The Oldest Sin.
We have all read the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, and we have all
pitied the man, alone on a desert island, alone without a friend,
without a single companion, never hearing any voice but his own, being
able to exchange thoughts with no one, alone, solitary, desolate.
Yet after all, in one respect, Robinson Crusoe was to be envied, for he
was shut off from one of the greatest temptations which besets us in
this world, a temptation which comes across the path of each of us, and
from which it is by no means easy to escape. Of that temptation,
Robinson Crusoe on his desert island knew nothing. He did not find
himself ever tempted to one of the most common of sins. Robinson Crusoe
was never tempted to keep bad company, for the simple reason that there
was no bad company for him to keep.
What curious beings hermits are! they are to be found in China, India,
Africa, in various parts of Europe, in fact, all over the world. And in
olden time there was many a lonely cave, many a shady retreat on the
hill-side, which was inhabited by one of these hermits.
Who then were these hermits? They were men who were so much afraid of
falling into the snare of keeping bad company, that they refused to keep
any company at all, men who so dreaded being led astray by their fellow
men, that they shut themselves off from all intercourse with the human
race.
It was not a right nor a wise thing to do, and these hermits found that
sin followed them even to their quiet lonely caves; yet it is scarcely
surprising that they dreaded evil companionship, and did all they could
to avoid it, seeing as they did how much misery it had brought into the
world.
For what was the oldest sin? What was the very first sin that entered
into this fair earth of ours? Some say it was pride, or selfishness, or
hard thoughts of God. But surely it was no other sin than this, the
keeping of bad company.
There was Eve in the garden. God had provided her with company; He had
given her Adam, the holy angels came in and out of that fair paradise;
nay more, God Himself was her friend, in the cool of the day He walked
with Eve under the trees of the garden, walked and talked with her as a
companion and friend.
But, in spite of this, Eve got into bad company. She stands, she talks,
she entertains Satan, the great enemy of God, against whom she must
often have been warned by God and the holy angels. And the consequence
was that Eve lost paradise, became a sinner, and brought sin and all its
attendant miseries into the world. We should never have had our weary
battle with sin if Eve had not kept bad company.
Nor was Eve the last of those who have brought trouble on themselves and
others by the same sin.
If the descendants of Seth had not kept bad company and made friends of
Cain's wicked race, the flood would never have swept them away. If
Samson had not gone into bad company he would never have lost his
strength, and have had to grind blindly and miserably at the mill. If
Solomon had not kept bad company idolatry would never have ruined
Jerusalem. If Rehoboam had not kept bad company the kingdom of Israel
would never have been divided; and again, and again, both in the history
of the past and in the story of the present, we see men and women led
astray by keeping bad company.
We have already seen Nehemiah taking strong measures to put down three
of the great glaring evils which he found in Jerusalem on his return. We
have now to see him battling with this dreadful curse and snare--bad
company. If the other three evils needed strong measures, Nehemiah feels
there is a tenfold need to take decided steps in this fourth and
all-important matter.
For what does he find as he walks through the streets of Jerusalem? He
discovers that the inhabitants of the holy city are fast becoming
foreigners and heathen. He hears the very children in the street talking
a language he cannot understand.
So common has marriage with heathen foreigners become, that Nehemiah
sees clearly that unless something is done to put a stop to it the next
generation will grow up utterly un-Jewish in language, appearance, and
dross, and worse still, heathen in their religion, kneeling down to
idols of wood and stone, and carrying on in Jerusalem itself all the
vile customs and abominations of the heathen.
'If the girls are pretty and nice, and if the men like them, why should
not they please themselves?' So the Jerusalem folk had talked in
Nehemiah's absence. They quite forgot to what it was all leading. They
shut their eyes to the danger of keeping bad company, they thought only
of what was pleasant and of what they liked, they quite forgot to ask
what was right, and what was the will of God.
Nehemiah, as governor of Jerusalem, summons into his presence, and
commands to appear before him in his judicial court, every man in
Jerusalem who had married a foreign heathen wife.
