God's Remembrance.
How fond people are of collecting old books, and what a large price old
books will fetch! Those who are so fortunate as to obtain possession of
a book which is four or five hundred years old may put their own price
upon it, for some antiquarian will be sure to purchase it.
But how modern, how very far from being ancient, the oldest of our
English books, printed in the most primitive black letter, appears, when
it is laid side by side with that curious old book which travellers,
visiting the little village of Nablus, are shown this very day. Well may
the old white-headed man who has charge of that book bring it out with
pride, for it is one of the oldest books in the world.
The book is in the form of a roll of parchment. It is made of goat
skins, twenty-five inches broad, and about fifteen feet long. The skins
are neatly joined together, but in many places they have been torn and
rather clumsily mended. The roll is kept in a grand silver-gilt case in
the form of a cylinder, embossed and engraved. On this case are carved
representations of the Tabernacle, of the ark, of the two altars, of
the trumpets, and of the various instruments used in sacrifice. A
crimson satin cover, on which inscriptions are worked in gold thread, is
thrown over this precious book.
This old manuscript is written in Hebrew, and is said by the Jews to be
the work of a man whose name has already come before us in Nehemiah's
story. We saw that Eliashib, the high priest, had a grandson named
Manasseh, that Manasseh married the daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan
governor, and that Nehemiah felt very strongly that the temple would
never be cleansed, nor God's blessing rest upon them as a nation, so
long as one of their own priests had a heathen wife, and was in constant
communication with Sanballat. Accordingly he chased Manasseh from him,
he made him at once leave the temple and his high position there; and
Manasseh, in disgust and indignation, went off to Samaria to his
father-in-law, Sanballat, taking his heathen wife and family with him.
Now it is that very Manasseh who was, according to the Jews, the writer
of the Samaritan Pentateuch, that old copy of the Books of Moses. The
Samaritans themselves declare that it is far more ancient; that it was
written soon after the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, by the
great-grandson of Aaron; whilst some scholars think it is far more
modern than some other copies of the Pentateuch which have been
discovered; but the Jews pronounce it to have been the work of Manasseh,
the grandson of Eliashib, the high priest of Nehemiah's day.
Manasseh arrived in Samaria, indignant with Nehemiah, and determined to
have his revenge. He and his father-in-law were resolved not to be
outdone by the Jews. They in Samaria would build a grand temple, just as
the Jews had done in Jerusalem. One hill was as good as another, so they
thought; their own Gerizim, with its lovely trees and its sunny slopes,
was as fair or fairer than Mount Moriah.
So they set to work with all their energy, to build the rival temple on
the very hill where 1000 years before, in the time of Joshua, the
blessings of the law had been read, whilst the curses were pronounced
from the hill on the opposite side of the valley, Mount Ebal.
Here then, on Gerizim, the mount of blessing, rose the new temple, which
was built with one object in view, that it might outvie in splendour the
one in Jerusalem. When it was finished, Manasseh was made the rival high
priest, and was able to do what he liked, and to exercise his authority
in any way he pleased in his father-in-law's province.
Nor was Manasseh the only priest in the Gerizim temple; many other
runaway priests joined him, all who were angry with Nehemiah, all who
were offended or touchy, all who thought themselves injured in any way,
all who had been found fault with for Sabbath-breaking or for any other
sin, left Jerusalem for Samaria--chose the temple of Mount Gerizim
instead of the holy temple on Mount Moriah.
Yet of the Samaritans it is said:
'They feared the Lord, and served their own gods.'
It was a half-and-half religion, Judaism and heathenism mixed up
together, the worship of God and the worship of idols side by side.
Satan, now-a-days, has his modern temple of Gerizim. He does not try to
lead nominal Christians to throw up religion altogether, for he sees
that it would be of no use to do so. He knows we have a conscience, he
knows that conscience is often busy, he knows that we fully believe that
some day we must die, and that after death will come the judgment, and
he sees therefore that we shall not be satisfied without some kind of
religion. So Satan tries to tempt us to the Gerizim temple. Serve God by
all means, he cries, but serve the world too. Go to church, say your
prayers, have a fair polish of Sunday religion; it is decent, it is
respectable, it is what is expected of you. But yet, at the very same
time, serve the world, please yourself. Take part in any pleasure that
attracts you, live as you please, enjoy yourself to the full. Let the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life have
their share in your allegiance. Be half for God, and half for the world.
