Chapter 55—Heathen Plots
This chapter is based on
Nehemiah 6
.
Sanballat and his confederates dared not make open war upon the
Jews; but with increasing malice they continued their secret efforts
to discourage, perplex, and injure them. The wall about Jerusalem
was rapidly approaching completion. When it should be finished and
its gates set up, these enemies of Israel could not hope to force an
entrance into the city. They were the more eager, therefore, to stop the
work without further delay. At last they devised a plan by which they
hoped to draw Nehemiah from his station, and while they had him in
their power, to kill or imprison him.
Pretending to desire a compromise of the opposing parties, they
sought a conference with Nehemiah, and invited him to meet them in
a village on the plain of Ono. But enlightened by the Holy Spirit as
to their real purpose, he refused. “I sent messengers unto them,” he
writes, “saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down:
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why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?”
But the tempters were persistent. Four times they sent a message of
similar import, and each time they received the same answer.
Finding this scheme unsuccessful, they resorted to a more daring
stratagem. Sanballat sent Nehemiah a messenger bearing an open
letter which said: “It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu
saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel: for which cause thou
buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king.... And thou hast also
appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, There is a
king in Judah: and now shall it be reported to the king according to
these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.”
Had the reports mentioned been actually circulated, there would
have been cause for apprehension; for they would soon have been
carried to the king, whom a slight suspicion might provoke to the
severest measures. But Nehemiah was convinced that the letter was
wholly false, written to arouse his fears and draw him into a snare.
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