When all were assembled:
(1) He contended with them, _i.e._ he rebuked and argued with them, as
he had done with the rulers on the question of Sabbath observance.
(2) He cursed them, or as it is in the margin 'he reviled them.'
Probably he pronounced, as governor of Jerusalem, speaking in the name
of God, the judgments of God on those who broke his law.
(3) He smote certain of them. That is, he had some of them publicly
beaten. Nehemiah called upon the officers of the court to make an
example of some of the principal offenders by inflicting corporal
punishment upon them.
(4) He plucked off their hair, _lit_., He made them bald. The Hebrew
word, _marat_, which is used here, means to make smooth, to polish, to
peel. The word hair is not expressed in the original.
We are surely not to suppose that Nehemiah, with his own hands, either
struck these men or made them bald. What he did was simply this. He, as
the head magistrate, inflicted a judicial punishment upon them, a
double punishment.
(1) They were beaten.
(2) They were made bald.
We read (Matt, xxvii. 26) that Pontius Pilate took our Lord and scourged
him; but we surely do not imagine that the Roman governor with his own
hands inflicted the scourging, but we understand it to mean that he gave
the order for the punishment to the Roman soldiers. Just so, Nehemiah
the governor commanded these offending Jews to be beaten and made bald
by the officers of the court.
One of the most flourishing trades in an Eastern city is the trade of
the barber. This may easily be seen by walking through the streets of an
Eastern town, and noting the numerous barbers at work, some in their
shops, which are open to the street, and others outside on the
doorsteps, or in some shady corner. Especially in the evening are these
numerous barbers busy; when the work of the rest of the city is drawing
to a close the barber's work is at its height. Yet, strange to say,
although the barber is so busy, everyone in the East wears a beard; a
man in the East would think it a terrible disgrace if he was obliged to
be shorn of his beard.
The beard is considered a very sacred thing; it is thought a great
insult even to touch a man's beard, and if you want to make any man an
object of scorn and ridicule, you cannot do so better than by shaving
off his beard. This was the way in which the Ammonites insulted David's
ambassadors (2 Sam. x. 4, 5). And we read that they stopped at Jericho
till their beards were grown, for 'the men were greatly ashamed.'
What then is the barber's work? If men in the East wear beards, what is
it that keeps him so busy? The barber in the Eastern city shaves not the
man's chin, but his head. It is a very natural custom in hot, dusty
climates, where the head is always kept covered, both indoors and out of
doors. It is also a very ancient custom, for even in the old Egyptian
hieroglyphics we find pictures of barbers shaving the head. And we find
that in these modern days, Egyptians, Copts, Turks, Arabs, Hindoos, and
Chinese, all shave the head. But there is one great exception to this
rule. A barber would find no work in a purely Jewish city, for not only
do the Jews wear beards, but they also never shave their heads as their
Eastern neighbours do. The only ones amongst the Jews who were allowed
to have shaven heads were the poor outcast lepers. Hence the shaven head
was to them a sign or symbol of uncleanness and of excommunication. They
looked upon a man with a bald head very much as we look upon one whose
hair is cropped very suspiciously close, and whom we therefore imagine
must have been in gaol.
Thus it came to pass that 'Bald-head' became a common term of reproach
and insult. Elisha, the holy prophet, goes up the hill, wearing a thick
turban to protect his head from the sun. Out come a troop of wicked,
mocking children. Elisha is not bald, for he is a Jew, nor, even if he
had been bald, could these children have seen it, since his head is
covered; but they wish to annoy and to insult the holy man, so they cry
after him,
'Go up, thou bald head, go up.'
They simply use a common term of reproach. To have a bald head was
amongst the Jews a sign that a man was cut off from his nation, that he
was counted as a Gentile and an outsider, and therefore to call a man 'a
bald head' was equivalent to calling him a Gentile dog and an outcast.
Now Nehemiah inflicts this very punishment on these Jews who have
married heathen wives. He commands them to be made bald, as a sign of
shame and disgrace. It was a very significant and appropriate
punishment. They had thrown in their lot with the heathen Gentiles, let
them then become Gentiles, let them be branded with their mark, let
them, by being made bald, be stamped as those who are no longer citizens
of Jerusalem, but who have become outcasts and foreigners.