Live partly for the world to come, and partly for this present world. By
no means throw overboard religion altogether, but let it have its proper
place, let it stand side by side with self-pleasing and worldliness.
But what says the Master?
'No man can serve two masters. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.'
Let us then choose this day whom we will serve. Shall it be Christ or
Satan, Jerusalem or Gerizim, God or the world?
For centuries after the time of Nehemiah, these Samaritans continued a
source of annoyance to the Jews, tempting all who were disaffected and
lawless to come to Gerizim, and vexing and troubling the Jews in every
possible way. No one who was travelling up to the rival temple was ever
made welcome in Samaria, or treated as he passed through with the
slightest show of hospitality. As our Lord and His disciples journeyed
up to the feast, we read that they came to a village of the Samaritans,
and our Lord sent messengers before Him to engage a lodging, where they
might find refreshment and shelter on their way. But we read,
'They did not receive Him, because His face was as though He would go to
Jerusalem.'
Sometimes they carried this antagonism to such a degree that they would
even waylay and murder the temple pilgrims who were on their way through
their country, and the poor travellers were compelled to take a much
longer route to Jerusalem, crossing the Jordan, and journeying on the
eastern side until they came opposite Jericho, and then ascending by the
long, winding, difficult road from Jericho to Jerusalem.
Once, in order to mortify the Jews, the Samaritans were guilty of a very
dreadful insult. The Passover was being kept in Jerusalem, and it was
customary in Passover week for the priest to open the temple gates just
after midnight. Through these opened gates, in the darkness of the
night, stole in some Samaritans, carrying under their robes dead men's
bones and bits of dead men's bodies, and these they strewed up and down
the cloisters of the temple, to make them defiled and unclean.
But perhaps the most trying thing which the Samaritans did was to put a
stop to a very old and very favourite custom of the Jews. For a long
time those Jews who lived in Jerusalem had been accustomed to let their
brethren in Babylon know the very time that the Passover moon rose in
Jerusalem, so that they and their absent friends might keep the feast
together at the very same time. They did this in a very curious and
interesting way. As soon as the watchers on the Mount of Olives saw the
moon rising, they lighted a beacon fire, other fires were already
prepared on a succession of hilltops, reaching all the way from
Jerusalem to Babylon. As soon as the light was seen on Olivet the next
fire was lighted, and then the next, and the next, till in a very short
time those Jews who sat by the waters of Babylon saw the signal, and
joined in the Passover rejoicing with their friends hundreds of miles
away in Jerusalem. It showed them that they were not forgotten, and it
helped them to join in the prayer and the praise of those who were in
their father-land.
But the Samaritans annoyed the Jews and spoilt this beautiful old
custom, by lighting false fires on other mountains, on wrong days, and
at wrong hours, and thus confusing those who were watching by the
beacon-fires. After a time, so many mistakes were made by means of these
false signals, that the Jews were compelled to give up the system of
beacon-fires altogether, and to depend on the slower course of sending
messengers.
We have now come to the end of Nehemiah's story, and we have, at the
very same time, come to the end of the history of the Old Testament. For
if all the historical books were arranged chronologically, Nehemiah's
book would come the very last in the series. Nothing more is told us in
the Book of God of this world's history, until St. Matthew takes up the
pen and writes an account of the birth of the expected Messiah. Yet
between the Book of Nehemiah and the Gospel of St. Matthew there is an
interval of 400 years, years which were full of interest in Jewish
history, but of which we are told nothing in the Bible story.
There was one prophet who lived in the time of Nehemiah, and whose book
is a commentary on the book of Nehemiah. The prophet Malachi was living
in Jerusalem at this very time, and if we look at his book we shall see
that mention is made of many things of which we are told in the Book of
Nehemiah. For instance, if we turn to Mai. iii. 8, 9, 10, we shall find
the very words which the prophet spoke to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
at the time when the temple store-house was empty, and when the people
had ceased to bring their tithes and offerings, and to give God the due
proportion of their possessions.
'Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we
robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye
have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the
storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house.'
Thus, if we read the Book of Malachi carefully, we shall find much that
throws light on Nehemiah's history; and we can easily imagine how much
the prophet's sympathy and help must have cheered and strengthened the
great reformer in his trying and difficult work.
