attacks are taken into account. The
building must have been hasty and rough. Still it was sufficient for
its purpose. The moral effect of it was the chief result gained. The
sense of discouragement now passed over to the enemy. It was the
natural reaction from the mockery with which they had assailed the
commencement of the work, that at the sight of the completion of it
they should be "much cast down."[209] We can imagine the grim
satisfaction with which Nehemiah would write these words. But they
tell of more than the humiliation of insulting and deceitful enemies;
they complete an act in a great drama of Providence, in which the
courage that stands to duty in face of all danger and the faith that
looks to God in prayer are vindicated.
[209] Neh. vi. 16.
The second postscript describes yet another source of danger to
Nehemiah--one possibly remaining after the walls were up. Tobiah, "the
servant," had not been included in the previous conspiracies. But he
was playing a little game of his own. The intermarriage of leading
Jewish families with foreigners was bearing dangerous fruit in his
case. Tobiah had married a Jewess, and his son had followed his
example. In each case the alliance had brought him into connection
with a well-known family in Jerusalem. These two families pleaded his
merits with Nehemiah, and at the same time acted as spies and reported
the words of the governor to Tobiah. The consequence was the receipt
of alarmist letters from this man by Nehemiah. The worst danger might
thus be found among the disaffected citizens within the walls who were
irritated at the rigorously exclusive policy of Ezra, which Nehemiah
had not discouraged, although he had not yet had occasion to push it
further. The stoutest walls will not protect from treason within the
ramparts. So after all the labour of completing the fortifications
Nehemiah's trust must still be in God alone.