Then, when this was done, Nehemiah calls them to him, and makes them
take a solemn oath before God, that from that time forth they will never
fall into the same sin again:
'I made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto
their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.'
Then he reminds them how dreadful the consequences of the same sin had
been to no less a person than their great and glorious King Solomon, the
wisest of men, the beloved of his God. Even Solomon had been drawn aside
into sin by his love of heathen foreigners, or outlandish women, as
Nehemiah calls them, women living outside his own land. If he fell, if
he the wisest of men, if he the beloved of his God, was led astray, was
it likely that they could walk into the very same trap, and escape being
caught and ensnared by it?
'Did not Solomon King of Israel sin by these things? Yet among many
nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God
made him king over all Israel: nevertheless _even him_ did outlandish
women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great
evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?'
Did Nehemiah then break up the marriages which had already taken place,
and send the wives away? We are not told that he did. Probably he only
insisted, and insisted very strongly, that no more such marriages should
take place. For he knew that if the custom was continued it would lead
to ruin, shame, and disgrace, and he was therefore perfectly right to
take strong measures to put a stop to it.
One man he saw fit to make an example of in a still more decided
way--one offending member he felt must be cut off. This was Manasseh,
the grandson of the high priest, the very one who had been the cause of
Tobiah's entrance into the temple, and of the friendly feeling that
existed between Eliashib and the Samaritans.
Here was Manasseh, a priest, living in the temple itself, dressed in the
white robe, and taking part in the service of God, yet all the time
having a heathen wife, and allowing heathen ways in his household.
Manasseh's wife was actually Sanballat's daughter; and so long as he and
she remained in the temple precincts, Nehemiah felt they would never be
free from Sanballat's influence.
Accordingly we read:
'I chased him from me.'
Nehemiah banished him from the temple and from Jerusalem, and Manasseh
went away with his wife to her father's grand home in Samaria.
No doubt Nehemiah was far from popular in Jerusalem that night. There
were many who thought he had been too severe, too narrow, too
particular. And doubtless there were many who, if they had dared, would
have rebelled against his decision. But Nehemiah had done everything; he
had taken all these strong measures, not to please men, but to please
God. If the Master praised him, he cared not what others might say of
him. 'Lord, what wilt _Thou_ have me to do?' was the constant prayer of
Nehemiah's heart; and though the work was oftentimes unpopular and
disagreeable, Nehemiah did it both boldly and fearlessly.
The wheel of time goes round, and history, which works ever in a circle,
constantly repeats itself, and so also does sin. The sin of Nehemiah's
days is still to be seen; the same temptation which beset those
Jerusalem Jews, besets us even in these more enlightened days.
We all love company. There is in us a natural shrinking from being alone
and desolate. That feeling is born in us; we inherit it from our first
father Adam. 'It is not good for the man to be alone,' said the Lord in
His tenderness and His pity.
But a choice lies before us, a choice of friends. Our relatives are
given us by God, no man can choose who shall be his father, or mother,
or brother, or sister. But our friends are of our own choosing, and we
do not sufficiently consider that upon that choice may hang our
eternity. Heaven with all its brightness, hell with all its darkness
and misery, which shall be for me? The answer may hang, it often does
hang, on the choice of a friend.
For there are only two divisions in this world of ours, only two
companies, only two flocks. The kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of
light, the Lord's people and those who are none of His, the sheep and
the goats. From which division, from which company, from which flock
shall I choose my friends?
'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion
hath light with darkness?'
Especially careful should we be in that nearest and dearest of
friendships, in the choice of the one who is to be to us our other self.
Would we be made one, would we link ourselves by that firm and sacred
tie, whilst knowing all the time that the one who is to be dearer to us
than life itself is outside the fold? No blessing can surely rest on
such a marriage. Jesus cannot be an invited guest at that marriage
feast. For clear and unmistakable is the trumpet call of the great
Captain of our salvation:
'Come out from among them, and be ye separate, said the Lord, and touch
not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto
you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.'