What became of Nehemiah, the great cup-bearer, the faithful governor of
Jerusalem, we do not know. Whether he returned to Persia and took up his
old work in the palace, standing behind the king's chair in his office
of Rab-shakeh, or whether he remained in Jerusalem, guarding his
beloved city from enemies without and from false friends within, we are
not told. Whether he died in the prime of life, or whether he lived to a
good old age, neither the Bible nor profane history informs us.
But although we know nothing of Nehemiah's death, we know much of his
life. We have watched him carefully and closely, and there is one thing
which we cannot fail to have noticed, and that is that Nehemiah was
emphatically a man of prayer. In every trouble, in each anxiety, in all
times of danger, he turned to God. Standing behind the king's chair,
Nehemiah prayed; in his private room in the Shushan palace, he pleaded
for Jerusalem; and all through his rough anxious life as a reformer and
a governor, we find him constantly lifting up his heart to God in short
earnest prayers. When Tobiah mocked his work, when the Samaritans
threatened to attack the city, when the people were inclined to be angry
with him for his reforms, when he discovered that there were traitors
and hired agents of Sanballat inside the very walls of Jerusalem, when
he brought upon himself enmity and hatred because of his faithful
dealing in the matter of the temple store-house, when he had to
encounter difficulty and opposition in his determination with regard to
the observance of the Sabbath, and when he still further incensed the
half-hearted Jews by his prompt punishment of those who had taken
heathen wives, and by his summary dismissal of Manasseh; in all these
times of danger, difficulty, and trial, we find Nehemiah turning to the
Lord in prayer.
There was one prayer of which he seems to have been especially fond,
three times over does Nehemiah ask God to remember him.
'Think upon me, my God, for good,' v. 19.
'Remember me, O my God,' xiii. 14.
'Remember me, O my God, for good,' xiii. 31.
Can it be that this prayer was suggested to him by the words of his
friend, the prophet Malachi? Can it be, that as he and Nehemiah took
sweet counsel together, and spoke together of the Lord they loved,
Malachi may have spoken those beautiful words which we find in chap. in.
16, 17, of his prophecy, in order to cheer and encourage his
disheartened and unappreciated friend:--
'They that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord
hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before
Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And
they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up
My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that
serveth him.'
Can we wonder that Nehemiah longed to know that his name was in that
book of remembrance of which his friend Malachi spoke, and that he often
turned the desire into a prayer, pleading with God, 'Remember _me_, O my
God?'
It is a very touching prayer. Nehemiah evidently felt that others did
not value his work, nay, that Borne even condemned him for it. The
people, instead of being grateful to him for his reforms, found fault
with him, misunderstood him, and reproached him.
But God knew, the Master did not blame him. He saw that all Nehemiah
did had been done for His glory and for the good of his nation. And to
the Master whom he served Nehemiah appealed. Away from the fault-finding
people, he turned to the merciful God.
Remember Thou me, O God, for good; others blame me, but it is Thy praise
alone that I crave, wipe not _Thou_ out my good deeds, spare _Thou_ me
in the greatness of Thy mercy.
There is no pride or boasting in this prayer. Is it not the very prayer
of the penitent thief, 'Lord, remember me?' Look carefully at the
wording of it, and you will notice, as Bishop Wordsworth so beautifully
points out, that it is humble in its every detail. Nehemiah does not
say, publish to the world my good deeds, but wipe them not out. He does
not say, reward me, but remember me. He does not say, remember me for my
merit, but according to the greatest of Thy mercies.
So Nehemiah passes away from our sight with that prayer on his lips,
'Remember me, O my God, for good.'
And was the prayer heard? Was Nehemiah remembered? Did God, has God
forgotten His faithful servant? Surely not, for 'The righteous shall be
had in everlasting remembrance.'
Remembered by God, and remembered for ever, entered in the great book of
God's remembrance, of which he had so often thought, and of which
Malachi had written.
The day is coming when we shall see Nehemiah the cup-bearer. In God's
great day of reward, when one after another of His faithful servants
shall appear before Him, we shall hear the response to Nehemiah's
prayer.
'Remember me, O my God,' said Nehemiah, long years ago, as he toiled on,
unthanked and unblessed by man.
And we shall hear the Lord answer, 'Well done, good and faithful
servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The King's Cup-Bearer, by Amy Catherine Walton